The plans to create a University Affiliated Research Center, a "contracting vehicle" for facilitating research funds from the military, may have started off as a well-intentioned effort to enhance research at the University of Hawai'i.

But upon deeper inspection and consideration of our university's mission, purpose, and needs, it has become clear that the UARC is not right for us.

While one can blame the clumsy and heavy-handed process that was deployed to advance this proposal, there are also some fundamental inconsistencies, flaws and problems created by the blind pursuit of this initiative.

To begin, the UARC is not consistent with our values and core commitments to public higher education and the unfettered exchange of knowledge and ideas. Taking "task orders" from the military is not what a great university should be about. Creating an environment where the research agenda is set not by faculty and students but instead by the military or corporations or others outside academia is against the true purpose of a university.

UARC is not about academic freedom. If faculty members want to do research on topics related to military hardware or warfare, they are free to do so. UARC is really about an institutional commitment to serving the military.

If the UARC is accepted, the university would be giving unprecedented access to our resources, facilities and intellectual power to the military. This sort of cozy relationship may indeed enable more money to be funneled more easily to research enterprises, but it also circumvents many of the long-standing processes of peer review, institutional due diligence, and academic management of research and scholarship.