Remainder of 1997 :
On arrival back at BYU-Hawaii Bill Phillips and Elder Walton presented a proposal to the University for approval of the B.Ed. Degree as recommended by the members at the Fiji meeting. It was quickly learned that the atmosphere at BYU-Hawaii and the attitude of many of the faculty were not conducive to the degree's approval. After much work by the School of Education in presenting and justifying the need of such a program, both the General Education Committee and the Faculty Advisory Committee voted to not approve the program. The Administration was more receptive of the proposal, but it was obvious that such a program would not be successful without the BYU-Hawaii faculty's support. A process of informing the faculty of the need for such a program was initiated but with little success. It seemed that many of the faculty had not yet grasped the vision of the mission of BYU-Hawaii to be of service to the members of the Church throughout the Pacific. It was concluded that to win the faculty over would take time.
This setback, however did not stop the program from moving forward. The TDC missionaries, Gary Kemp on Fiji, Blaine Moore on Tonga, and Floyd Sucher on Samoa began teaching educational courses. They found that not only did the teachers lack skills in teaching but also were in need of the development of English skills. This brought to the forefront the need for courses in English as an International Language (EIL). An effort was begun to get approval for such courses to be taught in the targeted countries. Again there were problems of resistance from those in charge of EIL courses. They did not see that teaching such courses would help and were reluctant to provide individuals to teach such classes.
In September 1997, because of his new assignments, Russ Osguthorpe was released as ITEP Director for BYU-Provo. Winn Egan, Chairperson for the Teacher Education Department in the School of Education at BYU-Provo, was called to take his place.
In October 1997, Howard and Madge May were called as the TDC missionary couple to Kiribati. They stopped in Hawaii on their way to Kiribati where they received additional orientation for their assignment from October 1st through 7th. On October 8, 1997, Elder and Sister May left Hawaii for Kiribati. The ITEP program now had a TDC missionary couple on each of the islands of Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, and Kiribati.
At the close of 1997 Elder and Sister Kemp completed their mission and were returning home, along with Elder and Sister Moore. Elder and Sister Sucher were allowed to go home for the Christmas holidays. All three couples came through Hawaii about the same time so it was decided to hold another meeting with them on November 11 and 12. During the meeting we took the opportunity to have the TDC missionaries meet with the General Education Committee, the Faculty Advisory Committee, and with the President's Council. We hoped that their input would assist in changing attitudes among the BYU-Hawaii faculty with relation to the ITEP program in general and the B.Ed. Degree specifically. From these discussions some faculty members were able to receive a clearer picture of what was going on in the ITEP program but there was still much PR work to be done. In the correlation meeting a list of problems facing the TDCs and the success of the ITEP program were outlined along with proposed solutions. (See appendix # 7 the agenda, outline of problems in the ITEP program with proposed solutions, and an overview of the meeting). Alternatives for the B.Ed. Degree were also discussed.
