Pacific Island Times Issue No 11 Volume 2 | Page 5

Brief Chat
Ready for retirement after 10 years in the academe
By Johanna Salinas
R
obert Underwood is a go-to name
in the world of Chamorro intellec-
tuals. The man is known for both
his political writings and for his service
1993 to 2003 in the U.S. Congress. And
today, Underwood is going on ten years
as president of the University of Guam.
decision that’s hard, or a decision that’s
not popular, a decision that’s going to
hurt somebody and you’ll have to have
the courage to do that.”
Underwood hopes that his successor
will have more courage than ambition.
“If all you are is ambition, you’re just go-
ing to fall flat on your face,” Underwood
warned. “Real leaders are the ones that
have courage. That’s the part of leader-
ship that’s hard. Leadership isn’t about
exercising authority. I’ve been presi-
dent for almost ten years. As president I
have issued only three directives. Think
about it, how many times could I have
issued a directive as president? I rarely
do it. Leadership is like getting people
what you want them to do, but they
think that it’s their idea.” He believes a
great leader inspires those he advises.
He motivates his people to think of their
values and the institution in order to
achieve great success.
As president, Underwood helped
achieve 16 years of accreditation for
UOG, starting when he entered the
position in 2008. Yet what he’s really de-
lighted with is ‘Good to Great,’ which is
modeled after work done in the private
sector.
“I’m most proud of the initiative Good
to Great which was finalized in 2014,”
said President Underwood. “It’s for the
university to understand its essential
purpose and to organize programs and
activities around that in a sustainable
way. A university has to understand
what it’s there for—it has to have a
central purpose. Once we understood
the purpose, we tried to allocate re-
sources in terms of people and in terms
of finances in way that makes sense. We
just can’t keep asking for money.”
After his term of president, Under-
wood hopes to continue to inspire. “I
have a lot of projects. After I’m pres-
ident, I’ll write and do speeches and
maybe talk shows. People ask me
about running for political office, but
right now that’s not a part of my plan.
I’ll do more travelling. I don’t know what
opportunities await me. Maybe some-
one will offer me a chance to teach at a
university for a semester and I may take
them up on that. Of course my heart
and my consciousness, what I think
about, is really Guam focused.”
Underwood believes that UOG’s main
purpose is to help progress all of Micro-
nesia forward. “UOG helps develop the
professional class of Guam and Micro-
nesia.”
Although he has had great success as
president, Underwood is ready to turn
over a new leaf. “We anticipate that this
will be my last year so we’re having a
search process,” said Underwood. He
believes that great success comes from
decision making.
“There’s a balance in everything we
do. Sometimes people want to be lead-
ers because they have ambition, but
ambition is only part of it. But you have to have
knowledge of what you want to lead and you
have to have courage. You’re going to find some-
time along the way where you’ll have to make a
Robert Underwood knows he’d be
contradicting himself if he were to
permanently move away. How else can
he help Guam and Micronesia move for-
ward, other than staying here to inspire
growth and ambition.
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