Senator Donna Mercado Kim tells University of Hawaii President M.R.C. Greenwood that the university could do a much better job of generating revenue through its merchandise.

University officials told the Senate Ways and Means committee that an attempt to sell more merchandise through new locations at Fort Street Mall in downtown Honolulu and in Waikiki recently failed. The Fort Street Mall location is closing, and Waikiki is slated to close soon as well. Both have been open for about a year.

“It sounds like somebody didn’t do their homework,” Kim said, of the failed experiment. “Merchandising is a big area. I don’t know that we’ll be able to generate as other major colleges, but Hawaii does have an appeal to a lot of our visitors, and I think UH could do a better job of that.”