ACADEMIC BOARD REPORT - MEETING 2 - 25 FEBRUARY 1998 

This meeting was held in a slightly different atmosphere than 
usual; the VC and DVC Moloney were absent pressing the flesh in KL 
at the formal announcement of the Malaysian Campus, and the 
industrial trouble and looming strike obviously were on members' 
minds.                                                      

As usual most of the interest was in the starred items from the 
"Vice-Chancellor's Group", which has become the VCG in 
Bastille-speak. I'll just mention the items from Information 
Technology which passed without discussion: the approval of the 
Chair in Multimedia Technology at Gippsland, and the appointment 
of a Faculty Fellow (can we say who yet John? Rob?) 

Taking the VCG items in order, first Bob Burnett spoke briefly 
about enrolment numbers. All close to targets, although Arts is 
over by about 250, which looks odd. A bit of self-congratulation 
on fee-payers; if you remove the people who were awarded 
scholarships, Monash collected more payers than Melbourne. 
Obviously this is regarded as a Good Thing. 

DVC Alan Lindsay then proceeded to send everyone to sleep by 
telling us at great length very little about the development of 
the Learning and Teaching Plan. This was foreshadowed in the Monash 
Plan, and is being put together by a committee under the 
redoubtable Merran Evans. A draft will be out Real Soon Now. 
Marian Quartly made the mistake of asking where it fitted in with 
our non-existent IT Strategy, which got Alan going again. 
Apparently the Plan is not fettered by specific technologies. 

DVC Lindsay then touched on the Review of the Academic Board 
Membership. He had raised it last year, and had been told it 
wasn't broken, so there was no need to fix it. He now wants to 
look at providing representation from new players such as the 
Directors of ITS, CHED and the DEC. He also wanted to look at 
perhaps boosting the Faculty of Art & Design, which on present 
rules would only have 3 members, and perhaps giving Monash Mt 
Eliza its own representatives. If anyone has views on these, 
please send them to him. 

Next we had almost nothing at all on the review of the Role of 
Science at Monash. This review was triggered by the row over 
Science's budget, and appears to be largely internal affair, with 
submissions largely coming from people in that Faculty. Draft 
report in two weeks. 

Finally the item we had all been waiting for: Enterprise 
Bargaining. I don't envy Alan Lindsay having to handle this. He 
has just taken over responsibility for it from Peter Darvall and 
he was clearly extremely uncomfortable. He said a few words about 
the progress or lack of it, then threw it over to the meeting for 
comments. Few people spoke, but those who did made it pretty clear 
where the opinions of the bulk of Board members lay. Leading was 
Gerry Griffin, who as well as heading the large Management 
Department in BusEco, holds a chair in Industrial Relations and 
runs a National Key Centre in the area. His analysis of the 
University's offers and approach, and his reporting of feedback 
from staff, left one with the strong impression that he regarded 
the University's handling of the matter in rather low esteem. He 
and Bruce Jacobs (the Sith Effrikan Sinologist who heads the Asian 
Studies Department) had prepared salary comparisons with other 
universities, which were distributed. Bruce, who is also on the 
NTEU branch committee, spoke forcefully, as did Bill Melbourne, 
who is a well-respected senior professor, and whose description of 
the proposed salary structure as "nonsense" cannot be ignored. A 
pity David Robinson wasn't there to hear it. Over and again was 
the message that Monash was being damaged, not just by the 
dispute, but also by the possibility of a salary structure behind 
other universities.  Lots of anecdotal stuff about recruitment 
efforts falling through because of the imbalance. 

All through the debate, if debate it can be called because 
initially  no-one defended the University's negotiating position, 
Peter Darvall's body language was a delight. He had pushed his 
chair away from the high table, was half-turned, and spent much of 
the time examining the ceiling. Eventually he did a spot of 
interjecting, some of it sotto voce, which he refused to repeat. 
Most edifying stuff. Don Schauder made the useful comment, in the 
light of the comparisons with VUT, that the VUT Council had 
rejected the proposed 1998 budget because of the shortfall it 
contained. It was left to Peter Wade (General Manager) to weigh in 
fairly late with an attack on the Griffin/Jacobs analysis of 
comparisons. He was right in saying that one should not compare 
contingent pay raises (at Melbourne) with non-contingent ones, but 
it is a technical argument that doesn't win hearts and minds. 
No-one attempted to defend the heavy lag that has been built into 
the latest "offer". Gerry Griffin stirred rather by suggesting 
that the Administration hold a vote of staff on accepting exactly 
the same offer as was accepted at Melbourne a year ago. 

The discussion fizzled out eventually. I do hope the VCG gets the 
message, but with the VC away, and Darvall and Wade so well dug 
in, I can't see an early resolution. 

Then it was on to Malaysia. We had the Press Release tabled (which 
was embargoed, but Tun Abdul Razak had blabbed at a conference in 
Brunei.) In Moloney's absence Peter Wade handled the subject, but 
was really not across many of the issues. There was a fair bit of 
disquiet expressed about Board Members finding out such about 
crucial developments in the press, and Bob Brown (Head of 
Accounting & Finance) made some very good running by quoting from 
articles in the Malaysian press which even detailed the subjects 
that it had been agreed would be taught in all courses (e.g. 
Islamic Studies, Malaysian Culture, etc. etc.) All understandable 
in the circumstances, but unsettling to many members. One of the 
post-grad student reps, Adeline Johns-Putra (?), who is a Malaysian, 
asked some very pointed questions about whether the campus would 
be forced to meet Malaysian Government strictures on positive 
discrimination for certain ethnic groups, and whether the academic 
freedoms of speech and discussion which applied elsewhere in 
Monash would be available at the Malaysian campus. Again Peter 
Wade was not able to answer, so on a number of aspects we have to 
await the return of the Heavy Brigade. (I expect that as the 
campus is for fee-paying students, the quotas will not apply. 
Forget about freedom of speech, though. The limitations on 
discussing certain topics are in the Malaysian Constitution, and 
outside Taiping there's a nice British-built pre-war jail, with 
early-40s Japanese extensions, where transgressors are held 
without trial.) 

In the midst of this discussion, the topic of "Docklands" 
surfaced, and Roy Jackson (Chemistry) tossed in a question about 
the rumour that the Docklands consortium/project had fallen 
through. Darvall said that he couldn't say anything because of a 
confidentiality agreement with the partners, however the rumour 
was nonsense. So there. 

Finally we heard more on the Melbourne/Monash protocol. There has 
been a big meeting of Deans and up, with lots of constructive 
discussion. A Rules of Behaviour document is being written to 
guide us all, and it was hinted that it included things like: no 
bad-mouthing each other, no canning the other's projects, etc. 
(Presumably punch-ups behind the shelter-shed are out, too.) 

I wonder if it is too late to offer them Berwick? 

Well, that's it for the meeting. Next report in about 6 weeks. 

[And a gentle reminder to vote in the Faculty Board elections, in 
which I am standing for one of the "Faculty-wide" positions. Ken 
doesn't like email being used for elections, so I'm not going to 
*ask* for your votes. I should warn you, though, that if by some 
gross distortion of the electoral process I don't get elected, why 
I'll be so upset and grumpy that I might give up all amateur 
journalism.] 

Jim Breen
25 February 1998