ACADEMIC BOARD - 4 May 1994

Wednesday's Academic Board Meeting was commendably short; a mere 80
minutes, so I was able to last the distance and still be in time to take
my RDT6850 class. There was the usual monster agenda (about 280 pages) but
much of it was course minutiae which had already gone through the new
Education Committee.

Some points of interest:

A. Voluntary Student Unionism.

There were copies of the AVCC policies and Press Releases on this in the
papers, and the VC tabled a brief report and a draft motion which strongly
supported the present system and opposed the Bill before State Parliament.
This was passed without dissent. The VC said he was seeing the Minister the
next day about it.

B. Quality Money.

The two-pager to Canberra outlining where our $6M would be spent was
tabled. This sparked a series of questions about the Desktop Information
Technology Strategy, which figured prominently in the document. Much of
was from the have-nots who wanted to know when it would happen and would
it cost them anything (no, desks and chairs are not included.) Peter Annal,
with whom I was sitting, was concerned when DVC Chubb seemed to say that
the CC was responsible for replacing the DITS-supplied 486s at the ends of
their working lives.

C. Education Policy

DVC Chubb reported on the feedback to the draft Education Policy, and
subsequent amendments. Predictably the Master of Higher Education had
drawn a lot of flak, and this section was being changed to contain
soothing words about recognition of staff development efforts in this
area. The hard-line rule about double-marking everything assessed in a
failing subject is also being softened, and is being passed to Faculties
for some degree of localization.

A  strange little paper entitled "Research and University Education" was
included in the papers on this topic. Joe Monaghan began questioning its
status but (new DVC(R&D)) Peter Darvall speedily disowned it and said it
would not be associated with the Policy. Joe is on the AB's Steering
Committee, so one has to wonder what was going on there.

D. CADRES

The Board received its first report from CADRES (Committee of Associate
Deans of RESearch) which is now formally in existence. One item which
attracted a question was the mention under 1994 Monash Research Fund of
$270k for "Gippsland Research Initiatives". DVC Darvall responded that it
was a mistake, and no such allocation was made. The hackles were lowered.

E. Review of Academic Promotions

A popular topic.

A review document was tabled outlining the updated procedures, criteria,
etc. On paper at least it reflects a continuing trend to emphasize
Community service and Administration as criteria. Detailed guidelines for
CVs were included.

Some debate ensued on a criterion for promotion to Senior Lecturer and
beyond which stated that unsuccessful applicants would not normally be
reconsidered within two years. This item was deleted.

A separate document outlined a revised structure for the ever-contentious
Readership/Associate Professorship Committee. It is proposed to lift the
membership from the present 6 or 7 appointed by AB to one per Faculty
appointed by the Faculty Boards. A lot of debate occurred on the statement
that each Faculty representative would "present the case for each
candidate supported by the Faculty". Most of the people speaking in the
debate were past or present members of the Committee, and all opposed that
aspect. Molly Holman (Physiology) who is on the Committee, tried 
unsuccessfully to get the present structure retained. Dick White (Dean - 
Education) said that once in the past he had analyzed the membership and 
demonstrated that candidates were more likely to be successful if their 
Faculty were represented.

An amendment was passed reinstating the present system that the Dean of
each Faculty presents the case for the supported candidates.

Enough for now. The next AB meeting (8 June) will be at Gippsland. If it
clashes with the FCIT Research Conference I might not get there. 

My current term on the Board expires this year. A couple of colleagues
have asked me to stand again, so I guess I will.