ACADEMIC BOARD REPORT #4 - 26 July 2000

This is going to be an attempt at a quick report about a long meeting. I
probably won't succeed.

As it was the first meeting after annual elections, there were the usual
welcomes and farewells. About 18 members retired and were replaced. The
usual telephone antics with KL went on. An attempt to mute the phone and
have the KL people use a chat line to signal they wanted to say
something wasn't very successful.

I don't think there was anything among the large number of "unstarred"
items worth reporting, so as usual I will just focus on the items
discussed.

DVC Alison Crook spoke to an org-chart outlining the current thinking on
the organization of Support Services (NTEU members will have read about
this in an email, as the NTEU is complaining about lack of
consultation.) A lot of moving of functions between units, most of which
seemed a good idea. Some of the key points proposed are:

- the combination of Staff and Students services into one unit. I must
admit I found Ms Crook's supporting argument for this a bit unconvincing.
- The formation of QA area incorporating CHED (in anticipation of a
"quality audit" next year.)
- Educational Services going into ITS, but the "my.monash" portal going
into L&TS.
- a lot of shuffling between Public Relations, Campus Directors and
Facilities & Services.

The chart was headed "Emerging Structure", but the issue of Monash Memo
out the same day made it clear it was a fait accompli. I noted that the
hallowed words "Registrar", "General Manager" and "Comptroller (with a
`p')" were nowhere to be found.

Alan Lindsay briefly introduced a paper on "An integrated approach to
Academic and Resource Planning". This proposed a framework for the
documentation of course proposals, which included detailing the resource
requirements, the market research demonstrating the demand for the
course, etc. etc. Pretty radical stuff, and reminds me very much of what
was mandated in the CAE sector but turned out to be not necessary within
Monash. Although there will obviously have to be workarounds when
courses are brought on which draw on existing subjects, I do think the
proposal brings in a much-needed reform.

Peter Darvall introduced an analysis of the implications of the Research
White Paper. As has been widely known, it has some massive implications
for the funding mix, with far more emphasis on PhD and Masters
completions that before. If I read the figures correctly, a "high-cost"
PhD completion brings in $101k instead of $10k, whereas the annual
amount/enrolment drops from $30k to $5k. The message is that it will pay
to induce the brightest and best to sign up and finish as quickly as
possible.

Peter also mentioned that Victorian Government's Science Technology and
Innovation Initiative scheme, to which Monash has made 19 applications
totalling $57M. He said that following some big recent handouts to UofM
(e.g. a $ for $ matching of a huge bequest to the Walter & Eliza Hall
Inst.), the tipping was that this scheme would be used to redress the
balance. Nice if it did.

Geoff Klestadt, the CEO of Montech, gave a brief presentation on what
they were doing. In introducing him, PD commented that Montech "has had
a checkered history", the first director was "not satisfactory", and
that there had to be a clearing of $60M of "investment millstones".
Geoff's report was brief and interesting. It certainly seems in better
shape that in the past.

A longish paper and policy on Paid Outside Work was introduced and
discussed at great length. Some of the provisions seemed a bit over the
top, e.g. if someone is consulting privately, she/he and the client have
to sign an agreement which stipulates that no mail or phone calls come
to Monash (faxes and emails are not mentioned!). I noted that the
agreement also stipulates that the staff member is registered for GST.
Since registration is only required for turnovers above $50k pa, I
thought this a bit rich. The papers also covered commercialization
guidelines and IP issues. Some members raised the issue of Monash's
guidelines differing from UofM's, which is creating some bother in
projects taking place under the Melbourne-Monash Protocol.

The acting Dean of Science and the Dean of Arts, with remarkable
unanimity, presented the Future Directions reports for those faculties.
The Science one was of greater interest in that he dwelled on some of
the changes in that Faculty's structure etc. All of this has been pretty
widely known. Homer threw out an invitation to InfoTech to provide
computer literacy subjects for Arts students.

The new Dean of BusEco, Gillian Palmer, gave an overview of the new MBA
structure, now that the degree has been recaptured from Mt Eliza.

Merran Evans introduced a policy framework document covering coursework
masters degrees. For people in InfoTech, the main thing about the policy
is that it makes the 72-point masters structure we pioneered with BusEco
two years ago the norm for Monash.

All of that took 140 minutes.

Jim Breen
28 July 2000