ACADEMIC BOARD MEETING 20 JULY 1994

[This is an attempt to produce a very brief summary. Apologies for
failing to report on the previous meeting. Surfeit of
alligators.]

The 5th Board Meeting of 1994 had a monster agenda of over 400
pages, largely because everyone was meeting the last deadline
for new & amended subjects for 1995.

There was an audible sigh of relief when no-one "starred"
anything in the Education Committee's report, i.e. in the
subject/course area. The passage of this meant that all FCIT's
new subjects, courses, etc are clear to run, even Dave Arnott's
"two years full-time or one year part-time" Masters.

Having silently disposed of 90% of the agenda, the Board turned
to the serious matters:

o a few minutes of tooing and froing between Joe Monaghan and
Peter Darvall over citation counts.

o announcement that the Quality Portfolio document is complete
and at the printers. We are all to get a Quality Manual. The
audit visit is now September 5.

o the announcement of John Rickard's appointment as Dean of
Business & Economics.

o the announcement of a review of the Science Faculty, in the
wake of the Dean's resignation (Ian Rae is off to Footerscry
[sorry, VUT] as DVC.) Mal gave some reasons for this (Dean gone,
need to look at the shared MEd/Science areas, etc.) He sounded
rather unconvincing. Roy Jackson (Chemistry) protested loudly that 
there had just been a review, and he could not see the need for 
another. Mal said he was meeting with senior Science staff, and 
would listen to all views. (Obviously hidden agendas all over the 
place.)

o extensive discussion of a hastily tabled document on Academic
Staff Career Development & Supervision. It was a formal document
conforming with items & terminology in the Award, and lay down a
number of points about "Mentoring", and the duties of
supervisors. There was quite a lot of discussion, on issues like
non-Professorial HOD's supervising Professors, etc. I kept
nodding off.

o Mal reported briefly on the graduations in Singapore, Malaysia
and Hong Kong.

o a brief discussion of a paper by Peter Darvall on Research &
Research Training guidelines, which he explained was to be the
beginning of (yet another) Research Plan. There was some
discussion of whether staff had to "opportunity" to conduct
research or the "obligation". Peter explained (yet again) that
many ex-College staff were recruited without research being a
requirement in their appointments, and hence they could not be
now required to do so. Walter Veit (German Studies) objected to
the words "Asian focus", claiming it marginalise-d and
trivialised the work of people in European languages. Mal &
Peter agreed to remove those words. Ho hum.

o resident Arts Faculty jester and arch-monarchist Bruce Knox
brought on the adjournment debate, by raising the titles of some 
of the newly-created Arts subjects. Clearly he found "ENH2xxx Sexing
the Text" and "GSC2505 Courtesans, Concubines and Conquest" a
trifle overheating. (New Arts Dean) Marion Quartly had barely
finishing squashing Bruce, when someone asked her if the omission
of the Department of Greek, Roman & Egyptian Studies from the
list of Arts Departments was deliberate. "A mistake", she
assured us. "The omission or the Department?" was the follow-up
question. [For those mystified by this exchange, I must point
out that Arts Faculty scuttlebutt has it that Prof. Quartly's
first act on becoming Dean was to announce the abolition of the
aforesaid GRES department. It has apparently survived.] At that
point the meeting closed and we all fled.

Jim Breen