ACADEMIC BOARD MEETING 5/95, 19 July 1995

(Again, an attempt for a brief report, despite 520 pages of papers)

A much smaller than usual attendance, possibly because there are many
vacancies which are still to be filled by Faculty Boards.

FCIT was practically the first item, as there was a referral from
Council of the proposed amendment to the BComp rules for double majors.
It seems that two Council members (Arts Dean Quartley, and academic rep
Assoc. Prof. Jenny Strauss) complained that the reduction in
non-computing points in such cases was "narrowing the focus of the ...
degree to a purely technical qualification." The homework had been done,
and the Board voted unanimously to reaffirm the original proposal. DVC
Pargetter commented that he was disappointed that the question had been
raised in Council by academics who had not raised it when it went
through Academic Board, and it was highly inappropriate to pick on the
BComp, which *requires* a sequence of subjects to be taken outside the
discipline, when there are many degrees in the University which are far
more narrowly based.

As usual, much of the meeting was spent on the VC's report and matters
arising from it.

An unexpected flurry occurred over a proposal to recast the Committee of
Associate Deans (Teaching), turning it into a less formal body, and
avoiding it duplicating the work of the Education Committee. As the new
informal gathering was proposed to be shorn of its student (and PDU)
members, one of the student Board members asked if students could
continue to have a rep. Mal said he thought not. The students moved it
as an amendment, and blow me we had to vote three times: roughly equal;
17-17; 24-23. On the last, Mal said he was voting against (24-24), and
using his casting vote to defeat it. So there.!

Of considerable interest was a report from Mal on doings at the
Monash-Mt Eliza Business School. He tabled a report outlining how the
Director of MME had unilaterally amended the results of several students
after the examiners' meeting, changing several fails to passes. As this
was happening at a time when Monash has been under pressure to
demonstrate that it was in control of Academic standards, is was
obviously serious. The Board unanimously supported he VC's actions in
putting the results back to those confirmed by the examiners' meeting,
and implicitly backed him and Rickard in what is obviously a tussle with
Ritchie.

DVC Darvall reported that there has been 120+ applications for early
retirement, and 50+ had been approved.

We heard at some length about the fight to keep the medical intake
numbers. It appears that the (Federal) Health Department is proposing a
cut of 200, to come from Melbourne, Monash, Sydney & UNSW. From what Mal
was saying, the universities are going to fight, if necessary in as
public and political a manner possible.

The VC advised us that he has appointed Prof. Greg Egan (new prof in
E&CSE) as his Special Assistant on Communications & Multimedia, and that
Egan is to chair an Advisory Board (members include our Dean, Peter
Annal, Edward Lim & John White.)  A few off-stage mutters about the
Advisory Board "address"ing inter alia "approval of Monash WWW content."

There was some discussion of a quite good report on Language Policy
prepared by Michael Clyne (Linguistics) and a team. I noted with a smile
that a recommendation was included to the effect that the University
acquire computer software in LOTEs (hear, hear) and that this was
directed to the Computer Centre and Library for action. Would that they
would buy *our* teaching software for us.

The report of the Education Committee included a recommendation that
Council delegate to AB the approval of new (single) subjects, and to FBs
the approval of minor amendments. This recommendation was sent on. Cliff
raised the question of the time it takes to get a new subject approved,
and that it was impossible to bring in a one-off special subject by,
say, a visiting scholar. Greg Egan suggested the usual "shell" subject,
which is really ducking the issue.

An interesting proposal came from BECOM in which they asked for, and
obtained approval for, an "Executive Certificate" which would run
parallel to the existing Graduate Certificate, but which could be taken
by non-graduates. Part of the proposal is that students who completed
the EC with an average of credit or better could transfer to the formal
Grad Cert/Dip program regardless of the 25% quota. I was surprised it
went through so painlessly, and it has some potential in this Faculty,
where a number of courses could easily exceed the 25% non-graduate quota
if permitted.

I think that has picked out the main items of interest. Anyone wanting
to see the 520 pages of papers (half of it was course approval
documentation) is welcome to drop in.

Jim Breen