ACADEMIC BOARD REPORT 6/97 - 3 SEPTEMBER 1997 [Apologies in advance if I forget/distort things. I forgot to take a pen or pencil, so this is largely from memory.] Putting the last first, so to speak, the Faculty's restructure and renaming proposal was approved by the Board yesterday without any amendment, and with little discussion. The item, which was only 11% of the way through the agenda papers, was only reached more than two hours into the meeting (see below). John Rosenberg introduced the proposal succinctly, mentioning the history, and current historical structure. He drew attention to the proposed names of the Schools, pointing out that they contained the words "Business", "Management" and "Engineering", and making it clear that the Faculty was not making claims to these areas, it was accepted that Engineering had a role in Software Engineering in the University, etc. etc. (I had heard that there had been some fears from within Engineering that the CSSE School might make RMIT-style claims to exclusive use of the SE title, but John's statement certainly hosed them down, publicly at least.) The proposal received little discussion. Greg Egan made a strange set-piece statement about cooperating on the BSE, and Neil Cameron (Maths) made what I thought was a rather pathetic little comment about it being nice to see the Faculty developing this way, it having started off in Science (?) and moved on. As someone said near me "They took *their* money and ran!". The first 50 minutes or so of the meeting was spent discussing a report from a review committee into the workings of the AB itself. This was important, as there had been no such review since the old Professorial Board days, but it is hardly rivetting stuff. Some of the recommendations referred to trying to get the Act amended to make it clear that the Council can delegate approval for things like courses and subjects to the Board and even lower. There was the obvious hand of (former Law dean) Enid Campbell in this, as she is an I dotter and T crosser par excellence. (As it turned out, the Higher Education Office people think this amendment is not necessary.) Other recommendations aimed at changing the way papers are distributed and flagged for discussion, with reference to use of the "intranet" for much of this. John Rosenberg pointed out that this might not save paper, as members may well just print their own copies. His suggestion of a screen-equipped paper-less meeting room might be a good idea was obviously beyond the comprehension of most there. The report did some tut-tutting about the large number of AB Standing Committees, and an appendix listed 28, including, I note, the Readership and Associate Professor Committee, which I understand from David Arnott is actually a Council Committee these days. Many spoke against a wholesale reduction in committee numbers without a case being made. Cries of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Fair enough. The next hour or so was spent on the "ViceChancellor's Group Business", and not surprisingly most of it was on Enterprise Bargaining (sic). I found it all rather depressing. We had an introduction from Peter (Poacher-turned-gamekeeper) Darvall saying the things we have all read before, following by a number of statements from the floor which reflected the concern and distress at the situation the University was in, and a genuine plea to find a way out. I was particularly impressed by Bill Melbourne's statement, as well as similar ones from John Pilbrow, Chris Avram, et al. Several asked if there was scope for an external mediator, and Gerry Griffin from Management suggested getting it into the formalities of the Industrial court as soon as possible. I may be biassed (probably am), but I felt the mood of the meeting indicated distinct unhappiness as the way things were being handled, however as the VC closed the item thanking members for their support, I suspect he saw it differently. Also in the items reported in this section were the foreshadowing from DVC Maloney of great things afoot for programs in Sith Effrika and South Korea, and DVC Lindsay's brief report on the about-to-be-public tie-in between Monash and Radio Australia. The VC also reported on doings in the "Group of 8" universities. He said the group was in he process of moving from an inward-looking talk club to being more vocal on behalf of the leading members of the sector, and he was seeking the Boards view on Monash's continued involvement. (Did he really think the Board would ask him to walk away from it?) Practically the last item discussed was a motion from Arts asking the Board to ask Council "to express its concern about the impact of the views of Ms Pauline Hanson MP and her One Nation Party". The chair asked for and got a unanimous vote on this. Jim Breen 4 September 1997