I had intended a very brief report in this week's Academic Board meeting,
but there was a little drama which I can't ignore.

First a roundup of the lesser items:

o our "Frankston School of  C & I T" was passed without discussion, subject
to Faculty Board endorsement.

o MUSIS and exams got a bit of a run. There was a self-congratulatory
report in from the Registrar's division. Barry Harding (B.Tech. course
leader) raised some very useful points on the lack of real information from 
MUSIS, and for his pains has to provide Mal with the list.

o Quality and Academic Audit is a rising issue. John Miller raised the
question of quality of teaching and (provocatively) stated that we need to
look for the day when promotion to AssPro can occur on teaching merit
alone. There was muted head-shaking at this.

o one of the course proposals currently on hold because of DVC Porter's
review of Masters programmes is a "Master of Educational Computing" from
Education Faculty. This is a repackaging of a group of subjects from the
M.Ed.St, and was allegedly requested by the Education Dept to indicate
those people qualifying as "specialist teachers" in the IT field. This is
something we need to watch. In my not-so-humble opinion, the course is not
at all a professional computing qualification, [2 years full-time, 8
subjects one of which is learning Basic and Logo, and another is dabbling
in spreadsheets and dBase] and in no way qualifies someone to teach VCE 
Info. Tech., much less the old VCE Computer Science. Our Dean spoke warningly 
about it, but we need to consider whether we mount a case for at least a
name change.

Now to the main fun.

One of the perennial issues at Academic Board is the overlap/tension
between the David Syme Faculty of Business and the (now) Faculty of Economics,
Commerce and Management. The brawl began long before the merger, when it
became apparent that for reasons of personality, culture, peceived status,
etc. the two Faculties would not merge. The skirmishing began immediately.
Before the merger even took place, ECOM (then ECOPS), having avoided
undergraduate "business" courses until then, gave birth to a "Bachelor of
Commerce" that was clearly intended to confront Chisholm's B.Bus.

From the very first meeting of the Academic Board, the sniping began. The
DSFOB people have largely been silent on ECOM proposals, but the ECOM reps
have rarely passed up an opportunity to question/find fault/etc. When, late
in 1990, they unsuccessfully tried to get reps on chair selections in DSFOB,
Mal announced a special enquiry into to the organization of "business"
eductaion. The enquiry was carried out by a retired academic, Professor
Bill(?) Walker, who unfortunately died suddenly before completing his
report.

Last year, the Academic Board set up a special Standing Committee (Joint
Committee on Business, Economics & Management), to act as a filter for all
course proposals from the two Faculties. The Committee certainly made
things a bit quieter, but things began to fall apart at the last Academic
Board, when in the discussion of the Council's concerns over the quality of
courses, the question of course overlap was raised. Richard Snape
(Economics), a member of the Joint Committee, a persistent critic of the
DSFOB, and rumoured to be an applicant for the ECOM Decanal vacancy, referred 
to the Joint Committee as operating on a "you scratch my back, and I'll
scratch yours" basis. Roy Jackson (Chemistry) said that he was tempted to
move that the Faculties be merged immediately.

Well Jackson must have succumbed to temptation, and his opportunity cam
when the Board considered the DSFOB report on the rationalization of
Masters degree programs. Jackson immediately moved that the Vice-Chancellor
"investigate strategies" for the immediate merger of the two Faculties and
report back to the Board. Peter Darvall (Dean - Engineering) seconded the
motion. It was obvious that Logan knew it was coming. 

The debate was interesting and relatively restrained. The only opposition
came from Chandler and Miller. Gus Sinclair (Dean ECOM) said he would have
liked it delayed, but Chandler said if it was going to be raised at all, it
might as well be passed. It was pointed out that the Decanal selection for
ECOM was now thrown into doubt, as the outcome might be a very different
structure than that advertised. Peter Darvall commented that mergers were
not easy, his Faculty had to cope with a difficult but necessary merger,
and he could not see why the "business" area deserved the privilige of
having the problem side-stepped by having two faculties. Tony Duggan (Law), 
one of the "independant" members of the Joint Committee, spoke at the end 
of the debate. He commented that in his opinion the Joint Committee was not 
working and that the problem was clearly structural.

The Jackson/Darvall motion received almost unanimous support.

The message behind this is that University's academics are sick of the
problems caused by having two competing "business" Faculties. The ball is
now with Professor Logan, and whoever he now choses to investigate/recommend.
Obviously there will be no recommendation for a while, although the Decanal
vacancy in ECOM will apply some pressure.

Two up-and-coming issues are the report of the review  Psychology in
the University, which is obviously going to move us away from having three
separate departments, and Prof. Porter's review of postgraduate course-work
programmes.