Prof Eilis Magner, Chair Academic Board
I want to take this opportunity to comment on three things that are happening currently.
Self Review Academic Board
The first of these is the self review of Academic Board. The Academic Board conducted self reviews in 2002, 2004 and 2006. If that sequence had been continued we would have conducted another self review in 2008. An explanation of the delay is that the restructure of the Academic Board had to wait for the restructure of the University and the revised constitution was only adopted in December 2007. The objective at that time was to increase the number of elected representatives as against the ex officio members while reducing slightly the overall size of the board. AUQA wanted to know about the self review and we told them that we had committed to issuing the surveys for the next self review in Week 1 of Semester 2. The fact that we were able to meet that target is largely due to the work of Tom Maxwell, a member of the Standing Committee of Academic Board who accepted the task of reviewing and revising the surveys used earlier. Members of the Academic Board and “stakeholders” have been asked to complete and submit those surveys by the end of August.
SSP Committee
As is well known, the SSP Committee met at the end of June, to consider applications for first semester and second semester 2010. This was late for the first semester applications and about two months early for the second semester applications when compared to the timetable that we have been trying and failing to meet since 2005 when I first took the chair of the Study Leave Committee. The function of the SSP Committee is to consider the worth of the academic program and the capacity of the applicant to carry out the program. This time we received 14 applications for first semester, and 22 applications for second semester (36 in total). Of these 14 received unconditional approval, 16 received conditional approval, 5 applicants were requested to revise and resubmit their applications and 1 was rejected. The Committee has always viewed the requirement that the Schools fund SSP themselves as problematic and was given reason to hope that this decision would be revisited before the 2011 round. The requirement that the teaching needs of the School should be considered before approving such a program is not new.
Open Forum: Vice-Chancellor Attributes
In my role as Chair of the Academic Board I am a member of the Selection Committee for the position of Vice-Chancellor. Jeanne Madison is also a member of the Selection Committee. Together with Kay Hempsall, Catherine Millis, Charles Watson and Alicia Zikan, the other “internal” Council members, and with the approval of Council we sought input from the UNE Community, all members of staff and all students into the question of which attributes were viewed as those on which we should place emphasis. To do this we used a very simple on-line survey using open ended questions and the open forum.
Members of the community will appreciate that a most comprehensive set of selection criteria as developed by HRS and our search firm Braithwaite, Steiner, Pretty had been approved by Council before this input was sought. I would further suggest that the methods selected would always have been inadequate for the task of actually setting those criteria. The input was however most instructive and the results will be made available to all members of the selection committee. The community wants an individual who has a vision for the University based on a sound understanding of the University of New England as it is, together with a commitment to staying at this institution for a solid period of time. It wants a decision maker who will value the contributions that all staff (both academic and general) are making to the institution and who will respect and enhance the student experience.