Academic Board Meeting 1-2008 Report to Council

A RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Receipt of Report

Recommendation

That Council receive and note the Report of Meeting 1 of 2008 of the Academic Board held on Wednesday 27 February 2008.

B PROCEEDINGS FOR INFORMATION OF COUNCIL

Council is invited to note that, commencing with Meeting 2/2008, Academic Board will revise the manner in which it manages the business coming before it, to facilitate, inter alia, accountability for performance against its Terms of Reference (approved at Meeting 7/2007). For Council, this will result in a differently structured report – the Board’s business will be reported largely in terms of its responsibility for:

• Direction of academic affairs
• Supervision of academic affairs
• Maintenance of high academic standards

2. Academic Board

The President addressed the Board on her vision for 2008-2009, contextualising the presentation within the rapidly evolving field of education, Monash’s history and status, and reaffirming her commitment to ensuring a strong, pro-active Board, which addressed important academic issues in a timely fashion and made significant contribution to driving the strategies of the University.

Emphasising the importance of member input, the President outlined a range of initiatives that would be implemented during 2008, including:

• Debate on high-level “hot topics”.
• A program of guest speakers on matters of academic significance.
• Environmental scanning, to raise members’ awareness of the context of the Board’s operations and inform discussion of how the Board might place itself to facilitate appropriate responses to sectoral and institutional developments. Environmental scanning is undertaken by University Planning and Statistics, and provides an overview of internal and external developments that may affect Monash's operations over the next half-decade. It includes such matters as global educational developments, government policy directions and trends in evaluation of research quality.
• Restructuring the way in which the business of the Board was conducted, with a view to improving focus and accountability.

Priorities for the coming year would include:

• Working collaboratively with key standing committees/portfolios to ensure the highest standards of quality, impact and recognition of Monash’s educational and research offerings.
• Improving communication and reporting to and from the Board, not only in terms of formal reporting structures, but also within the wider Monash community.
• A review of the Board’s composition – a small working party would be constituted to develop an options paper for further consideration by the Board – and a contiguous review of the Board‘s committee structures.

3. University Priorities for 2009-2013

Introducing the University Priorities approved by Council at Meeting 1/2008, the President emphasised that these should not be regarded as separate from the University’s vision or values, but rather as a set of priorities designed to facilitate progress towards the University’s aims over the next five years.

The Board noted that:

• Behind the terminology employed by the priorities lay a range of strategies and initiatives being developed to lift Monash to a higher level in education and research.
• When faculties and departments built their operational plans, it was expected that special emphasis would be put on planning to achieve the priorities.
• It was intended that engagement with Government be incorporated within the Priority 2 descriptor (“Engage more effectively with business and industry).
• Priority 3 (Develop Clayton Precinct as science, technology and innovation centre) focussed on the Clayton/South Eastern area as a whole, not just Monash’s Clayton campus.

Academic Board endorsed the Priorities 2009-2013.

4. Education Portfolio

4.1 Portfolio Initiatives

Professor Shoemaker spoke to a range of initiatives planned for the Education Portfolio, including:

• Learning Spaces Initiative, which would aim, inter alia, to facilitate the convergence of pedagogy and technology and which was already funding several projects.
• Post-Coursework Review directions, including the need to evaluate a range of units either with low enrolments or not taught in the last few years, or in those disciplines where the same content was taught by more than one campus/faculty.
• The need for the educational model going forward to articulate very clearly the distinctive nature of Monash program offerings. To this end, feedback was sought on the proposed Monash Passport Programs, which aims to reform Honours at Monash through a range of initiatives such as bridging and enhancement programs; pro bono work and internships; cohort programs; and more flexible/individually tailored honours programs. The Education Committee will act as the Project Steering Group and Academic Board will be consulted on an ongoing basis. The Board was supportive of the Passport concept.

4.2 Early Assessment and Feedback

The Board noted:

• the importance of early assessment and feedback to first year undergraduate students;
• that this principle would be incorporated into a revised Coursework Assessment Policy and Procedures.

The Board also endorsed the recommendation that faculties consider how to best incorporate the above principles into their assessment practices for first year students.

5. Academic Promotions 2008

The Board had before it the draft Procedures for Academic Promotion (2008) (for Lecturer through to Professor), noting that a range of amendments had been made to the 2007 version as a result of feedback received during their year of operation.

Areas of debate on the Procedures by the Board included:

• The process of consultation, in particular the need for earlier discussion with key stakeholders during the Procedures’ developmental phase.
• A number of issues relating to the composition of Promotions Committees, including the difficulty in their organisation.
• The weighting for leadership roles undertaken by applicants, especially for promotion to Professor.

As a result of the matters raised by members, the Board:

• Approved the Academic Promotions Procedures in principle, subject to amendments relating to matters of fact or grammar.
• Approved addition of the President, Academic Board to the membership of the University professorial promotions committee.
• Affirmed that the right of the appropriate authority to waive certain requirements relating to membership of promotions committees be exercised as appropriate.
• Recommended that the Procedures be analysed with a view to determining whether there were matters of policy requiring review, and that such matters be brought before the Strategy and Resources Committee for consideration, and thence to the Board.
• Directed that future Academic Promotions Procedures be considered by the Strategy and Resources Committee prior to their transmission to the Board.

6. Policy Debates

6.1 Course Structure Policy

During discussion on the draft Course Structure Policy and Procedures members raised concern at the mix of Master’s degrees currently on offer at Monash. In particular, members expressed concern about the inclusion of undergraduate level units of study.

The Board was advised that the debate as to what constituted a Masters degree was an issue critical for the Education Portfolio to address.

As a result of discussion, Academic Board:

• Adopted the Course Structure Policy as being largely a codification of existing practice and to enable the enrolment of students.
• Referred the issue of “what is a Master’s degree?” to Education Committee for preliminary discussion, and return to the Board for debate at an appropriate stage.

6.2 Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Policies

The University is required to comply, inter alia, with the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000 and the requirements of Standard 7 of the National Code of Practice 2007. At this meeting, the Board had before it two draft policies - ESOS Student under Age 18 Policy (accommodation, support and general welfare arrangements) and ESOS Student Transfer between Registered Providers Policy (administration of requests from international students holding a student visa seeking a transfer between registered providers).

At the suggestion of the PVC Sunway campus, the Board agreed to amend the drafts to explicitly extend the policies’ coverage to Monash’s offshore campuses, by inserting the definition of “international student”:

• “a person within/outside Australia who holds a student visa as defined by the ESOS Act”; and
• including reference to the Migration Regulations.

C OTHER ITEMS

7. Academic Board approved:

7.1 Special Leave

 7.2 Nominations to vacancies on the Board

7.3 Nominations to casual vacancies on Steering Committee of Academic Board

7.4 Membership of Education Committee

Amendment to the membership of Education Committee to include a representative of the Academic Advisory Board, Sunway campus and a representative of the Board of Studies, Monash South Africa.

7.5 Policy Development and Review

• Collaborative Coursework Arrangements Policy
• Grading Scale Policy

8 Academic Board received and noted:

8.1 The Report of the 2007 Evaluation of Academic Board.

8.2 The Report of the Vice-Chancellor.

8.3 The Shanghai Jiao Tong Field Rankings.

8.4 The Report of the DVC (International).

8.5 Environmental Scan.

8.6 The following Procedures:

• HDR Candidature: Academic and Administrative Complaints Procedures
• Course Structure Procedures
• ESOS Student under Age 18 Procedures
• ESOS Student Transfer between Registered Providers Procedures
• Collaborative Coursework Arrangements Procedures
• Grading Scale Procedures

8.7 Reports of the following standing committee meetings:

• Monash University Research Committee Meeting 8/2007
• Education committee Meeting 7/2007
• General Library Committee Meeting 4/2007
• Research Graduate School Committee Meetings 10-11/2007

8.8 Reports of the following Faculty Boards meetings:

• Faculty of Information Technology Meeting 5/2007
• Faculty of Arts Meeting 4/2007
• Faculty of Business and Economics Meeting 6/2007