Meeting 7/99 of the Committee of Deans was held at 2.15 pm on Tuesday, 28 September 1999 in the Sir George Lush Room, ground floor, University Offices Building 3a, Clayton campus.

Apologies were received from Professor John Rickard, Professor Michael Brisk, Professor Colin Chapman and Professor John Redmond.

In attendance as Acting Deans were Professor Gerry Griffin (Faculty of Business & Economics), Professor Tam Sridhar (Faculty of Engineering), Professor Peter Stewart – (Faculty of Pharmacy) and Associate Professor Bernard Hoffert - Faculty of Art & Design.

The minutes of meeting 6/99 held 17^th August 1999 were confirmed.

Members were advised that a submission on behalf of the Group of Eight University’s was progressing. Monash was continuing to emphasis the importance of appropriate performance indicators at a national level.

Members received the following papers:

• Memorandum from the Vice-Chancellor titled Towards the Next Budget - 2^nd draft.

• Performance Incentive Plan for increasing revenue from fee (Attachment C- tabled at the meeting).

• Multiplying Rewards Through the RQ (Attachment D - tabled at the meeting).

Introducing this matter, the Vice-Chancellor noted that his memorandum, Towards the Next Budget had been the subject of previous discussions with Deans and, following consideration of any further comments from Deans, the next iteration would include all appendices. The final document would accompany the budget papers through the various consultative forums and would also be a useful document for Deans to distribute/reference during discussions with colleagues.

During discussion of the document the following suggestions were made:

• that paragraph 4, page 4 conclude with the statement "in which it will contribute $6.5m."

• the final paragraph on page 4 include a statement that it is the "basic disciplines of the Arts and Sciences" that will receive targeted support; and

• paragraph 2, page 6, be amended to read "…… including funding all undergraduate years in the same discipline at the same weight, except for the Honours year which would have an additional weight of 0.5. "Other post-graduate courses would normally have the same weight as the relevant undergraduate course."

Attachment C - Performance Incentive Plan for increasing revenue from fees.

During discussion the following issues were raised:

• members were advised that discussion of targets could occur in relation to targets beyond the year 2000.

• the high start up costs for fee-paying courses with low initial student numbers was raised.

• during discussion, it was suggested income from consultancy activities be included in next years round of budget discussions and that, if practicable, a system to confirm fee income from Short Courses be put in place by June 2000.

Attachment D - Multiplying Rewards Through the RQ.

Introducing the document, Professor Darvall advised Deans that the proposed model provided further incentives to faculties to improve research performance.

During discussion the following issues were raised:

• the possibility of comparing research performance by faculty across institutions was raised. Several members noted that accurate data was often difficult to obtain and that it was not necessarily a meaningful comparison due to the variation of disciplines in faculties across institutions.

• it was suggested that the proposed incentives were not overt enough and that another mechanism for providing incentives was an "Incentives Pool" where concrete targets were set, and if achieved, a predetermined reward was obtained - a form of top-slicing within the RQ to set up the "Incentive Pool".

Following further discussion, Deans were requested to forward ideas and suggestions to Professor Darvall.

4.1.2 Leading the Way - Communication and Dissemination

The Vice-Chancellor commended all Deans for their efforts in promoting awareness of Leading the Way - Monash 2000.

In response to a question, the Vice-Chancellor advised Deans that the University's Annual Report to Parliament and the possibility of holding an "Annual General Meeting" were under consideration.

Noting that the Boards of Management of most Faculty Foundations required the Vice-Chancellor or nominee, and/or General Manager or nominee in their membership provisions, the Vice-Chancellor requested Deans to consider the option of accepting nomination to other faculty Boards of Management, particularly in a non-cognate area.

Following acceptance of the proposal, the Vice-Chancellor advised Deans that he would formally contact them via a memorandum.

The General Manager introduced discussions noting that the recent Enterprise Bargaining agreement at the University of Sydney had introduced some instability into the system. Members were advised that Professor J Niland, Vice-Chancellor of the University of NSW and Chair of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee was having discussions with the Federal Government which may result in some increased support for the tertiary sector.

In relation to the next round of Enterprise Bargaining at Monash, members were informed that Monash supported an appropriate wage increase for staff, preferably funded via increased income levels, and that realistic figures should be built into all budget projections.

Deans were advised that they would be provided with regular updates as the negotiations progressed.

A document was attached.

The General Manager, Mr PB Wade, introduced this item.

Following an outline on the background of the paper, Mr Wade outlined the major issues raised in the paper. These included the low utilization of non-high-tech theatres (37%) compared to 57% utilization of high-tech-theatres (over the survey period) and the level of anticipated utilization/bookings (62.15% of available time-slots) compared to actual utilization (44.4% actual utilization of booked time-slots).

In summarising the matter, Mr Wade commented that the University needed to maximise the utilization of existing resources via integrated planning of resource and academic matters.

Deans were requested to forward comments on the paper to the Assistant General Manager - Facilities and Services, Mr John Trembath.

The Committee endorsed the proposal to advertise and fill a Chair in Meteorology.

The Committee endorsed the proposal to establish, advertise and fill the position of Director - Monash Environment Institute.

The Committee endorsed the proposal to advertise and fill a Chair in Computer Science and to establish, advertise and fill a Chair in Distributed Systems.

Following a recent visit to King's College, Professor White advised members that his meetings with King's College staff members had been positive and productive.

Further matters raised during discussion included the need to increase awareness of the agreement among King's staff and the need to work toward including mention of the Monash Centre on the King's College web site.