Meeting 7/2005 of the Committee of Deans was held at 2.15 pm on Wednesday, 9 November 2005 in the Dean’s (Faculty of Business and Economics) Meeting Room, Level 9, Building S, Caulfield Campus.

Professor R Larkins AO, Vice-Chancellor

Mr P Marshall, Vice-President (Administration)

Mr R Fairchild, Vice-President (Advancement)

Mr D Pitt, Vice-President (Finance)/Chief Financial Officer

Professor B Mackenzie, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Gippsland

Professor M King, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research and Research Training

Professor J Redmond, Dean, Faculty of Art and Design

Professor H Le Grand, Dean, Faculty of Arts

Professor G Palmer, Dean, Faculty of Business and Economics

Professor S Willis, Dean, Faculty of Education

Professor J Sheridan, Acting Dean, Faculty of Engineering

Professor R Weber, Dean, Faculty of Information Technology

Professor A Freiberg, Dean, Faculty of Law

Professor E Byrne, Dean, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences

Professor C Chapman, Dean, Faculty of Pharmacy

Professor R Norris, Dean, Faculty of Science

Professor Merran Evans, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Planning)

Professor Graham Webb, Pro Vice-Chancellor, (Quality)

Mr J Levine, Divisional Director, Financial Resources Management

Mr R Dias, Deputy Director, Financial Resources Management

Ms Jenny Vero, Manager, Planning

Professor S Parker, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor

Professor E Cornish, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research)

Professor M Liddell, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Malaysia

Professor T Pretorius, Pro Vice-Chancellor, South Africa

Mr T Calder, Director, Executive Services

Minutes of meeting 6/2005 of the Committee of Deans held on Tuesday, 20 September were confirmed.

Professor Max King, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Research and Research Training, tabled a paper titled ARC Results – For Funding in 2006.

Members noted the advice of Professors Larkins and King on the outcome of the funding round and that a greater success rate would require an increase in the number of applications.

Members noted the advice of the Vice-Chancellor that the Board of IDP Education Australia Ltd had approved a new business strategy involving the formation of a for-profit operating company that could raise new capital to fund the company’s proposed expansion of the range of services it offers to international students.

Planning on this proposal had continued in 2005 with the proposed model subject to financial evaluation and clarification of the ongoing financial arrangements for the school.

Other matters discussed included:

• Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry taskforces looking into the exporting of university services and the enhancement of research in brown coal technology;

• possibility of a graduate entry medical program at Gippsland Campus;

• Monash Student Association and the use of funds from amenities fees; and

• AV-CC and Go8 – the Vice-Chancellor had accepted a two-year appointment as Vice-President of the AV-CC. Discussions on the possibility of reforming the AV-CC along a federal model were continuing.

The Vice-Chancellor introduced the topic noting that the issue of ‘structure’ had most recently arisen during discussion on the role/responsibilities of Departments/Schools. Some of the issues that could be considered during future discussions included a model of super faculties with ‘schools’ as the next tier, the need to simplify administrative structures and ensuring that any proposed model simplified administration and that disciplines needed to remain a prime consideration.

During the discussion, members contributed the following observations/comments:

• some practical issues that needed to be discussed included – some schools/departments were larger than some faculties and if growth continued, may become unwieldy; the creation of university-wide research institutes reporting to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) introduced another tier of complexity and changes to the academic structure, possibly via the introduction of three colleges may not only improve academic input to the decision-making processes but also off-set, to some degree, the trend towards greater centralised decision-making;

• noting that some departments were bigger than faculties, some Heads of Departments/Schools felt a disconnect from the early decision-making processes;

• size of an entity should not be an over-riding driver – coherence of fields/disciplines was an important consideration;

• attempts to create larger consolidated entities often resulted in some disciplines "being left over" whereas some groupings such as Business and Economics were more organically grouped;

• it was important to periodically engage in this type of debate;

• an aspect that should be addressed early in any future discussions was the primary/relativity of function versus size;

• external stakeholders needed to have a clearer understanding of the structure regarding the role of campuses/faculties/institutes etc;

• noting the role of Heads of Departments/Schools as drivers and the importance of the coherence of disciplines, it was suggested that a greater number of Heads be invited to attend the Senior Management Summit in 2006;

• schools/departments with large staff numbers and budgets should be reviewed along similar lines to faculties; and

• other issues raised included the need to ensure the continued coherence of professional disciplines such as education, law and pharmacy, the suggestion of a need for a minimum size for cost centres and the increasing focus on the role of Head of Department/School.

The Vice-Chancellor thanked members for their comments and suggested that the topic be the major item for discussion at meeting 1/2006.

Professor Merran Evans, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Planning) and Ms Jenny Vero, Manager, Planning were in attendance for this item.

Following discussion, it was suggested that the following matters relating to the Senior Management Summit for 2006 be given further consideration:

• the provisional list of attendees be revised by reducing the number of senior managers present and increasing the number of Heads of Departments/Schools and researchers in attendance; and

• the following topics be considered for inclusion on the program:

  • outcomes of the Staff Attitude Survey

  • student experience

  • Research Quality Framework

  • Learning and Teaching Performance Fund

Professor Graham Webb, Pro Vice-Chancellor, (Quality) was in attendance for this item.

A document, Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT): An Update was tabled.

Professor Webb outlined to members the major outcomes of the restructure of CeLTS and the purpose and services to be provided by the Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT).

During discussion, the following matters were raised:

• Deans were requested to contact Professor David Murphy regarding their requirements for language and learning services in 2006 (if they had not already done so);

• the GCHE and related academic staff development activities would be reviewed once the new Centre had been bedded down;

• the position of Director, CALT would continue to be filled in an "Acting" capacity in the short-term, however, members requested that a timeline for filling the position be advised to them as soon as practicable; and

• members were reminded that in order to protect the taxation concessions of staff that had accepted voluntary separation packages, and the program overall, staff that had accepted separation packages could not be re-employed at Monash for at least a two-year period following the initial separation.

Mr J Levine, Divisional Director, Financial Resources Management and Mr R Dias, Deputy Director, Financial Resources Management were in attendance for this item.

Mr David Pitt, Vice-President (Finance)/Chief Financial Officer, provided members with some preliminary observations on the recent round of budget discussions and areas where the process could be improved.

During discussions, members noted the following:

• discussions on priorities should be transparent and commence earlier in the year – possibly June;

• impact statements should be included with all new initiatives;

• noting that a forum was not a good mechanism for deciding/ranking initiatives, it was also suggested that the documentation for initiatives could be improved;

• a discussion on operational versus actual budgets should be part of the review process; and

• some central support areas had requested the opportunity to provide a presentation at the forum such as the Executive Director of Information Technology who noted the need for his division to address University-wide IT costs and understand all administrative computing issues – not just central administration IT issues.

Members raised the following matters:

• commencing the budget discussion in June would be a good idea;

• service providers should provide presentations and explanations for increases in driver costs;

• major changes to service providers such as CeLTS should be discussed along with resultant changes to costs and/or services; and

• clearer guidelines on the processes for Strategic Initiative Bids would assist.

Following a discussion on the process for submitting, ranking and funding international initiatives, it was noted that aspects of the process might have been flawed and/or poorly communicated and that the process for 2006 would be revisited.

It was suggested that members of the Vice-Chancellor’s Group undergo a similar 360º-evaluation process as that recently introduced for all Deans of faculties.

Following discussion, it was resolved that the Committee of Deans should always meet on a Tuesday with every second meeting to be held, commencing at 4.00 pm at 30 Collins Street.

The Secretary to revise and circulate an amended set of meeting dates.

The following dates have been scheduled for meetings in 2006: