The meeting had quite a large agenda and went for about three hours. Below are highlights of the relatively non-confidential stuff.
The first hour of the meeting was informal and dedicated to strategic planning, asking some of the big questions like:
The external senators were interested in learning of the dilemmas the University faces and it soon became apparent that an hour was not enough for Senate to give senior management directions. So a separate planning session will be scheduled.
There seems to be a push to not continue the current strategy of growing the University in proportion to Queensland's population growth (noting that applications to enter Queensland universities are not growing, maybe due to the current resources boom), and possibly to move away from offering all the traditional disciplines and instead focus on the ones we're 'good at'. It is anticipated by some that the Research Quality Framework will do the sorting anyway - some universities will be stronger than others in certain research areas; those research areas will attract the money and ultimately the students, so the theorem goes.
Elected academic staff rep, Andrew Bonnell, asked when the indigenous employment officer position (agreed to in the academic EBA) would be filled. He was told that it was subject to competitive internal UQ funding allocations, but that an allocation was likely soon.
As part of the deal to bail out the union in the face of losses arising from Voluntary Student Unionism, the University wants the ability to reallocate space in Union buildings to other uses, if the Union is not using it. The Union accepts this, but was concerned that its security of occupation was not strongly enough stated in the Agreement. A motion from the student reps succeeded in getting wording that the University would not unreasonably remove the Union from its occupation of the premises.
It was reported that the accepted wisdom is that the foundation of the University is traced to the gazettal of the members of the first Senate on 16 April 1910. Thus the celebrations will be in 2010.
The Chancellor recommended that a Centenary Celebrations Committee be formed and that expressions of interest from Senate members to join the Committee b called. The Vice-Chancellor made it clear that he thinks one of the key achievements of the Committee should be to raise lots of money for a substantial building project and/or scholarships. I'm collecting ideas here.
Following a vigorous debate at the Academic Board, an adjusted set of recommendations about the introduction of a new category of academic staff, 'teaching-focused', was approved by Senate. From an academic culture and staff development point of view, the biggest risk is that such staff become second-class academics who just do classroom teaching. The policy states that this is to be avoided and that TF staff are to spend some of their time on scholarship related to pedagogy, etc.
Elected academic staff rep, Andrew Bonnell, stated that vigilance will need to be maintained to ensure this happens.
I put up a motion on this topic, having foreshadowed it late last year. To my pleasant surprise, the motion succeeded. More here.
