With thanks to my predecessor, Kay Whitfield for her organising, I facilitated a meeting of several members of the general staff from different parts of the University with senators John Story and Robert Wensley for an hour or so. John is a lawyer-turned-company director and Bob is a barrister (and former president of the UQ student union).
We talked about how the Senate has changed and what it does. With a new Vice-Chancellor soon to be appointed, staff attendees suggested attributes they'd like to see successful candidate - consolidation/maintenance of UQ's national prominence, no major structural changes, and continued efforts to attract the external dollar. We also talked about ideas for marking the upcoming UQ centenary.
Staff members from Schools and Institutes spoke about the way teaching and research has changed and the fact that much research funding does not provide any budget for administrative and technical staff assistance.
We also discussed how 'green' the University is and heard some interesting facts from P&F Environmental Engineer, Stuart Green. It's clear that although you'll hear about the University's commendable successes in being more environmentally-conscious, we are coming off a low base and could achieve a lot more if the will to do so existed. Many initiatives are kneejerk reactions.
Mr Story complemented the staff present on their enthusiasm and dedication, while Mr Wensley told me after the meeting that he had enjoyed it.
If you'd like to attend one of these meetings, contact me.
Prof Peter Brooks told us about his faculty and some of the external influences on it. I found it interesting that 11% of today's workforce works in health and that this will increase to 20% by 2020. Currently, 10% of Australia's GDP is spent on health and this will rise to 20%-25% by 2020. By 2050, there will be more people in Queensland in the 55-65 age group than in any other age group.
Senate approved that another victim of Voluntary Student Unionism, UQ-Sport, join with a Centre in the School of Human Movement Studies to become a new independent business entity. On balance, it seems a way forward, but student reps on Senate are privately concerned about the future of smaller clubs, while I am concerned that the employment arrangements for Centre staff are not diminished. This detail was not part of the proposal and it will be a wait-and-see and act as necessary situation.
In order to offer childcare costs in salary packaging for staff, UQ needs to supply the childcare. The childcare centres on the campuses are not owned by the University - they are independent operations. The University has been loathe to pay for its own childcare facilities. It's now taking the matter more seriously as it becomes an issue in attracting talented staff. Having taken legal advice, it now proposes to have more direct ownership of centres, but have a management agreement which essentially requires the centres to operate on a self-funded basis. The financial risk to the University is regarded as low. The arrangement should allow salary sacrificing of the cost of childcare in these centres to be offered to staff.
Senate was asked to authorise management to proceed to do the deals. I asked that Senate be kept informed of the arrangements, including the business case.
It was proposed that the next election to Senate, being the student members later this year, be conducted by electronic means for the first time. A number of other universities have conducted elections in this way for a number of years, seemingly without problem. The student reps were concerned that electronic student elections would just make things easier for the dirty tricks, pork-barrelling and non-serious campaigners to get votes and disrupt proper outcomes. However, this was overshadowed in the minds of a majority of Senators, including yours truly, by the savings (in paper alone) of moving to electronic ballots.
Elected academic staff rep, Andrew Bonnell, and I were concerned by a proposal to increase a loan facility available to the University to keep on-hand cash reserves at at least $60m. Upcoming capital works projects could see the cash reserves dip to $9m by the end of 2008. The University has a $60m loan facility available to it (from Queensland Treasury) and wants to double this amount. So far, it has not dipped into this loan money. If it ever did, the interest rates are good and it would apparently only be for very short periods to deal with cashflow situations. Andrew and I don't want to see interest bills racked up that we have to pay for via restructures.
One way UQ manages its cashflow in order to try to keep the $60m of cash reserves while still putting up new buildings is by holding back positive carry-forwards in Faculty and School budgets. I rose to ask about whether the 'holding-back' was about to escalate. Senior DVC Greenfield assured Senate that the funds would not be taken away from the Faculties and Schools, but that release of them would be timed throughout the year and would require Faculties (and thereby their Schools and Centres) to justify why the funds should be released. Where expenditure committed in 2006 was only being paid for in 2007 (ie, timing issues), the funds would be released without further question.
The Vice-Chancellor at one stage alluded to Federal Government pressure to further reduce the size of university governing bodies. Federal Minister, Julie Bishop, in her speech to a 2006 national conference on university governance said, "My inclination is to have a limit of 14 that must continue to have a majority of external independent members who are neither enrolled as a student nor employed by the higher education provider." John Hay says he is not in favour of a smaller Senate, because he appreciates getting perspectives from a wide range of people and knows that the work of Senate sub-committees doesn't reduce just because the size of the Senate does - it means more work for fewer people. Hay said that if UQ was forced to reduce the size of its Senate, the elected staff, student and alumni reps would be the first to go.
It would be interesting in such a scenario to see if university executives would allow elected reps on to the sub-committees of Senate. When this was suggested for the Finance Committee, the claim was made that it was not in the spirit of what DEST wants, but the end reason was an alleged 'conflict of interest'. (More here.) Yet Ms Bishop notes in her speech that "elected members can bring important perspectives to the governing body�s deliberations, and the views of their electors and the overall best interests of the university are not necessarily incompatible." She went on to say, "It is worth considering whether it would be preferable to have a smaller governing body with advisory bodies comprising those representing specific interest groups."
Might make a good question for the next V-C to ask how candidates would approach the scenario of an enforced smaller Senate. I'm on the selection panel, so I'll try.
Senate noted the UQ Annual Report, the Report of the Staff Development Committee, and the Environmental Management Report, along with regular reports from the various Senate sub-committees, etc.
Some confidential discussion occurred at the end of the meeting (without the V-C or other staff present) about how best to mark Professor Hay's departure from the University at the end of the year.
