Presentations by the Directors of the QBI and Mater Research on the successful trajectory of these two UQ research institutes.
These included tabling of the 2014 Annual Report; Senate committee and Academic Board reports; PPL changes; bequests and donations.
The Vice-Chancellor spoke about the now-defeated Government legislation to deregulate domestic undergraduate student fees (hooray!) and the Go8's new position on the funding of universities. My reading of the Go8 stance is that it argues for a de-politicised review of higher education funding in one breath, but in the next says a review should involve big-business groups like the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Minerals Council of Australia and the learned academies. What about the representative organisations of students, staff and alumni? A good critique of the latest Go8 proclamation is in The Conversation: http://theconversation.com/group-of-eights-change-of-tack-smacks-of-self-interest-39631.
The Director of Planning and Information Management gave an illuminating report on where UQ has scope for improvment in terms of hitting its targets in the strategic plan, focusing on this year's QTAC domestic admissions figures.
Arising from the report, Senate asked to be kept informed of student recruitment branding developments.
A progress report on the appointment process was noted.
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