These included statements by the Acting Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, PPL changes, reports from Senate committees, workplace culture progress report. The Student Strategy paper was also noted.
A presentation was given on how successful the UQ branding change of 2015 has been so far, both in terms of audience reach and recall, and QTAC applications market share. In summary, the campaign is delivering positive results, with further development work to occur during 2016.
This item included an update on the State Government's review of the Act, particularly on regulations around the size and compositon of governing bodies like Senate. Consultations are continuing, but the good news is that universities will not be permitted to reduce the number of elected staff and student positions on Senate.
The last of the recommendations around last year's review of the Academic Board were approved, following acceptance of the report of an implementation group. I was pleased to see that Academic Board will still have authority over the scheduling and conduct of reviews of schools, institutes and programs, with management having responsibility for implementation. The original review proposal was that the V-C would have control over all reviews.
We also received the results of a survey of Senate members of their anonymous views of the effectiveness of the operation of Senate. Basically Senators returned a pass mark but it is apparent there is room for improvement in a number of areas. These will be discussed in more detail at Senate's annual one-day retreat in August, when the new Chancellor will be in saddle.
Ahead of the meeting, a group of students from 'Fossil Free UQ' mounted a picket outside the Chancellery to follow-up their recent sit-in of Chancellery offices, as part of their campaign to convince the University of the merits of divesting from fossil fuel investments.
One student, the UQU Environment Officer, was admitted as an observer to that part of the meeting where Senators were briefed by the Chancellor on negotiations with the campaigners to-date and a commitment was given that a paper by Fossil Free UQ and a management response would be considered at the next meeting of Senate.
At the end of the Senate meeting, a one-page statement by Fossil Free UQ was distributed to Senators. You can read it here.
You can read about questions I have asked about this topic previously at Senate here.
