Senate
Senate report by Ian Francis
In his report the Principal drew members attention to the revival of interest in reviews of higher education in Scotland. The scrutiny of the SHEFC by the Education and Lifelong Learning Committee was moving beyond the issues of teaching and research funding and the ministerial review of higher education had established a panel which included the Vice-Chancellors of East London and Kingston Universities and identified four themes for discussion: institutional governance and management, teaching and lifelong learning, research and government and HE institution relations.
The Minister had asked for meetings with Principals in geographical groups and members of the Executive were holding one-to-one discussions with Principals. Universities Scotland had also been asked to give evidence. The issues that the Principal and others were pressing were the purpose and values of higher education (to widen the argument beyond the idea that HE was a narrow economic good), confronting the funding realities, discouraging SHEFC and the Executive from taking a dirigiste approach and creating an environment for higher education to compete effectively both nationally and internationally. He also, on behalf of the Senatus, congratulated Dr D Alessi and Professors J Blow, N Pitts and A Vardy on their election as FRSE and noted his own election.
The Senatus endorsed a proposal from the faculty board of science and engineering to divide the faculty into two new faculties comprising respectively the current schools of life sciences and engineering.
On the report of the Planning and Resources Committee the Principal drew attention to progress with the research strategy and the proposals to consider the establishment of a pan-University postgraduate school. In relation to faculty planning statements, he indicated that once the SHEFC allocations for the next financial year were available, around 19 March, there would be the annual budget setting exercise in the context of a longer range view of the University's strategic priorities.
In the course of discussion comment was made upon the lack of availability of the Faculty planning statements and the inadequacy of reducing discussion on documents of a significant length to a short minute which, in the case of arts & social sciences in particular, misrepresented aspects of the faculty position. On that issue, the Principal commented that the plans could be made available to Senate members.
Concern was expressed on the implications for staff workloads arising from reductions in staffing and additional SHEFC reporting requirements. On the latter point, the Principal expressed the view that the requirements were manageable within existing resources and, in any case, were consonant with the need for accountability. On the former point, it was inevitable that in some cases staff reduction would add to the workload of others.
The report of the information services committee included reference to the establishment of a review group to examine the University's network infrastructure and management. In that connection the Director of ITS reported on the serious difficulties which had arisen with the network and the impact on teaching and assessment activities and assured members that strenuous efforts were being made to address the problems. There were insufficient specialist staff in ITS and this situation was exacerbated by having five staff on long term sick leave. The potential financial implications of addressing the problems were mentioned and it was also stressed that consultation on a number of fronts would take place as part of the process to seek a satisfactory resolution.
The Senatus received a second report from the Working Group proposing a model for implementation and a number of related recommendations. In essence the report proposed a new model for the shape of the academic year to start in session 2003/04. The proposed new shape of the academic year will feature a common start date of 22 September 2003 with semester one teaching and examining completed by Christmas. The Christmas vacation will be extended by one week from three to four weeks and semester two will begin on 19 January 2004. The Easter vacation will be reduced from four to three weeks (April 5-25, 2004) and examinations will commence on 26 April 2004. The annual graduation ceremonies will take place some three weeks earlier in the week beginning 21 June 2004. It also proposed a common currency for credit rating of modules at levels 1 and 2 (20 credits) and at levels 3 and 4 (30 credits) to maximise flexibility in the curriculum. The full report is available at http://secure.dundee.ac.uk/academic/.
The Senatus decided to approve the report in its essentials and to invite the working group to consider the issues raised in discussion during the implementation phase.
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