Senate

by Dr Ian Francis, Academic Secretary

The last Senate meeting of 2001 was more lively than usual concentrating mainly upon the contentious issue of modules and semesters which had been roundly rejected on the last occasion when it was raised in 1994. Before that discussion, the Senate finally welcomed the three new members from the Faculty of Education and Social Work - Ms E Gillies, Professor L Logan and Mr G Williamson - to their first meeting of the Senatus post-merger.

Senate received a note of the 2001 RAE results for the University which were formally embargoed until Friday 14 December. The results were very positive and the Principal congratulated in particular medicine, biological sciences, dentistry, applied mathematics, civil engineering, law and history all of whom had achieved grade 5 or 5*. He indicated that there was no information as yet on the financial impact of the results other than to note that the Minister had asked for further advice from SHEFC on future research funding. In that context he noted that there were clear signs that the Lifelong Learning Committee of the Scottish Parliament wished to spread research funding more widely as opposed to SHEFC and universities who wished to continue to support excellence.

The working group on modules and semesters had met on three occasions, views had been invited from academic staff and from the heads of central service units and prior to submitting its report a summary of those views had been made available on the University website. The report also had been made available to Faculties and discussed at the last round of Faculty Board meetings.

In his introduction to the paper, the Vice-Principal acknowledged that this was a controversial issue but that, in his view, it was in the University's strategic interest to change. Since the issue was last debated at Senate, the external context of higher education had changed dramatically with a new emphasis upon wider access, lifelong learning, national qualifications' frameworks and a move towards credit-based funding. In addition the student body was becoming increasingly diverse with an age participation rate approaching 50%. These external imperatives were drivers for change but equally there were significant internal drivers: the need to recruit more students, to improve retention rates and to develop the flexibility to offer attractive, new cross-disciplinary programmes.

Concern was expressed at the distinction in the report between strategy and the details of implementation. Some members believed that a decision on adopting a modular semester structure could not be taken without knowing what particular model would be adopted. Diversity of provision within a putative structure was felt to be vital for those disciplines which depended upon professional accreditation. Current students were also concerned about the lack of implementation detail as well as the potential difficulties for those students in later years of programmes at the point of introduction of a new system, particularly if there were teething problems.

In the course of discussion emphasis was placed upon the academic and financial cost of the inflexibility and incompatibility of the current structures. Imaginative solutions to recruitment problems were being frustrated because of incompatible structures between and amongst departments and faculties. There was no evidence that modular, semester structures led to a lessening of quality nor to the dumbing down of student achievement feared by some. A modular, semester structure did not necessarily preclude diversity and could be sufficiently flexible to allow for the focussed and structured needs of professional subjects. Structures which enabled collaboration across disciplines would reduce administration and allow the University to respond more efficiently to the external agenda facing higher education. It was also noted that in moving late towards modules and semesters many of the pitfalls faced by other institutions could be avoided.

It was felt that a changed structure was necessary not only for external reasons but also to provide a focus for innovation in learning and teaching.

The Senate decided on a vote of 50 for and 9 against with 2 spoilt papers, to proceed in principle with the implementation of a modular, semester structure. It also invited the working group to continue and to produce a model or models to accommodate the important diversity issues raised in discussion for the March meeting of Senate with a target date for introduction of a new structure in October 2003.

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