On Tuesday 23 July we held an Academic Senate meeting. The full agenda is up on the Academic Senate website and papers are available on Truth. For a quick run-down, watch the Chair’s vlog and check out the Top 5 items discussed at the meeting below:
1. Senate Project – Approval of Shared Academic Governance
We discussed and then approved the authorisations to be retained by Academic Senate and those to be devolved to Faculty Boards. The full set of authorisations can be found on Senate’s website.
Thank you to everyone who has been involved for your continued support of this project; it represents a significant change for Macquarie and heralds a new era of joint collaboration between Academic Senate, its committees and Faculty Boards.
We will conduct a post-implementation review in Q1 2020 and conduct any fine-tuning if necessary. In the meantime if you have any feedback on how Shared Governance is working, contact me at chair.senate@mq.edu.au or pass your comments through your Senate representative.
2. Senate Project – Freedom of Speech, Inquiry and Assembly
I provided an update to Academic Senate on this project and highlighted that it will return to the September meeting for more discussion. To inform that discussion, in the next few weeks we are working with student facilitators to run a workshop to gather opinions from students, and this will be followed by workshops for staff, and Senators.
These will be advertised on the campus Facebook page, and ThisWeek. You can also contact me at chair.senate@mq.edu.au to register your interest in participating at these workshops.
3. Revised Macquarie University Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research
Dr Kandy White attended and presented on the revised Macquarie University Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research and the Macquarie University Research Code Complaints, Breaches and Investigation Procedure.
The University’s Code and Procedure were revised following the release of a new National Code. Dr White highlighted that both Human Resources and the NTEU were consulted on the revisions to the Procedure. Communication plans have been developed for staff and students, including presentations to HDR commencement classes, and online training.
Academic Senate endorsed both documents.
4. HDR Supervision Fellows
Associate Professor Ashraf presented on the new HDR Supervision Fellowship Program, a voluntary professional development program to enhance supervision skills.
Bill highlighted the contributions of Associate Professor Merrilyn Childs, Dr Shannon Smith, Ms Sally Purcell and Professor Nick Mansfield in the establishment of the program.
We recognised the first group of HDR Supervision Fellows, who attended the Senate meeting and offered their feedback on the value of the program.
- Dr Joel Fuller (Medicine & Health Sciences)
- Dr Rae-Anne Hardie (Medicine & Health Sciences)
- Dr Emily Don (Medicine & Health Sciences)
- Dr Alexandra Kurmann (Arts)
- Dr Marina Junqueira Santiago (Medicine & Health Sciences)
- Dr Ying Wang (Medicine & Health Sciences)
- Dr April Abbott (Science & Engineering)
5. Farewell to Professor Nick Mansfield and Associate Professor Bill Ashraf
We thanked Professor Nick Mansfield, a long-serving ex-officio member of Academic Senate in his role as Dean of Higher Degree research, who is retiring from the University.
Nick’s focus has been on supporting HDR candidates and their supervisors to achieve positive and productive outcomes and this was seen in the work Nick contributed towards the Academic Appeals Policy and business improvements for managing HDR candidate progress. More recently Nick has been key in establishing the Masters Research in place of Honours at Macquarie University. He was also involved in establishing the RRTC and its sub-committee TESC as part of the University’s new and invigorated approach to the academic governance of research and research training.
Academic Senate thanked Professor Mansfield for his service to Academic Senate and the University.
Since the July meeting we have also learned that Bill Ashraf has accepted a new role as Professor at another University and will be leaving us before the next meeting of Academic Senate. Bill only joined Academic Senate in January this year in the role of representative from the non-Faculty electorate.
In the short time he has been on Senate, he has been an active contributor. Bill also joined ASQC, and was a member of the working group that responded to the review of the AQF. As mentioned earlier at the July meeting he spoke to the new HDR Supervisor Fellow program. It was clear how much work he has put in to that project, along with others on the team.
We wish Bill the best in his new role – which involves learning, teaching and governance – and we hope to cross paths with him in the future!
Why not attend our next meeting?
The next Senate meeting will be held on September 3rd, from 9:30am onwards. All staff and students are welcome to observe, please email us at senate@mq.edu.au to ensure there are enough chairs in the room.
Dates are also advertised on the Senate website, in This Week, and on the Campus Facebook page.
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