Loughborough University - Committees - Learning and Teaching Committee

Learning and Teaching Committee

Subject: Validation of BA Hons programmes at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Singapore

Origin: Alan Bunkum, Robert Bowyer

Action required

LTC is invited to note the proposals outlined below, and confirm the establishment of a Validation Panel to examine the proposals in detail. The Committee may wish to give the panel further guidance on handling particular aspects of the proposals. The panel will be expected to report back to the Committee with recommendations.

Background

LUSAD has worked in partnership with Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore for a number of years, facilitating the validation of a final year period of study in Graphic Communication leading to the LU BA Honours degree. This one-year programme is available to selected NAFA students who have successfully completed an appropriate Diploma programme.

While this model has proven successful in terms of establishing a link between LUSAD and a high-calibre international art and design institution, and the programme’s graduates have been of an exceptionally high quality, as evinced consistently by our External Examining reports, the present programme does not deliver a number of the original objectives and requires change. In particular, the programme does not represent a substantive collaboration between the two institutions, has not brought LU and NAFA students into the kind of close working relationship we would expect from a shared u/g experience and has not provided a steady stream of PGT applications, PGR students or staff research projects to date. LUSAD has therefore submitted proposals, following discussions with NAFA, to refashion the programme to incorporate a half-semester exchange arrangement. In addition, it is proposed to develop the validation/collaboration such that from 2010/11 it would encompass two further programmes on the same lines, BA Hons Fine Art and BA Hons 3DD New Practice.

Approval of the new proposals

Operations Committee has given its support to the proposals, and approved the associated financial arrangements.

NAFA students will spend 7 weeks at LUSAD at the start of Semester 1: one week of ‘pre-sessional’ inductions followed by 6 weeks of academic study within the respective Part C programme year groups. It is intended that the students will stay on campus in flexible student hotel type accommodation. Total tuition and accommodation costs per student will be pro-rated from actual overseas tuition rates (0.25 x LU international tuition fee for 6 weeks/30 credits) and on-campus student accommodation rates.

Conversations with relevant NAFA programme colleagues and senior management suggest first year intake numbers of:

Graphic Communication 12

Fine Art 10

3DD New Practice 10

It is expected that these numbers will grow considerably in years two and three once the model is embedded in NAFA’s annual marketing schedule. LUSAD will closely monitor future increases in student numbers on an annual basis, incorporated within its strategic planning cycle.

The proposals can now move to stage 2 of the approval process and LTC is invited to establish a validation panel to consider the proposals in detail. The following membership is proposed:

Professor Morag Bell, PVC (T) Chair

Professor Terrence Kavanagh, Dean of Faculty SSH

Dr Paul Byrne, AD(T) of Faculty SSH

Robert Bowyer, Programme Quality Team Manager

and

Alan Bunkum, Senior Academic LUSAD as subject specialist adviser

It is proposed to undertake a visit to NAFA in Singapore on 8^th – 9^th June 2009 to cover all three programmes, combining re-validation of Graphic Communication, which is now due, with the initial validation of the 3DD New Practice and Fine Art programmes for delivery in 2010/11.

The Finance Office will be brought into discussions about the costing of the validation event.

Validation Documentation

There has already been some discussion of institutional and programme documentation required for the event and this information has been forwarded to NAFA. LUSAD colleagues are currently drafting Part C Module Specifications, Programme Specifications and Regulations to more explicitly incorporate the international and cultural dimensions of the curriculum content. Document drafts and detail of delivery and management arrangements will be forwarded to the LUSAD L&T Committee in due course (early March at the latest).

Author(s) – Robert Bowyer, Alan Bunkum

Date – February 2009