Faculty of Science
Faculty Board
SCI08-M2
Minutes of
the Meeting of the Faculty Board held on 19 November 2008
Members: Professor
Ken Parsons (Chair),
Apologies
for Absence: Jo Corlett, Professor Tony Croft, Dr Chris Dawson, Ray Dawson,
Professor
Observers: Professor Paul Chung, Jo Corlett (ab), Dr
Sandie Dann,
Professor Rachel Thomson.
In
Attendance: Martine Ashby (Secretary), Kay England (for 08/28), Dr Phil
Richards and Carys Thomas (for 08/29) and Caroline Smith (for 08/30)
08/25 Welcome
Members were welcomed to the
meeting and were asked to introduce themselves.
08/26 Minutes
The minutes of the Meeting of the Science Faculty Board
(SCI08:M1) held on 22 May 2008 were confirmed.
08/27 Matters
arising from the Minutes
08/5 League Tables: The Director of Planning
had intended to supply HODs with HESA data for their subject areas. It was
agreed that she should be asked to supply this information after the latest data
had been received. ACTION: MA
08/28 imago
Presentation
SCI08-P14
Kay
England, Chief Executive of imago at Burleigh Court and imago at Holywell Park,
attended for this item.
Kay England provided details of
the two arms of imago, imago Services, which provided campus services for staff
and students, and imago @ Loughborough Ltd, which catered for commercial
conferences and events. She outlined the services and products which imago
offered and its main objectives. She noted how imago brought clear benefits to
the University, both financial and otherwise, and also to the local community
as a major local employer. She gave examples of how imago was responding to
customer wishes by expanding its services and by making services more
accessible to academic staff. A newly recruited Events Manager was now
available to support academics wishing to arrange conferences at the
University.
Ms
England was keen to find ways for the University and imago to work together to
benefit the University. She wanted to find out from departments what their
needs were and indicated that she would be happy to visit them to discuss their
particular requirements.
A member expressed an interest in imago providing short-term
accommodation for international visitors. Ms England agreed to provide them
with details of available options. ACTION:
KE
08/29 IT
Services Consultation: Change Priorities for 2009/10
SCI08-P15
Dr Phil
Richards, Director of IT Services, and Carys Thomas, Assistant Director of IT
Services, attended for this item.
Dr Richards provided details of IT
Services work which had been agreed for the next year and noted that there was
capacity to undertake additional work under the steer of stakeholders. He
invited views from the Board on their priorities for this additional work and noted
a number of ideas which had been put forward for 2009-10. Members were also invited
to reflect on how the LUSI programme could give greater benefit to academic
staff.
A number of members expressed
their personal preferences for project priorities and these were noted. It was
noted in particular that the proposal for a centralised timetabling and room
bookings facility was seen to be an institution-wide project and was currently
being considered by a number of committees. Dr Richards was encouraged to
support this initiative. ACTION: PR
The need for departments to be
able to generate APR and PPR reports via LUSI was noted. The introduction of
the reports would be of particular benefit to departmental administrators who
currently produced this information using a number of sources. Ms Thomas would check progress on the
development of these reports. ACTION: CT
Ms Thomas invited the small number of staff who were
experiencing difficulties with their email accounts to contact IT Services so
that their problems could be resolved.
It was noted that the IT Total Cost of Ownership exercise had been time
consuming but very worthwhile. It had provided the University with a basis to
work from in the future and given it greater knowledge of spending on IT which
would allow savings to be made. The exercise had demonstrated the need for
departments to code purchases appropriately so that similar reviews in the
future could be as effective as possible.
Dr Richards and
Ms Thomas were thanked for providing members with the opportunity to give their
views on priorities. They indicated that they would be continuing to refine
their requirement list, so members were encouraged to contact them about new priorities
as these emerged. ACTION: All
08/30 National
Student Survey
SCI08-P16
Caroline
Smith, Faculty Quality Enhancement Officer, attended for this item
Caroline Smith provided feedback from the National Student
Survey for departments in the Faculty. The data which had been made available
following the 2008 survey was more detailed than that which had been generated following
previous years’ surveys. The Faculty had achieved excellent results,
confirming that departments were providing a very good student experience. Nevertheless
it was noted that other universities were making much greater efforts to
achieve higher NSS scores and there was no room for departments to be
complacent.
08/31 Constitution
and Terms of Reference
Tabled Paper
NOTED
08/32 Dean’s
Report
The Dean
thanked the Director of the MEC, the SEFS Programme Director, Dr Steven Kenny
and the Faculty OLDO for their excellent reports (see 08/44-47).
i Director
of RSI: The Dean congratulated Professor Chung on his appointment as
Director of the Research School of Informatics.
ii Director
of MEC: Professor Croft was congratulated on receiving a National Teaching
Fellowship.
iii Staff
Survey: The results of the staff survey had been outstanding at University
level. The Dean and Faculty Personnel Advisor were in the process of discussing
results for each department within the Faculty with individual HODs. They would
be attending staff meetings in each department to understand the context of the
results and to find out what could be done to resolve issues identified by the
survey. They would also invite individuals to provide feedback in confidence
after the meetings.
iv Internationalisation:
A number of overseas visits were being planned by individuals in the Faculty.
Members were reminded that staff could bid for Faculty funding for 50 per cent
of the cost of recruitment-related initiatives.
v Promotion
to Senior Lecturer Criteria: The University had developed a common set of
principles to be applied in the consideration of applications for promotion to
senior lecturer. Faculties had been asked to devise their own criteria linked
to the principles. The Faculty’s criteria had yet to be agreed. Therefore
HRWG had agreed that the existing criteria would be used in the 2008/09
academic year.
vi Faculty
IT Representation: The Faculty Directorate had agreed to the appointment of
a 0.5 FTE to act as Faculty IT Coordinator. The position would be advertised
internally.
vii TRAC: The TRAC exercise
was continuing and was likely to influence how much the University received per
student for various cost centres. The exercise was likely to inform consideration
of vulnerable subjects.
viii Financial Climate: There would be a number of meetings in the New
Year to consider the impact of the global financial climate on the University.
08/33 Associate Dean’s
(Research) Report
Tabled Paper
In the absence of the Associate Dean (Research), the Dean
presented a report on his behalf.
i RAE/REF:
Staff within the Faculty had worked extremely hard to prepare returns for the 2008
RAE. The results were to be made public on 17 December. The format of the
Research Excellence Framework (REF), which would be the successor to the RAE,
had yet to be determined, though it was anticipated that the REF would make more
significant use of metrics.
ii Research
Grants: The Faculty’s performance in 2007/08 had been excellent and
needed to be repeated in future years. The new Faculty Research Support Officer
would be able to support staff in making grant applications.
iii Amendments to Research
Degree Regulations and Code of Practice on Research Degree Programmes:
SCI08-P17
Members considered proposed amendments to the Regulations for Higher Degrees by
Research and Notes for the Guidance of Research Students, Directors of
Research, Supervisors and Examiners. There was broad support for the proposed
amendments. However, a number of members were unhappy with the proposal to
remove the role of Director of Research as existing Directors of Research were
seen to be very effective in some departments, having taken on the role of
personal tutor for research students. It
was acknowledged that the role was currently ill defined, and it was believed
this had led to variation in responsibilities from department to department. It
was noted that the title itself could be misleading, as the director of a
student’s research was in fact their supervisor.
It was proposed that the terminology used in the new
regulations and code of practice should be checked to remove inconsistencies.
Members were invited to send additional comments to the
Secretary by the end of Monday 24 November. ACTION: All
iv PGR
Student Issues: The Faculty had recruited well at PGR level in Autumn 2008.
Departments were encouraged to continue actively recruiting at this level.
08/34 Associate
Dean’s (Teaching) Report
.1 Recruitment 2008:
SCI08-P18
Departments had been successful in recruiting undergraduate students and
had exceeded their UK/EU targets. A number had also exceeded their targets for
international undergraduate students. The postgraduate taught market had proven
more challenging, and both UK/EU and international targets had been more
difficult to meet.
Admissions Tutors, the Associate Dean (Teaching) and his secretary were
thanked for their excellent work in the 2007/08 session.
.2 Recruitment 2009:
Early application statistics were now available, but more reliable
figures would be released in the New Year. Undergraduate targets for 2009 had
been set, and postgraduate targets would be made available in due course.
Departments were encouraged to meet their 2009 targets.
Departments were encouraged to promote their postgraduate taught
programmes more proactively and were invited to make recruitment initiative
bids for funds to allow them to do so. Departments may wish to consider the introduction
of part-time versions of existing postgraduate taught programmes. ACTION: All
Departments were to be given their own SEFS allocation in future. The SEFS
Programme Director was congratulated on her successes since taking over the
role.
It was noted that departments were reviewing A level score requirements
for 2010 entry.
.3 Teaching Centre: The
Teaching Centre had been established on 1 August and would be charged with
enhancing support given to all levels of academic staff in their teaching.
08/35 Periodic
Programme Reviews
SCI08-P19
SCI08-P20
Faculty Board received copies of reports and responses for
PPRs which had taken place for the
08/36 Award of
Research Degrees
SCI08-P21
Faculty Board APPROVED the award of Higher Degrees to
candidates whose examinations had been conducted since the July meeting of
Senate.
08/37 Membership
SCI08-P22
Faculty Board NOTED its membership for the session 2008/2009.
08/38 Personal
Titles
Faculty Board NOTED
that the following members of the Faculty had been awarded personal titles
since the last meeting:
Dr Eran
Edirisinghe, Reader in Digital Imaging
Dr Paul
Kelly, Reader in Inorganic Chemistry
They were congratulated on these awards.
08/39 Programme
Proposals
.1 i It was NOTED that the following programme
proposal had been circulated to members for approval:
BSc
(DPS) Web Development and Design (from October 2009 intake)
ii It was NOTED that the Dean had taken
Chair’s action to approve the following programme proposal:
MSc Research in Analytical Chemistry (from
October 2008 intake) Learning and
Teaching Committee had approved both proposals.
.2 It was NOTED that Learning and
Teaching Committee had approved the following programme proposals:
i New
programmes
MSc Information Management and Business Technology (from October 2008
intake)
ii Major
Changes
BSc Financial Mathematics (from October 2008 intake)
MSc Mathematical Processes in Finance (from October 2008 intake)
08/40 Associate Dean
(Teaching): Actions between meetings
It was NOTED that the Associate Dean (Teaching) had taken
action between meetings as detailed in the agenda.
08/41 External
Examiners’ Reports
It was NOTED that reports of External Examiners, and
departmental responses, had been deposited with the Secretary, and were
available for consultation on request.
08/42 Staff-Student Committees
It was NOTED that reports of Staff-Student Committee
meetings had been deposited with the Secretary as detailed in the agenda.
08/43 Chair’s Action:
Appointment of Prize Assessors
It was NOTED that the Dean had taken Chair’s Action to
approve Prize Assessors for the Faculty.
08/44 Mathematics
Education Centre
SCI08-P23
A report from the Director of the MEC was NOTED.
08/45 SEFS
SCI08-P24
A report from the SEFS Programme Director was NOTED.
08/46 Faculty IT Support
SCI08-P25
A report from Dr Steven
Kenny was NOTED.
08/47 On Line Learning Development Officer Report
SCI08-P26
A report from the Faculty OLDO was NOTED. It was agreed that
the new Director of e-learning,
Charles Shields, should be invited to give a presentation at a future meeting
of the Board. ACTION: MA
08/48 Prizes
SCI08-P27
University prizes awarded to students within the Faculty in
2007/08 were NOTED
08/49 Date
of Next Meeting
2.15pm Thursday 21 May 2009.
M Ashby
November 2008
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