Faculty of Social Sciences
and Humanities
Faculty Board
SSH06-M2
Minutes
The
Minutes of Meetings of the Faculty Board are posted on the Web for three years
after the relevant date.
Minutes of the Meeting of the Faculty Board held on Tuesday 14
November 2006.
Members: Professor Dave Allen (Chair), Professor Barbara Bagilhole,
Professor Jon Beaverstock, Professor Stuart Biddle, Dr Paul Byrne, Dr Ian
Campbell, Dr Alastair Cheyne, John Costello (ab),
Dr Oliver
Daddow (ab), Professor Ian Davidson, Dr Clive Edwards, Huw Edwards (ab),
Johnny
Hardstaff, Tony Hodgson, Dr Dennis Howitt, Dr Phil Hubbard (ab), Professor
Terry Kavanagh (ab), Professor Malcolm King, Dr Moya Lloyd (ab), Professor Joseph
Maguire, Robert Marshall (student representative) (ab), Peter Maunder, Dr Kate
Moss-Brookes (ab), Graham Murdock (ab), Professor Shirley Pearce (ab), Nick
Rodgers (ab), Phil Sawdon, Professor Dennis Smith,
Dr Chris Spray, Dr David Stensel (ab), Ruth Stubbings, Dr
Neal Swettenham (ab), Kerry Walton (ab), Dr Paul Wood
Apologies for absence: John Costello, Dr Oliver Daddow, Dr Phil Hubbard,
Professor
Terry Kavanagh, Dr Moya Lloyd, Dr Kate Moss-Brookes, Nick Rodgers, Dr David
Stensel,
Neil Swettenham, Kerry Walton
In attendance: Jo Arno, (Faculty
Personnel Advisor), Sally McKinley (Secretary)
12. Minutes SSH06-M1
The Minutes
of the Meeting of the Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty Board, held on 23 May
2006, were CONFIRMED.
Reports from the Dean and Associate
Deans
13. Constitution
and Terms of Reference of the Faculty Board (SSH06-P19, SSH06-P19a)
The Board
RECEIVED the constitution and powers of the Faculty Board and a briefing note
for new Faculty Board members.
14. Faculty
Business for 2006/07
The Board AGREED
that the main Faculty business agenda item for 2006/07 would be the drive for
serious discussion about the University’s Corporate Plan and Strategy
2006-2016. In addition, the Board would
be considering the draft Estates Strategy particularly with regard to the
development of East and
15. Reports from the Dean and Associate Deans
15.1 Acting Dean’s Report (on behalf of
the Dean)
i. Faculty Masters
NOTED: Following on from the establishment of the
ii. Structure of the
University
NOTED: Papers on the structure of the University and
the role of Faculties had been circulated at the Senate away day but there had
been no further comment in the University’s strategy document. New subjects such as the introduction of
history, law and architecture would be commented on in Departmental Development
Plans. Following senior management
discussions about forming a
ACTION: Acting Dean
(iii) Reward Review
NOTED: No Reward Review, other than for
the award of lump sums, had taken place between Faculty Board meetings. The
next Reward Review would take place on 12 December 2006.
15.2 The Associate Dean
(Research) (SSH06-P20)
(i)
NOTED:
A
ACTION: Assistant Dean (Research)
(ii) Senate and Council Reports
NOTED: The new Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) had requested an increase
in research reports from departments for reporting to Senate and Council. Heads of Departments should be encouraged to
submit two or three excellent items of research from their departments and
provide the AD(R) with a paragraph on each item for publication purposes.
ACTION: Heads of Department
(iii) New Research Newsletter
NOTED: The Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) would be producing a
University-wide research newsletter.
(iv) RAE
NOTED: RAE5s would be submitted to the
Research Performance Monitoring Group at the end of the month. The departments’ perspective
on how they produced RAE5s were interesting and varied and the Board
agreed it would be useful if the information were circulated to colleagues. The suggestion would be articulated to the
Dean. The Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research)
wanted to remind Departments that staff returnability was not the same as the
return that will go to the unit of assessment.
ACTION: Assistant Dean (Research)
15.3 The
Associate Dean (Teaching) (SSH06-P21)
(i) Recruitment
NOTED:
University recruitment had dropped back to 2004 levels but the Faculty
had recruited to quota and continued to account for a majority of home
undergraduate intake (c.53%) of the University total. International undergraduate recruitment had
achieved an intake of 347 against a target of 331. Congratulations were extended to admissions
staff in schools/departments for maintaining entry standards and intake in what
had been a relatively difficult year across the sector. Home postgraduate taught figures had fallen
short of target (206 intake against a target of 267)
but international postgraduate taught numbers had done well (472 intake against
a target of 46). Recruitment from
(ii) Introduction
of new subject areas
NOTED: The Head of Admissions, Howard Jones, had pointed out that
in order to sustain the quality of programmes on offer,
the University should be looking to introduce new subjects and programmes. The Board suggested that there was some scope
also in re-packaging some of the existing programmes.
(iii) National
Student Survey
NOTED: The University had again excelled in the National
Student Survey having been placed 6th overall in the league table. Faculty-wide results had been excellent. There had been some fall-off in the area of
assessment and feedback and schools/departments were encouraged to ensure that
their students were fully aware of the feedback on offer – this would be
reinforced by the proposed introduction of a separate field on feedback in
module specifications in the future.
Amongst other improvements, it was likely that from 2007/2008 exam only
modules would be providing generic feedback.
The Board were reminded that National
Student Survey results should be given careful consideration by relevant bodies
within departments and that students should be
informed of the outcomes.
ACTION: Assistant Dean (Teaching)
16. Periodic Programme Reviews (SSH06-P22,
P23)
The Board RECEIVED the periodic programme review reports
from the Departments of Geography and English and Drama and considered their
responses.
NOTED: Very positive responses had been received from examiners and
students alike. Both departments were
offering good learning environments, retainment and assessments. Identified contributions in the PPRs useful
to other departments included methods of induction in the Department of
Geography and Drama and an impressive marking scheme of fixed points on an
assessment scale with a thorough marking criteria from the Department of
Geography.
The Department of Geography had welcomed the chance to
reflect on good practice. The PPR had
enabled the department to think about progression and borderline students, the
importance of fieldwork with respect to cost to the student and the
maximisation of the student experience.
It had also looked critically at the way forward to more vocational
aspects of provision in postgraduate taught programmes. Thanks were extended to Jo Bullard, Rachel
Breen and Marie Kennedy for their hard work and contributions.
The English and Drama Department was now in a more positive situation
and this was reflected in students’ feedback. The English and Drama Department had been placed second in
the National Student Survey. Thanks were
extended to the Departmental Administrator and Brian Jarvis for their stalwart
work. A major capital bid had been put
to Operational Sub-Committee with regards to safety in the department.
17. Award of degrees (tabled)
APPROVED:
The award of Higher Degrees to candidates whose examinations had been
conducted since the last meeting of Senate.
18. University’s Corporate Strategy
2006-2016 (electronically
circulated prior to the meeting)
CONSIDERED: The draft Corporate Strategy document for 2006-2016 for
feedback to the Strategic Review Working Group.
COMMENTED: From the Board:
(i)
As
the largest Faculty, it was felt Social Sciences and Humanities was poorly
represented. Reference had been made to
Humanities but not Social Science and Humanities. There was favourable mention of the
(ii)
The
implications of the University’s ethos needed to be spelt out and more
emphasis should be placed on the University’s academic strengths and on
the student experience and how it might be further enhanced. The document as a whole did not give a
flavour of the University’s core intellectual academic mission and
the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities should take a lead in this area.
(iii)
The
Internationalisation strategy was not very well articulated with poor
measurable objectives eg ‘sport is in the top 5’. As a top-class ‘provider’ for
international and European students it was essential that a physical social
interaction space was made available and that the University was more explicit in its international vision
(iv)
The
document needed to spell out that the University was already a first class
sports university and that the mission was now to bring the quality of Arts
provision (as broadly defined as possible) up to a similar standard. The tone was skewed too much towards elite
sports and could be viewed as drifting into a sports industrial complex which
could undermine the academic excellence of the subject. There was an over
emphasis on sport as a whole in the document – for instance there was a
sharp contrast between the space devoted to sport and to the arts in the relevant
section of the draft report.
(v)
The
strategy was too conservative in its financial planning to enable the
University to aspire as a first class university with a first class
infrastructure. There was a feeling that
the University came over as being parochial and not particularly proud of what
it had already achieved and what it expected to do in the future.
(vi)
Although
the University was known for its excellent teaching and learning facilities, no
mention was made of further investment in teaching facilities. No mention was made of the fact that the
teaching quality had been maintained and developed by the Faculty structure.
(vii)
The
Equal Opportunities agenda was missing and some of the wording of the document
was inappropriate such as p.7 ‘respect and take advantage (?) of
our differences’ and p.14 ‘this means that we value diversity and
aim to exploit that diversity (?)’
AGREED:
That the draft Corporate Strategy Plan would benefit from further
iterations and that something bolder was required. As a way forward more information from senior
management on future plans for University finances and structure would enable better
informed debates to be held.
19. Associate Dean (Teaching) Action
The
Board RATIFIED the actions taken by the Associate Dean (Teaching) in approving
the following:
i. Waivers
of Programme Regulations
ii. Appointment
of Programme Boards
iii. Credit Transfers
Further details of the actions were
available from the Faculty Board Secretary upon request.
20. Appointment
of Examiners of the University, External Examiners and External Programme
Assessors
The Board NOTED
that details of appointments made by the AD(T) were
available from the Faculty Board secretary on request.
21. External
Examiner Reports
The Board NOTED
that reports of External Examiner’s had been deposited with the Faculty
Board Secretary and were available for consultation on request.
22. Personal
Titles
The Board NOTED the award of personal
titles and offered the Faculty’s congratulations:
Professor A France
(Professor of Social Policy Research, Department of Social Sciences, with
effect from 25 September 2006)
Professor P
Loucopoulos (Professor of Information Systems,
23. Curriculum
Sub-Committee
23.1 Changes
to Programme Title/Awards
The Board NOTED that Curriculum Sub-Committee will be recommending the
following proposed programme title changes to Learning and Teaching Committee,
prior to their meeting on 9 November 2006 (effective date shown in brackets):
MSc
Physical Education to MSc Physical
Education and Sport Pedagogy (September
2007 entry)
MSc/PGDip/PGCert
Social Research (Social Science) to MRes
Social Sciences Research PGDip/PGCert Advanced Studies in Social Sciences
Research (September 2006 entry)
PGCert Management (Sports Industries Federation) to PGCert Management (Federation of
Sports and Play Associates) (September 2006 entry)
23.2 Major Changes to Programmes
The
Board NOTED that Curriculum Sub-Committee will be recommending to the Chair of
Learning and Teaching Committee changes to the following programmes (effective
date shown in brackets):
MA Art &
Design (Studio Practice) (possibility of project module being undertaken in
Loughborough or
BA Fine Art
(introduction of DIntS from 2007-08)
23.3 Discontinuation
of Programmes
The Board NOTED that Curriculum Sub-Committee will be recommending to
Learning and Teaching Committee prior to their meeting on 9 November 2006 to
discontinue the following programmes (proposed date of last intake shown in
brackets):
MSc/PGDip/PGCert Security Management (
24. Staff/Student Committees
The Board NOTED
that reports of the Staff/Student Committee meetings had been deposited with
the Faculty Board Secretary as follows:
Department of Geography 10 May
2006
Postgraduate
Diploma in Management:
(Thomas
Cook) 17
May 2006
Department
of Social Sciences (Undergraduate) 10
May 2006
Department
of English and Drama 17
May, 18 & 25 October 2006
in Management 20
September 2006
25. Prizes (SSH06-P24)
The Board NOTED the
winners of the Sir Robert Martin Faculty (SSH) Prize 2005/06.
26. Membership (SSH06-P25)
The
Board NOTED the membership of the Faculty Board for the session 2006-2007.
27. Representation on Other Bodies (SSH06-P26)
The Board NOTED the representation of the
Faculty on other bodies.
28. Date
of Next Meeting
The
next Faculty Board meeting will take place prior to a Directorate meeting on
Tuesday 22 May 2007.
Author
– Ms S J McKinley
November 2006
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