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Faculty of Education

October 2009 'ED NEWS'

22 October 2009 — Correction from the Dean:
I apologise for my confusion with regard to the special education program which has gained VIT approval to which I referred in the last newsletter. The program I mentioned is merely at the possibility stage and needs much further investigation and discussion. However, VIT approval has been gained for an 8 subject sequence in the Bachelor of Education that will enable graduates to have two specialist areas - Generalist Primary and Special Education. It is the only 4 year undergraduate course in Victoria that allows this double specialisation.

Congratulations and thanks to staff

This is the first newsletter for a little while as times have been rather hectic with budget preparations, strategic initiatives submissions and statements of strategic intent as well as the many curriculum initiatives which are afoot across the University at this stage. However, I will endeavour to provide some insights into some of the big picture issues which impact on the Faculty and the University at the moment as I know that your Academic Directors have been keeping you abreast of the staff news and successes in research grants and other achievements. Congratulations to all staff who have succeeded in gaining ALTC grants, Faculty grants, and other awards and prizes. Many thanks also to all of you who have worked tirelessly this year to keep students engaged and satisfied with their experience in their various courses. As you know we have exceeded our target student numbers in Commonwealth Supported Places significantly this year and this has contributed to the growth of the University and has also strengthened the position of the Faculty as we move into a less certain era in 2012. Local fee paying post graduate student numbers are below target and this is an area of challenge for the Faculty in the future. Currently there is much effort occurring across the Faculty to review and renew postgraduate coursework programs and to revitalise them and rationalise them into a more coherent and comprehensible suite of programs which potentially positions us well for a deregulated "market forces" world of universities in 2012.

Budget and strategic initiatives

The budget is to be presented this week at a forum where all Faculties and divisions will set out their budget plans and also submit their statements of strategic intent. The latter are initiatives which, as a Faculty, we see as imperative in the next 3 years but which in the normal operating budget, the Faculty would not be able to achieve. The University will then prioritise the various bids and we will be informed of which of the initiatives we are able to pursue in the next three years. The initiatives for this Faculty revolve around three main principles: growth; capacity building and succession planning. This Faculty, like many other education faculties, has been through a long period of casualisation which has left us with some significant gaps in ongoing staffing especially at the senior levels and with regard to research and supervision. The strategic initiatives we seek to pursue involve strengthening the staffing profile and capacity and renewing and revitalising our curriculum, our course offerings and our research income and outputs. Some of this relies upon infrastructure to support such initiatives and this is also included in the submission to be put to the university.

Staffing appointments

Already, however, we have made some recent staffing appointments which are in various stages of being progressed through the University and other positions are either under advertisement or about to be advertised. It is clear that the field of teacher educators is very competitive at this time as the number of advertised positions even over the past two weeks has been great. The next two years are likely to be the most important we have experienced, perhaps ever, and certainly in the life of this Faculty as it currently exists. With a post Bradley era of university compacts whereby distinctive missions are articulated to the government by each university and funding is competitively sought to support those missions, we are charged with demonstrating what it is that makes us distinctive so that we are able to attract students and funds to continue. All funds whether for teaching and learning or for research will be contestable and will be based upon performance measures which are employed across the sector.

New courses

Several new courses are currently being developed to attempt to provide for the specific needs of the communities that we serve in our various campuses and to renew our suite of programs. As mentioned in the previous newsletter, a new undergraduate course is to be offered at the Bundoora campus from 2011. This is a Bachelor of Outreach and Community Education and a course development group consisting of internal and external members is currently putting together the basic structure and content of this program so that it can be advertised in the VTAC guide by April 2010. This is an exciting and challenging initiative and during next year preparations for this course will be intensively undertaken. At Bendigo there will also be a new course offered which is a Bachelor of Arts/Master of Special Education course. This has gained VIT accreditation and has involved a great deal of planning; those involved are to be congratulated on gaining accreditation for this program and on conceptualising this course. At Albury-Wodonga the Graduate Diploma in Education (P-12) will by replaced by a Master of Teaching (P-12) from the start of 2010, and again an immense amount of work has occurred in getting this program to the VIT accreditation stage and congratulations to all involved there as well. This program will be an accelerated program which will result in 18 months of intensive study across 6 terms and will provide graduates with a 5 year masters qualification and the ability to teach P-12. There are several other pre-service programs which are in process of re-accreditation and that has constituted a significant workload for many staff and to all who have so intensively worked to get those programs and the documentation to the re-accreditation stage, sincere thanks and congratulations are due.

Research activity

In the area of research we still await further details of the Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) activity which will see research income, outputs, impact and other performance indicators measured and quantified with resulting funding attributed (or not) as may be the case. The University has defined its broad areas of strength and researchers within this Faculty fit within several of these broad areas across the University. The designated research strengths for the University are: Agribiosciences and Environment; Health and Society; Human Behaviour and Thought; Human Communication; Human Society and Organisation; Molecular Science; Studies of the Past. Our efforts in the next few years are to be geared towards ensuring that our research is strategically aligned with these areas of University research strength as these are the only likely areas which will attract regular and significant funding into the future. Another challenge that we face is to increase our research supervision capacity so that we are able to enrol more research students in a broader range of topic areas. In the statements of strategic intent a bid has been made to recruit several senior staff with excellent track records who can boost our capacity and also provide for further research income success into the future. It is very pleasing to note that staff within the Faculty have increased their publications outputs significantly over the last few years and that there is a buzz of excitement in the Faculty for writing and engaging in research. This also provides us with an encouraging future as our early career researchers gain momentum and build up their profiles and research records.

University Workload Model

The Vice Chancellor is about to hold meetings across the University to explain and discuss the new University wide workload model on which work has been proceeding for some months and is moving into the next phase and towards more widespread discussion. When these meetings are held, I encourage all staff to attend and to engage with these discussions so that the model is one which has been widely canvassed and into which as many staff as possible have had input. It is expected that this model will be implemented from 2011. Key objectives for the La Trobe Workload Management System (WMS):

• Allows transparency across the different areas of the University
• Is fair and reasonable - perceived as equitable
• Provides consistency across the Faculties
• Consistent with the performance appraisal process
• Promotes alignment between University strategy and staff activities
• Reduces the administrative burden

I plan to produce one further Newsletter towards the end of the year and hope to be able to provide more detail regarding some of the activities I have outlined in this Newsletter along with more details of plans for 2010.