UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
Board of the Faculty of Arts
Minutes of the meeting of the Board of the Faculty of Arts held on Monday 19 May 2014.
Present:Professor S Swain (Chair), Dr C Bilton, Dr J Burns, Professor K Butcher, Ms J Cooper, Dr D Fearn, Dr P-P Fraiture, Professor E Gallafent, Dr J Garde-Hansen, Dr J Gilmore, Professor N Hewlett, Professor N Holdsworth, Dr K Hooper, Mr M Hulse, Dr C Jenainati, Dr R King, Professor Marie Luddy, Mrs T Mackinnon, Professor A Menezes, Dr P Mukherjee, Professor A Reeve, Dr B Roeder, Professor P Scott, Mr E Stewart, Mr A Thompson.
Apologies:Dr R Bivins, Dr R Fagge, Professor S Gilson, Professor S Hand, Dr D Lambert, Dr J Lee, Dr D Lines, Miss K Moozova, Dr H Schmitz, Professor P Smith, Dr T White.
In attendance:Mr R Ball (Item 5), Ms Y Budden (Item 5), Ms C Cadman, Ms R Cooper, Professor M Freely, Dr J Gardner (Item 8), Ms M Khan (Secretary), Dr Lewycky, Dr D Morley, Dr L Perrin, Professor M Philp (Item 6), Dr P Roberts, Ms J Sharp, Ms S Tuersley, Professor L Young (Item 8).
Part 1: Items for discussion/consideration
32/13-14Minutes
CONSIDERED:
The minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 12 February 2014.
RESOLVED:
The minutes of the meeting of the Board held on 12 February 2014 be approved.
33/13-14Membership and elections
(a)Appointment of the Chair of the Faculty of Arts
CONSIDERED:
A brief report from the Registrar to be read at the meeting as to the recommendation of the Vice-Chancellor for the appointment of the Chair of the Faculty.
RESOLVED:
That the recommendation from the Vice Chancellor that Professor Maureen Freely be appointed Chair of the Faculty of Arts, for the academic year 2014-15, be approved.
(b)Board of the Faculty of Arts and its sub-committees
REPORTED:
(i)The new Deputy Chair will be agreed with the new Faculty Chair.
CONSIDERED:
(ii)Nominations to the Board of the Faculty of Arts and its sub-committees for the academic year 2014/15 (paper BFA.17/13-14);
RESOLVED:
(A)That the nominations to the Board of the Faculty of Arts and its Sub-Committees for the 2014/15 academic year, as set out in paper BFA.17/13-14, be approved;
(B)That Departments would submit any outstanding nominations to the Secretariat by 27 June 2014 at the latest;
(C)That the Chair of the Board approve any outstanding appointments on behalf of the Board.
(c)University-level committees
CONSIDERED:
Nominations on appointments for individuals to represent the Faculty on University committees for the academic year 2014/15(paper BFA.18/13-14);
RESOLVED:
(i)That the nominations University Committees for the Faculty of Arts for the 2014/15 academic year, as set out in paper BFA.18/13-14, be approved;
(ii)That Departments would submit any outstanding nominations to the Secretariat by 27 June 2014 at the latest.
(d)Election of Board Members to the Senate
REPORTED:
(i)That the Senate has six places for representative members of the Board of the Faculty of Arts appointed by the Board and that continuing representatives (with their term of appointment in brackets) are as follows:
Dr C Constable (Film & Television Studies) (2015)
Professor Alison Menezes (Hispanic Studies) (2016)
Professor Stephen Shapiro (English and Comparative Literary Studies) (2016)
(ii)That there are three vacancies on Senate for representative members of the Board of the Faculty of Arts for the period 1 August 2014 to 31 July 2017 arising from the end of the term of office of Professor S Gilson, Professor N Hewlett and Professor M Luddy, and that nominations from the Board for replacement members were requested by email on 24April 2014 to be submitted by 12 May 2014;
(iii)That, in accordance with University regulations, the majority of the six Faculty representatives must be Professors and the majority must be Heads of Departments.
CONSIDERED:
In accordance with University Regulation 2.2, the election of three members of the Senate from the membership of the Board of the Faculty of Arts for 2013/14 to serve for the period 1 August 2014 to 31 July 2017.
RESOLVED:
(A)That, in accordance with University Regulation 2.2, Professor Daniel Branch (Department of History), Professor David Morley (English and ComparativeStudies) and the new Head of the School of Modern Languages be elected as members of the Senate to represent the Faculty of Arts to serve for the period 1 August 2014 to 21 July 2017;
(B)That the Chair of the Board of Faculty of Arts would communicate to Board members the appointment of the new Head of the School of Modern Languages.
RECOMMENDED: (to Senate)
(C)That Professor Daniel Branch (Department of History), Professor David Morley (English and Comparative Studies) and the new Head of the School of Modern Languages be elected as members of the Senate to represent the Faculty of Arts to serve for the period 1 August 2014 to 21 July 2017.
(e)First Year Board of Examiners 2012/13
(i)Membership of the First Year Board of Examiners
RECEIVED:
Departmental membership of the First Year Board of Examiners for the Faculty of Arts for the academic year 2013/14 for meetings in June and September 2014 (paper BFA.19/13-14(revised)).
RECOMMENDED: (to Senate)
That the membership of the First Year Board of Examiners for the Faculty of Arts for the academic year 2013/14 as described in paper BFA.19/13-14(revised) be approved.
(ii)Examination Guidelines for the First Year Board of Examiners
RECEIVED:
The guidelines for the First Year Board of Examiners of the Faculty of Arts (papers BFA.4/06-07 and BFA.30/13-14).
34/13-14Matters Arising
(a)Faculty of Arts Doctoral Training Centre (CADRE)
RECEIVED:
An oral report from the incoming Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee of the Board of the Faculty of Arts.
REPORTED:
(i)An administratorhad been appointment and would be in post in June 2014;
(ii)That the Director of CADRE would be engaging with departments during the summer months to establish what their requirements would be from the Centre.
(by the Chair):
(iii)That the CADRE would be very important to the Faculty and thanked Dr P Roberts and Professor N Holdsworth for their contributions throughout the process;
(iv)That there would be an amalgamation of the CADRE management board and the Arts Graduate Studies Committee of the Board of the Faculty of Arts and this would be determined over the summer months.
(b)The Liberal Arts Degree
RECEIVED:
An oral report from the Chair of the Undergraduate Studies Committee of the Board of the Faculty of Arts.
REPORTED: (by the Chair)
(i)That Dr C Jenainati had been appointed Director of the Liberal Arts degree programme with effect from 1 August 2014;
(ii) That the degree was part of the draft goal one in the University’s Strategy Consultation document.
(by the Chair of the Undergraduate Studies Committee):
(iii)That the support and feedback received from the Faculty had been overwhelmingly positive;
(iv)That the market research questionnaire would be formulatedwith the market research company YouthSight;
(v)That continued feedback would be sought from departments.
(c)The School of Modern Languages
RECEIVED:
An oral report from the Chair of the Faculty of Arts.
REPORTED: (by the Chair)
(i)That theSchool would exist as an entity from 1 August 2014;
(ii)That staff and students had been consulted throughout the process and thanked everyone for their contributions;
(iii)That the nominations process for the Head of School had been completed and a consultation process was underway;
(iv)That the decision on the appointment of the Head of School would be made by the Vice-Chancellor’s Committee for the Appointment of Heads of Department.
35/13-14Chair’s Business
RECEIVED:
An oral report from the Chair on the following:
(a)New Faculty-related appointments
(i)That Ms Mia Khan would be the new Secretariat for the Board of the Faculty of Arts and its Sub-Committees and would support the Chair of the Faculty on faculty-wide projects and initiatives;
(ii)That Ms Sharon Tuersley would provide strategic project-related support to the Faculty in the newly created role within the University’s Strategy & Change section;
(iii)That Ms Claire Cadman and Ms Jennifer Sharp would be the new Assistant Secretaries to the Arts Undergraduate Studies Committee and Arts Graduates Studies Committee respectively;
(iv)That Ms Zara Hooley had been appointedadministrator for the CADRE and would be in post from 23 June 2014;
(v)That the Faculty was appreciative of the support provided from Ms R Cooper and Mr M Mik within the Teaching Quality team during the interim period of replacement of the new Secretariat to the Faculty and its Sub-Committees.
(b) An Arts Faculty end of term function (proposed date 26 June 2014, 4.30pm, Venue to be confirmed)
RESOLVED:
That the proposed date and time of the Arts Faculty end of term function be confirmed.
(c)Request for names of SSLC Academic Convenors for 2014/15
REPORTED:
(i)That the Student Engagement Working Group has discussed the importance of early notification of names of Academic Convenors for SSLCs;
(ii)That the names of the Academic Convenors for 2014/15 must be sent to the Students’ Union by Friday 27 June at the latest;
(by Dr C Jenainati):
(iii)That the names of SSLC convenors was being communicated to the Students’ Union and would remind departments to notify the Students’ Union of their Academic Convenors for SSLCs.
(d)Gender equality charter mark
REPORTED:
(i)That the gender equality charter mark aimed to address gender inequalities and imbalance in the arts, humanities and social sciences, in particular the underrepresentation of women in senior roles;
(ii)That the Warwick Business School had been involved in the trial awards round and had submitted an application in April 2014;
(iii)That a formal launch of the charter mark would be in October 2014.
RESOLVED:
(iv)That the new Chair of the Faculty and the Secretariat would set up a Faculty Working Group with representation from departments to explore the requirements of the gender equality charter mark.
(e)Reflection on Faculty developments
REPORTED:
(i) That the Teaching Review and subsequent Faculty Engagement review in 2011/ 2012 had promoted a greater sense of cohesion across the Faculty and acted as a springboard to the development of the BA in Liberal Arts;
(ii)That there had been significant development of the Faculty’s teaching and research provision in Modern Languages through the establishment of Hispanic Studies;
(iii)That the establishment of the Sub-Faculty of Modern Languages had seen the inclusion of the Language Centre in the Faculty of Arts for the first time;
(iv)That languages would be further strengthened through the creation of a School of Modern Languages & Cultures from 1 August 2014;
(v) That teaching and training at doctoral level would be greatly enhanced by the new Doctoral Training Centre for the Faculty of Arts, Centre for Arts Doctoral Research Excellence from 1 August 2014;
(vi) That the University, endorsed by Council, had committed in its Five Year Plan to the building of a new Humanities Building based on principles of community and collaboration to start 2017;
(vii) That significant improvements had been made to the current Humanities Building: refurbishment of H0.42 for the use of graduate students and faculty events, renovation of H4.54 as a bookable meeting room, faculty-funded provision of wifi throughout Humanities and plans to ensure the same provision for Arts departments in Millburn House;
(viii) That significant work had been undertaken to develop public engagement and branding activity for the Faculty including a major revision of faculty and departmental websites to enhance recruitment and communicate the Faculty’s high-quality research;
(ix) That two academic technologist posts had been won for the Faculty to improve understanding and use of digital humanities tools in teaching and research;
(x) That the Faculty had made a highly successful submission to REF 2014;
(xi) That the Faculty’s research income stood at a record level;
(xii) That the Chair of the Faculty was especially grateful to the many people who had contributed significantly to the development of the Faculty during the past three years including Professor Catherine Bates, Dr Chris Bilton, Professor Stuart Croft, Ms Kerry Drakeley, Professor Rebecca Earle, Professor Simon Gilson, Professor Nadine Holdsworth, Dr Cathia Jenainati, Ms Katie Klaassen, Dr Nadine Lewycky, Professor Maria Luddy, Professor Jan Palmowski, Dr Liese Perrin, Dr Penny Roberts, Ms Amber Thomas, the Teaching Quality Team and sub-committees and board secretaries.
36/13-14Open Access for REF 2020
RECEIVED:
An oral report from the University Librarian on the implications of recent announcements from HEFCE regarding open access for REF 2020 (paper BFA.25/13-14).
REPORTED: (by the Secretariat)
That the presentation slides from the University Librarian would be circulated to Board members for onward distribution to their departments (paper BFA.28/13-14).
37/13-14University Research Centres
CONSIDERED:
A proposal from the Research Committee to establish four new University Research Centresas set out in paper BFA.26/13-14(revised):
a)European History Research Centre;
b)Warwick Environmental Systems Interdisciplinary Centre (WES IC)
RECEIVED:
An oral report from Professor M Philp, Department of History, on the proposal to establish the European History Research Centre.
REPORTED: (by Professor M Philp)
(a)That the European History Research Centre would be set up within the Department of History to undertake interdisciplinary and collaborative research;
(b)That some start-up funding had been obtained and this would be used to build collaborations, undertake research that had impact and fund workshops;
RECOMMENDED: (to the Research Committee)
(c)That the European History Research Centre and the Warwick Environmental Systems Interdisciplinary Centre (WES IC)proposals be approved.
38/13-14WP Update
CONSIDERED:
A paper from the Administrative Officer, Widening Participation, on progress to date in the Faculty of Arts with the Widening Participation agenda (paper BFA.20/13-14).
REPORTED: (by the Chair)
That Ms L Evans, WP Link Officer, be thanked for the support provided to the Faculty.
39/13-14The Teaching and Learning Building
RECEIVED:
An oral report from the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Planning and Resources) and the Senior Assistant Registrar (Space Management and Timetabling) on the Teaching and Learning Building.
REPORTED: (by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Planning and Resources))
(a)That the proposed building would cost £15 million and be located on the Tocil field site;
(b)That the building would include a 500 seaterlecture theatre, with the possibility of being divided into smaller spaces;
(c)That the building was a strategic priority for the University and would need to be in place for use by academic year 2015/16;
(d)That details would be sent out before plans were finalised;
RECOMMENDED: (toPro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Planning and Resources) and the Senior Assistant Registrar (Space Management and Timetabling)
(e)That the new building should encompass a mixture of large and small teaching spaces;
(f)That some departments within the Faculty are moving away from large group teaching to small seminar teaching and the new building should include multiple spaces to deliver varied teaching styles;
(g)That technological future proofing of the building was taken into account to ensure that the building did not become unable to support new and innovative ways of delivery learning and teaching;
(h)That the design of the new building should be ‘green’ and ecological;
(i)That the building should be accessible to book for academic-related events;
(j)That the consultation process should include all Departments;
RESOLVED:
(k)That any further comments should be sent to the Chair for collation.
40/13-14Marketing Communications Update
(a)Webpages
RECEIVED:
An oral report from the Arts Impact Officer on current developments with the Faculty of Arts and Departmental webpages.
REPORTED: (by the Arts Impact Officer)
(i)That the Faculty webpages were almost complete;
(ii)That the CADRE webpages would be launched in summer 2014;
(iii)That the second phase of website developments would involve the staff profile pages and to create a more coherent and unified layout across all departments;
(iv)That direction on content and layout of staff pages would be sought from Mr J Bell (SARO) and all staff profiles would be moved to the new layout by the end of summer 2014;
(b)Marketing Meeting
RECEIVED:
An oral report from the Arts Impact Officer.
(i)That a meeting was held with the University’s marketing team to obtain guidance on branding for the Faculty of Arts;
(ii)That the Faculty would need to draft the key messages it wanted to promote;
(iii)That a meeting with the new and continuing Heads of Departments, undergraduate directors/admissions would be held to brainstorm ideas and themes for the Faculty;
(iv)That a Faculty Public Engagement and Impact Working Group had been set up to facilitate the process of creating an image, brand and marketing the Faculty internally and externally.
41/13-14Student Representatives’ Issues
RECEIVED:
Oral reports from the Faculty of Arts Undergraduate and Postgraduate student Representatives.
REPORTED: (by the PG Student Representative)
(a)That a new Postgraduate Employment Charter had been launched by the NUS and UCU;
(b)That the Students’ Union would support the Postgraduate Employment Charter and would ask the University for open support of the Charter.
42/13-14Arts Undergraduate Studies Committee
REPORTED:
That the unconfirmed minutes of the meeting of the Undergraduate Studies Committee of the Board of the Faculty of Arts held on 14 May 2014 (paper BFA.21/13-14).
RECEIVED:
An oral report from the Chair of the Undergraduate Studies Committee of the Faculty.
REPORTED: (by the Chair of the Undergraduate Studies Committee of the Faculty)
(a)That there would be new guidelines for the First Year Board of Examiners, applicable to students who commenced their course of study in September 2013 or later and all departments had been informed;
(b)That, following the QAA Institutional Review, all External Examiner reports would need to be circulated to SSLCs from the current academic year 2013/14;
(c)That three departments had moved to anonymised exam grids at departmental exam board meetings and this would be discussed at the next meeting of the Faculty of Arts Undergraduate Studies Committee;
(d)That no student representative attended any of the meetings in the academic year 2013/14 and the representatives for the 2014/15 academic year would be encouraged to attend the meetings.
(by the Chair)
(e)That the Chair and members of theUndergraduate Studies Committee of the Board of the Faculty of Arts be thanked for their efforts during the 2013/14 academic year.