Steady as she goes
By Heather McEwen
Professor John Hosking, the new Dean and Director of the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science, had his first opportunity to address the College as a whole at the College Staff Forum on 31 January 2012.
He took the opportunity to thank Alistair Rendell, Interim Dean, on a personal and professional level for the difficult task of steering the College during what was a fairly lengthy captaincy, and the College joined him in a vote of thanks.
Professor Hosking remarked that he felt welcomed into a vibrant College with committed staff and students, thanking three graduate students for their outstanding contribution to outreach to develop a high school tool to demonstrate the role of IT in the environment. Torben Sko, James Sheridan and Ben Swift were presented with certificates and gifts to acknowledge their achievements.
Professor Hosking also commented on the recent ANU staff survey in the context of how the College responses compared with the University as a whole, and then focussed on issues that were specific to CECS. In general the survey backed up his initial impressions: that College staff are very engaged with ANU and with CECS, and that the University and College are moving forward well.
Common issues for concern across the University included processes, leadership, cross-unit cooperation and entrepreneurship. Within CECS responses indicated the University had a lack of community engagement and a lack of entrepreneurship. Just what 'entrepreneurship' means to everyone is something that needs to be explored by the University as a whole and the College in particular. In terms of community engagement, Professor Hosking speculated that the responses may reflect that as engineers and computer scientists we feel a strong professional responsibility to engage with the community but staff don’t see the College performing as well in this area as they desire.
Professor Hosking also commented on the need to provide opportunities to better support the entrepreneurial spirit that the College had.
Three University working parties have been set up to cover common issues, and CECS will feed its responses in to these working groups.
The College Executive will meet shortly to discuss issues specific to CECS and how these may be addressed. Some of these are being addressed in the draft operational plan, which all staff have the opportunity to comment on, and some will require a deeper investigation in order to be resolved.
Professor Hosking advised that the College operating grant allocation for 2012 is healthy. The University’s new funding model, which provides stronger incentives for excellent research, had provided CECS with an enhanced allocation for 2012. However, sustainability was an issue for the College and while the operating grant allocation has been increased, there have been limitations imposed at a central level on the spend down of carry forward making the overall budget situation for 2012 somewhat tight.
Other areas contributing to the overall financial health of the College included a marked increase in engineering students, and a strong research funding round.
Professor Hosking then went on to outline the ANU Strategic Plan, emphasising that while the College must take note of the KPIs set in that plan, its focus of attention would be on the more fundamental underlying qualities, such as excellent research and excellent education, that the KPI metrics measure by proxy. He asserted that if we get the fundamentals right, the metric results will follow.
The College is currently drafting a three-year rolling operational plan framed around both the positive and negative contexts of its current situation.
Positives for the College include its ERA and grant performance; the new NICTA partnership model; strengthened demand for IT/Eng graduates internationally; engineering student growth; 2012 operating grant increase; new space opportunities; and the changes from ASI to ARENA in the Solar funding area (which was both an opportunity and a threat).
Negatives included the new ERA peer review process on the 08 (computer science) category; soft domestic student intake; weak student perception; the potential for a GFC2; a need to fill senior academic leadership roles in the College; lack of NICTA proximity; and weak equity performance - a worldwide phenomenon for IT and Engineering.
Major directions for the College include pursuing the grand challenge themes in research; improving student perception; rejuvenation/recruitment of world class staff; inspiring students; engaging alumni; improving organisational processes; improving education; and meeting space needs.
Professor Hosking invited all staff to comment on the draft operational plan either to him or other Executive members. The draft plan will also be presented at the University Retreat on 8 February 2012.
Finally he closed with the message that, following restructuring and the formation of two new research schools, the College is “open for business in 2012”.
