Executive Dean’s Message - October 2022
Dear colleagues,
The jacarandas are back in bloom and our campuses and sites look truly amazing. We are so fortunate to work at such stunning places that are the envy of many.
Thank you so much to all of the academic and professional staff who have contributed to Semester 2 teaching this year, and for your ongoing work as we move from formal teaching to end-of-semester assessment.
Events
A highlight this month was the Women in Science event on the 12 October, hosted by SCMB. Congratulations to Elizabeth Krenske and colleagues for putting together a great event with Georgina Sweet Laureate Fellow Leann Tilley from The University of Melbourne as a special guest speaker. The panel discussion was wonderful and fantastic to hear Jacqui Romero (SMP), April Hastwell (SAFS), Jody Peters (SCMB) and Xiuwen Zhou (SMP) sharing their experiences.
I am looking forward to Teaching and Learning week this week (31/10–4/11) including the UQ Awards for Excellence in T&L on 31 October and the Faculty of Science T&L Forum at Gatton on 4 November. I hope to see you there!
The VC’s Staff Forum is also coming up on Tuesday 8 November (from 3.30–5.00pm). This will be a great opportunity to celebrate achievements and hear updates on UQ’s future priorities and plans. The forum will be held in the Advanced Engineering Building lecture theatre at St Lucia, livestreamed to other venues, or you can register to watch via Zoom. Please register here.
Congratulations
Congratulations to Mark Blows (BIOL) for being appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation) at UQ, to Susan Rowland (SCMB and Science Faculty) for being appointed Acting Pro-Vice Chancellor Teaching and Learning at UQ, to Melissa Fitzgerald (SAFS) for being appointed as Interim Head of the School and Agriculture and Food Science, and to Ros Boulton (Science Faculty) for being appointed as the new Deputy Advancement Director in the Faculty of Business Economics and Law.
Congratulations to our seven new Professors: Ulrike Kappler (SCMB), Daniel Ortiz-Barrientos (BIOL), Andy Barnes (BIOL), Rod Fensham (BIOL), Karen McNamara (SEES), Joerg Henning (SVS) and Ricardo Soares Magalhaes (SVS).
Congratulations to Melissa Fitzgerald and the Indigenous Bush Foods project team for being announced as a finalist in the Engagement Australia Excellence Awards, and congratulations to our new program convenors: Gurion Ang (BIOL) who has been appointed as the new convenor of the Bachelor of Science and Elizabeth Krenske (SCMB) who has been appointed as the new convenor of the Bachelor of Advanced Science.
Congratulations to Karen Cheney (BIOL) who has been appointed as the next Academic Director of the Moreton Bay Research Station and to Chris Roelfsema (SEES) who has been appointed as the next Academic Director of Heron Island Research Station.
Welcome
Welcome to Kylie Roots, who has joined the Faculty of Science as the next Senior Manager, Marketing, Communications and Future Students.
Distribution of Disciplines Project
The Faculty of Science Distribution of Disciplines Project has progressed to a proposal that is currently out for consultation. The goal of the project is to address disciplinary overlaps across SAFS, BIOL and SEES that are impacting teaching workloads through duplication of teaching, competition for students and staff and unrealized opportunities for collaboration in teaching and research. The aims of the project are to streamline teaching through the consolidation of overlapping courses and to consider options for structural change to create schools with better discipline alignment, diversity and viability.
Further details can be found on the Distribution of Disciplines Project SharePoint site.
Federal budget
There wasn’t a lot for Higher Education in the recent Federal budget, although good to see that the Trailblazer and Industry Fellowship programs will continue to be supported.
Please find links to the Universities Australia 2022-23 Federal Budget Issues Brief and the Go8 2022-23 October Budget Summary Update for further information.
UQ budgets
Landing budgets for 2023 has been extremely challenging and I would like to thank our academic and professional leaders in Schools and the Faculty for their resilience and creativity as we try to balance against very challenging targets as the financial impacts of the pandemic continue to pipeline through, and the costs of almost everything continue to escalate. We aren’t there yet but hope to be soon.
Other news
Sorry to say farewell to Vicki Chen who will be leaving her role as the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and IT in November, moving back to Sydney to become Provost at University Technology in Sydney (UTS).
Pulse survey
Initial results from the 2022 Faculty of Science Pulse survey shows significant improvements for several questions, with the greatest positive changes being for the following questions: ‘Staff are held accountable for unacceptable behaviours in the workplace’, ‘The staff in my organisational unit work collegially’, ‘The staff in my organisational unit enact the UQ values’, ‘My organisational unit has implemented actions to support UQ’s Reconciliation Action Plan’, and ‘My direct supervisor provides helpful feedback on my performance’. Thank you so much to all of the people in our schools and professional service units for their commitment and hard work to improve the outcomes of this survey and thus the workplace culture in the Faculty of Science and UQ. We are anticipating receiving the comprehensive results in the next few weeks and look forward to sharing with you and discussing then.
Kind regards,
Professor Melissa Brown
Executive Dean - Faculty of Science