Vice-Chancellor's Report 1987-90

Vice-Chancellor's Report administrative affairs within the department. These include promotion assessment, assigning teaching duties, quality control and other administrative duties. Formerly, the department chairman was expected to be the academic leader of the field of studies offered by the department. This situation can no longer be sustained even if it is desired. The proliferation of any field of studies is so great these days that no one can be expected to be an overall expert providing academic leadership to the whole department single-handedly. Th e academic duties have therefore been assigned to the members of the Board of Studies. The Board of Studies, acting as a body under the coordination of the chairman of the Board elected from among the Directors of Studies, is responsible for the design and implementation of the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes and curricula, dialogue with students on academic matters, the admission and counselling of students, and all other academic affairs. m o r e f l e x i b l e p e r s o n n e l p o l i c i e s i n t r o d u c e d In the face of keen competition for high-quality staff members in the next few years, the University introduced new measures to expedite the process of staff recruitment and to increase the flexibility of employment terms to attract suitable candidates: Staff Recruitment Procedure Streamlined Approval from the University Council was sought in 1987 for authority to approve the appointment of teaching and non-teaching staff at Senior Lecturer rank or below to be delegated to the Board of Advisers (which consists, among others, of external experts in the special fields concerned) constituted under Statute 20 of the University Ordinance. This has sped up the recruitment procedure as a whole. Greater Flexibility in Benefit Package Introduced Employment terms may now take the form of superannuable, fixed-term or fractional-time contracts with the following additional flexibility: (i) Standard one-year gratuity-bearing contracts may be flexibly made in the form of a 10-month contract under which the appointee will be required to be in resident service for the entire 10 months, and a cash payment in lieu of the entitled leave under the standard contract will be payable at the end of the 10-month period together with the usual contract-end gratuity. (ii) Payment in lieu of the entitled long leave are made to academic and professional staff on contract terms whose job requirements usually prevent them from taking extended leave of absence during the contract period. (iii) To facilitate professional development through outside consultancy work, staff members may now negotiate with the University for a fractional-time appointment which would allow them to be employed with reduced University duties while taking up the outside consultancy employment. During the period, the staff concerned will still be required to teach. The 15