Introduction

I have been away for approximately two weeks while undergoing a medical procedure on my neck. In my absence Professor Steve Graw has been acting PVC.

1. Progress on Tropical Leaders Program

We are negotiating with the applicant in relation to the adjusted Continunity and Change position.

Several suitable applicants have been identified for the Regional Economic Development position, and I will follow this up over the next few weeks.

2. India, Singapore and Guangzhou

I visited Coimbatore, Cochin and Pune in India, to meet key representatives of Universities and other institutions, and discuss the possibility of collaborative links.

The trip was very successful, with opportunities for links in business at many institutions, and a particularly interesting potential link in law at Pune University (known as the “Oxford of the East”).

I also attended the graduation a JCUS, where some 380 students graduated from various degrees (I estimated around 70% from FLBCA)

After Singapore, I officiated at the final Guangzhou University MIPA graduation, where 56 students graduated, most from the MIPA, but a couple from related degrees); Vera Girgenti gave the welcome address, and Roger Yeldham did his usual superb job in organising the ceremony.

The graduation went very well and I attended an alumni function in the evening with approximately 150-200 students from the four cohorts of the degree and their families and friends.

Guangzhou University indicated that they are interested in continuing collaborative links with us, particularly in relation to staff and student exchanges.

I will put my full report onto the Faculty Portal as soon as I have tidied it up.

3. JCUB discussions

Representatives of JCU and JCUB met on 6 October to discuss issues which have arisen. A number of issues were discussed, and agreement in principle reached on key points. Discussions will continue.

4. BJUT

We have had discussion with representatives from BJUT in relation to future arrangements for the IT degrees presented at BJUT. A meeting is scheduled for November 2009 to advance these discussions including the fee split proposed in the new contract entered into before IT was transferred to FLBCA.

STAFF

5. Promotion Applications

All promotion applications had been received and reports from HoS and PVC provided. Interviews with the Promotion Panel will no doubt be conducted in the next few weeks.

My best wishes for all those going for promotion – we have had a good record in terms of success rates in the past, and I hope this will continue.

6. New SoCA Director of Learning and Teaching

Congratulations to Mr Clive Hutchison on being appointed as the School of Creative Arts “Director of Learning and Teaching” for the next 2 year period.

7. Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citations

I was in Brisbane on the 18^th of August for the presentations of the ALTC Citations.

The Faculty was also represented by the winners Ms Katja Fleischmann (SoCA), Ms Kate Galloway (Law) and Dr Janelle Rose (Business).

Congratulations to each of the winners – the citations carry funding of $10,000 each.

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JCU winners and staff at the presentation ceremony

8. Underwater Australasia Photo Competition 2008-09:

Underwater Australasia recently announced the winners for the 5^th annual photo competition. In a tough year of competition, 1000s of photographs were entered from all over the world. Many of them are in the underwater gallery now. Only 12 in each category could make it to the finals. And only 3 of those 12 could win.

Congratulations to Matt Curnock who won the 3^rd prize with a magic Dwarf Minke Whale shot from the Ribbon Reefs of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia.

(c)MattCurnock2008_DSC07110_lr

9. Congratulations

Neil Dunbar (School of Law, JCU Townsville) who completed two subjects of the Graduate Diploma of Applied Corporate Governance (Corporate Governance and Corporate Administration) has won the Queensland State Award for these two prizes – congratulations!

10. Professor Pearce teaches LB5203 at JCUS

Prof Phil Pearce, Dr Dale Anderson, Abhishek Singh at JCUS

As well as teaching the intensive course, Prof Pearce gave a very well attended public talk on new views of satisfaction and loyalty and a presentation encouraging high performing students to come to Australia to do Honours.

11. North Queensland Tourism Awards:

The 2009 Townsville Airport North Queensland Tourism Awards on the 12th of September was a night to remember. The event was held at the James Cook University George Kneipp Auditorium and School of Creative Awards transformed into a cultural hub where guests enjoyed performances from Dancenorth, Australian Festival of Chamber Music and the Barramundi Brothers.

James Cook University won the Tourism Education and Training category.

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L to R – Kasey Chapman, Ben Southall (Winner; best job in the world, Queensland Tourism) Matt Monkhouse, Villton Crasto

12. Law Ball:

Staff and students enjoyed the annual Law Ball which was held on the Friday 11^th of September at Rydges Southbank.

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L to R Matt Monkhouse, Kasey Chapman, Danella Lane, John Chandler, Robin Woellner, Heather Fraser, Miranda Blyth

13. JCU Tourism, Sport & Event Management Staff Win Accolades for Research and Teaching:

JCU Tourism, Sport and Events Management staff and students have recently returned from a number of international conferences with a rich haul of best paper awards. Congratulations to all:

Mangott, A.H., Birtles, R.A. & Marsh, H. (2009). Attraction of dwarf minke whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata subsp.) to vessels and their swimmers in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area – management challenges for an inquisitive whale. Best Student Presentation at the 2009 MTSRF/RRRC Conference.
Moscardo, G. (2009) Exploring mindfulness and stories in tourist experiences. Best Paper at the 6th Symposium of Consumer Psychology of Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure, Vienna, Austria.
Murphy, L., Benckendorff, P., Moscardo, G., & Pearce, P.L. (2009) Evaluating tourist satisfaction with the retail experience in regional shopping villages. Highly Commended Paper Award at the European Institute of Retailing and Services Studies (EIRASS) 16th International Conference on Recent Advances in Retailing and Service Science. Niagara Falls Canada, 6-9 July 2009.
Qian, J. & Pearce, P.L. (2009) towards a crowding management model in China. Best paper award at the Asia Pacific Graduate Student Conference in Tourism Seoul; Korea.
Zeppel, H. (2009). Cultural Values in Sustainable Tourism: Conflicts Between Indigenous Culture and Recreation in Protected Areas. Outstanding Paper Award at the BEST Education Network Think Tank IX ,14-18 June 2009, Singapore.
Dr. Pierre Benckendorff was the recipient of the inaugural CAUTHE Fellows Award for Contributions to Hospitality and Tourism Research at the 2009 CAUTHE Conference.

14. From cultural tourism through mass tourism to sustainable tourism?

A conference report in three parts. Professor Gianna Moscardo

I have recently returned from three very intensive conference experiences. The first was the 6^th Symposium of the Consumer Psychology in Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure, held in Vienna with a focus on the “Presentation of Culture in Tourism”. This is a group that is aligned with mainstream marketing and consumer psychology research interests and most had recently attended the European Marketing Association conference. The strong focus on consumer psychology was refreshing and very challenging, as the level of discussion of psychological concepts was also much more sophisticated than one might usually find at a general tourism meeting, so I was especially pleased to be awarded the Best Paper for the conference.

The main themes emerging from this conference included

A move toward more qualitative analysis styles and something of a backlash against the use of excessively complex statistical modelling.
Increasing attention paid to the psychology of the tourist operators as well as to tourists

I then travelled to Spain. In Madrid, the UN World Tourism Organization hosted a meeting and social function to celebrate the 21^st birthday of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism (IAST, an international scholarly society of academics studying tourism. Entry is by nomination from an existing fellow and then election by 2/3 of the existing Fellows, with a cap of 75 fellows. It is generally seen as a great honour to be elected – JCU has three Fellows of the Academy (one of the few institutions to have more than one), Philip Pearce (who was a Founding fellow), Glenn Ross and myself.

I then travelled to the invitation only IAST Conference on the Island of Mallorca. The conference was memorable for the insights into European mass tourism.

The main themes emerging from this conference included

The need to remove the ever-increasing range of adjectives placed in front of tourism and to return to a very clear recognition that the underlying system is the same for all forms of tourism
A general consensus that efforts to treat tourism as a discipline are detrimental to both the development of adequate theory and improvements to the practice of tourism
Concerns over the extent to which critical approaches to tourism have been in decline in recent times
The need to be more aware of innovation in information technology and management in tourism research

I was asked to continue to chair the Innovation and Outreach Committee of the Academy.

The third part of my travels was to JCU Singapore campus where I was the Co-Chair of the BEST EN Think Tank IX. This is an international group committed to developing education to support Businesses in implementing sustainable tourism programs. The Think Tank was very successful. The seminar received positive feedback:

“you did a fantastic job here for us at BESTEN”

JCU was also given a boost when Heather Zeppel won the Outstanding Paper Award.

15. Cairns Indigenous Arts Fair Symposium

The highly successful symposium was held on 21 August 2009. The following email to Symposium Convenor Russell Milledge received from Michael Snelling, Arts Queensland’s Director of the CAIF:

Dear Russell – I want to congratulate you and all the JCU staff who worked so tirelessly over the duration of the project. We all know now how successful the whole event has been, due to the professional commitment of JCU staff.

The Symposium was well attended and many of the papers excellent and this is, of course, due to your skill in bringing it all together.

CIAF exceeded our artistic, commercial and audience expections.

However, most importantly, there was an underlying and uplifting spirit.

After the CIAF closing ceremony conducted by Seith Fourmile, a member of the audience came to me a said “Congratulations. A World-class event. Makes me proud to be Australian.” I couldn’t have put it better.

Could you please convey my deepest thanks to JCU staff.

Michael Snelling

MEETINGS

16. Faculty Planning and Implementation Day -4th and 5th November 2009

Just a reminder that the Full Faculty Implementation Days will be held on Wednesday 4^th (from 2pm to 6pm followed by dinner) and Thursday 5^th November (8.30am to 4pm) at Holiday Inn, Townsville. As this is Study Vacation week all staff are expected to attend these implementation days in Townsville. Please RSVP by 19^th October.

17. VCAC – 9 September 2009

VCAC considered a series of policies related to the Code of Conduct, Risk Management, Fraud Prevention, Whistleblower Protection and related matters. These will be further considered, and resubmitted to a future VCAC.

The Vice Chancellor noted that the staff opinion survey had been renamed this year, to avoid confusion.

I presented the FLBCA Faculty Review Report and Action Plan (previously circulated).

There was discussion of student load across the uni, and possible approaches to improve retention. It was noted that by 2012, when the student demand driven system begins, JCU needs to be approximately 1% above its DEEWR target, particularly as performance targets for universities will put part of our funding at risk. It was suggested that the University consider linking into the TAFE sector via pathways and associate degrees.

The Commonwealth Government will be conducting its Compact visit to JCU in October.

VCAC considered the new Course Proposal Process; PVC’s will comment to the next VCAC

18. VCAC – 5 October 2009

Student load. On current projections, we expect JCU to have 1% over enrolments by 2012.

The projected restoration of “full indexation” by the current government may not be as dramatic as hoped. The expectation is that the indexation provided will be around 3.9% in 2012, and that this will include the required productivity increase. Over recent years, costs have increased at around 6% pa. From 2012, 2.5% of university funding will be at risk if the University does not meet its agreed Compacts targets.

The Capital & Infrastructure Plan will be put on the web shortly, to enable staff to review it.

Concern was expressed that the TLP (Tropical Leaders programme) project had been running for a year, and some positions have still not been filled. It was indicated that unless positions were filled shortly, monies would be reallocated to other projects.

ARC – JCU had received two Future Fellowships in 2009. Competition was intense at the more senior 2 and 3 level, and perhaps we should focus more on level one in the future. Faculties should look internally for possible candidates, as the government had withdrawn the requirement that applicants be based overseas and planning to return to Australia.

Proposal for JCU Teaching and Learning Academy: VCAC approved in principle an outline proposal for an Academy.

Griffith University – JCU collaborative research grants. Five grants have been made this year, with 4 to be run by staff at JCU.

The policy on External Accreditation of Courses and/or Disciplines policy was noted.

Members reports on various “Matters of Significance” relating to events within their faculties/divisions.

19. Planning Meeting with the Vice Chancellor

The annual meeting with the Vice Chancellor (and others) to review Faculty performance both generally and against OPTs (Operational Performance Targets) went very well.

The Vice Chancellor is aware of difficulties that the Faculty faces, but felt that our performance had been very good. My congratulations to all members of the Faculty – administrative and academic, who have contributed to this.

The OPTs set for 2010 are once again (very) challenging, but achievable.

20. Faculty Executive Meeting – 14 September 2009

FEM discussed-

Progress in relation to the TLP positions.

Progress with the workload allocation model – FEM decided to use the data currently available to test the suitability of the model, and then “roll-out” the model for full implementation in late 2009.

Plans for the next BEST seminar in Townsville and the initial seminar in Cairns.

The Faculty Review Action plan;

Issues in relation to JCUB and BJUT, how to move forward on these, and the need for a full risk management review of all current and potential programmes;

The Pros and Cons of using Associate Degrees, diplomas and the like as possible ”entry points” to FLBCA programmes.

Planning for the Implementation Day sessions and identification of possible priority areas for discussion.

SEMINARS and PRESENTATIONS

21. CAABS seminar – Bill O’Chee

On 2 October, former Senator Bill O’Chee who is now a consultant gave a seminar on “Infrastructure and Exports – getting value for money and money for value”.

He highlighted the critical role of infrastructure getting exports to other countries (for example the need to have good internal infrastructure – rail, road or air to get materials from mines etc to export points such as seaports and airports.

His (simplified) thesis was that the problem has not been a shortage of money – it has been the inefficient use of the money available that has caused problems – governments have squandered billions of dollars through poor planning and execution of projects. The need is to get better value for money from the amount spent.

He also canvassed the possibility of creating regional superannuation funds, to use a proportion of their funding to provide money for local projects.

22. Professor Peter Booth – 6th October

Professor Booth is the Senior DVC at University of Technology Sydney, and he gave a seminar of “Managing and Management in modern Universities: key issues in higher education management in the 21^st century”

His presentation covered five key issues:

1. Distinctiveness in mission and activities (the “niche game”);

2. Global and local relevance (the international/accountability game);

3. Understanding your markets and competitors (the market positioning game);

4. Use of highly qualified professional managers and staff (the organisational cake capability game); and

5. Deployment of sophisticated information and control systems (the management control game).

23. Presentation by Jonar Nader – 7th October

Jonar Nader was guest speaker for Townsville Enterprise / Ergon Energy Business Leader’s Forum and came to JCU to address students.

Jonar Nader gave a presentation to students on lessons learned from his personal and corporate experience. Jonar is the author of the series of books beginning with “How to lose friends and infuriate your Boss” and has held a number of very senior positions in major national IT and other companies.

The points he made included-

The need to use your best endeavours in whatever role you are playing (eg a casual job), because habits in this role will carry over into your intended role.
If you do well in any role, you will be noticed, and this will work to your advantage; conversely if you waste opportunities to impress those around you, you close off options for the future.
Students need to understand why they are undertaking a degree – it should go beyond merely acquiring (fleeting) technical competence to include a desire to develop the mind, learn how to learn, and develop transferable skills and using communication, teamwork etc.
Everything that drives us is intangible.
Remember that you are a brand, and you need to do everything possible to polish your brand and not to stain it – if you attain a good reputation, people will come looking for you. Conversely if you develop a bad reputation, clients will not seek your services even if you are highly visible.
Experts can tell if you know what you are talking about very quickly.
What Nader looks for in a potential employee is someone who realises they need to keep learning and developing, and are willing to do so.

24. Open Day Townsville 30th August 2009

Associate Professor Natalie Stoeckl, talks with prospective students while Dr Rabi Beg looks on.

Postgraduate student Matt Curnock shows a student baleen plates from a dwarf minke whale. Matt is currently completing his PhD thesis titled “Mechanisms for assessing the sustainability of swimming with dwarf minke whales tourism in the Great Barrier Reef”.