- 35.
9.4
9.5
where little work had been done, he felt that two years since the adoption of what was now seen to be a
relatively sophisticated Constitution was not a long time for it to be fully embraced by way of action.
Having regard to the informal way in which the Faculties dealt with their business, communication between the Faculty Boards and the Academic Board was a matter of verbal reporting by the Deans. The status of the examination regulations included in the "General Information" document gave an indication of the looseness of the decision making process. As a further example, the President did not act as Chairman of the Faculty Boards as directed in the Constitution.
CNAA drew the attention of the Academic Board to the responsibility placed on the Faculty, Boards in their Terms of Reference to be responsibile to the Academic Board for the improvement of the teaching programmes, since when Deans were asked for their perception of the roles of the Faculties none had given responses which suggested that this was a significant part of their work. In general, the Deans went on to say, when prompted, that the responsibility for course improvement was met implicitly rather than explicitly through the regular contact of staff. CNAA felt that, as the College moved into the new 2-2-1 structure, there should be a more explicit way of ensuring that courses were effectively monitored. One of the ways of assuring standards would be to appoint External Examiners, but it was learned that the College currently found the cost prohibitive. CNAA felt concerned that, with a very mobile teaching force, the examination of the students virtually by the individual teachers with little or no monitoring of standards left the students at risk. Dean of Business referred to the setting up of a moderating system within his Faculty, but this was clearly a new approach introuduced at this own initiative and in no way an application of common College policy. Deans had some responsibility to monitor the grades attained by students in their Faculty, but did not have any real framework in which to do this. Borderline cases of assessment were refered to a meeting of the whole staff which made recommendations through the Dean of Studies to the President. It was learned that the Academic Board had delegated its powers in this regard; members of the visiting party formed the impression that this procedure for dealing with borderline cases operated "by default" rather than by formal delegation recorded in the Minutes of the Academic Board.
The