The TLQPR exercise was a major stimilus to the sharing of ideas about teaching and learning in the past year.

Following public release of the TLQPR Report, the University Senate met on 15 April 1997. The President proposed that the Senate should schedule a series of special meetings specifically to discuss the issues raised by the report. At the first of the special meetings, a presentation was made to the full Senate membership of the major findings of the TLQPR Report. Also presented were examples of exemplary practice noted in the Massey-French paper given at the TLQPR Seminar, which had been attended by a number of members of the Senate.

The Senate agreed that each Department should hold a meeting of its academic staff to discuss the TLQPR Report and report back at the next special meeting. The Students’ Union representatives on the Senate were also asked to solicit student input on these issues and report back to the Senate. At this second meeting, the Students’ Union representatives provided a thoughtful and constructive report on student concerns. Reports on departmental meetings from somewhat less than half of the University’s Departments were presented. In order to provide time to hear from all Departments, a third special meeting was scheduled. At that meeting the Senate was also be asked to act on the President’s proposal to establish six task forces to address specific sets of questions relevant to teaching and learning.

At the third special meeting, reports on Department meetings from the remaining Departments were presented and discussed, and the six task forces were established, in the areas of curriculum design, teaching qualifications and performance, teaching evaluation, teaching and learning practice, general education, and teaching and learning innovations.

These task forces developed recommendations based on their shared experiences. This approach assured a relatively high degree of ownership of the products.

An example of the way in which this process worked is the evolution of thinking about student-staff liaison committees. The value of such committees was indicated in the initial presentation to the Senate, as an example of best practice at other institutions. There was considerable skepticism about the need to adopt this as a formal requirement at HKUST, with some Departments convinced that their informal channels of communication with students were not only sufficient, but also superior. In the subsequent Senate and task force discussions, peers in other Departments that had voluntarily established such committees, reported that they had found them to be of considerable value to both students and faculty. These discussions were a major factor in gaining a receptive attitude towards the establishment of student-staff liaison committees. The Senate, at its meeting in February 1998, adopted a policy mandating the formation of such committees in all Departments.

The sharing of ideas also heightened awareness of the services available from the Instructional Development Unit (IDU) within the Educational Technology Centre, whose work was discussed in Annex C of the TLQPR Report. With the increased emphasis on teaching performance in the past year, requests for assistance from the IDU increased dramatically. These came from individuals, worried about how they would fare in academic Review, as well as Departments interested in improving their systems for support of teaching improvement.

The newly established Senate Committee on Teaching and Learning Quality has been specifically assigned the role of disseminating the examples of good practice that it finds in its annual review of reports on teaching and learning from the Schools.