The Varied Australian National University Enterprise Agreement 2005 - 2009

Part One – Operation of agreement

3.1.    This Agreement is designed to assist the University to achieve the goals of the University Strategic Plan: ANU by 2010.

3.2.    As part of achieving its goals the University makes the following commitments:
Through the relentless pursuit of excellence, The Australian National University will remain one of the world’s top universities. To achieve this goal the University will work cooperatively with its staff. Development or modification of University policies will involve consultation with the University community according to the Policy on Policies.
The University recognises that its greatest assets are its staff and students, and that its capacity to support, develop and provide critique of Australian society will be greatest when intellectual freedom is exercised in a manner consistent with a responsible search for knowledge and its dissemination. The University will maintain a policy on Intellectual Property, which, among other things, recognises the moral and economic rights of staff and students.

The University will work towards an environment that is:

•    supportive, nurturing, challenging, and motivating for staff and students;
•    exemplary in its encouragement of excellence, equity and tolerance and the creation of a constructively analytical culture;
•    free from bullying and as safe and secure as is reasonably practicable; and
•    which encourages a genuinely collegial University, within which problems are shared and worked on collectively, and also within which staff members are encouraged to comment on the University’s operations.

3.3.    The University’s highest educational priority is to develop the individual talents of its students through the quality of the learning experience provided. In an endeavour to establish a distinctive model of education based on self-directed learning the parties agree to participate in a review of existing education practices in order to improve the ANU student experience through a range of possible changes such as:

•    enhanced semester and timetabling flexibility;
•    alternate semester structures including the feasibility of a trimester system and/or an extended mid-year semester break to facilitate overseas student and staff exchanges and collaborations;
•    greater web-based education approaches such as on-line provision of lecture notes and other material;
•    changes to teaching and student contact such as reduced lectures and more small group contact; and
•    introduction of a compulsory induction model on the principles of university teaching for all academic staff new to teaching.

3.4.    The managing change provisions of this Agreement will be used when implementing any initiatives developed under this review.

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