Caution
Copyright © Monash University 1996
ISBN 1320-6222
Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
The Faculty of Arts is one of the largest in the university in terms both of student and of staff numbers. In 1995 on the Clayton campus there were more than 4000 undergraduates, the majority of whom were full-time, and nearly 1200 graduate students. Its teaching staff numbers more than 250 full-time and part-time members, together with sessional staff. About three-quarters of the full-time staff have permanent appointments. Following the merger, the faculty had its first intake of 100 students into the Bachelor of Arts course on the Peninsula campus in 1991 and commenced offering the Bachelor of Arts degree on the Caulfield campus in 1992. With the closer integration of the Gippsland campus into the structure of the university, the newly renamed School of Humanities and Social Sciences became part of the Faculty of Arts in 1993. The Gippsland campus offers a variety of arts degrees and social welfare qualifications.
The Faculty of Arts is also responsible for the administration of two university degrees: the Bachelor of Communications degree offered on the Berwick campus and the Bachelor of General Studies.
There are fifteen departments in the faculty:
+ Anthropology and Sociology
+ Asian Languages and Studies
+ English
+ Geography and Environmental Science
+ German Studies and Slavic Studies
+ Greek, Roman and Egyptian Studies
+ History
+ Japanese Studies
+ Linguistics
+ Music
+ Philosophy
+ Politics
+ Romance Languages
+ Social Work and Human Services
+ Visual Arts
Each department has a head, who has administrative and academic responsibilities for that department. Most departments have one or more professors, who have particular responsibilities for academic leadership, and a professor is frequently the head of department. Each department has responsibilities for teaching and research in one or more disciplinary areas of study. Some departments contain sections which assume responsibilities for a discipline.
The faculty also has a number of centres, headed by a director and advised by staff who teach or research within that centre. Most of these staff are also members of departments. The centres which offer undergraduate or graduate teaching programs are American Studies, Australian Studies, Human Bioethics, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Drama and Theatre Studies, European Studies, International Relations, Policing and Public Safety, Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Development Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Studies in Religion and Theology, Women's Studies and the Koorie Research Centre. Other centres of the faculty are Bibliographical and Textual Studies, Development Studies, Migrant and Intercultural Studies, Language and Society, and Southeast Asian Studies. Where centres undertake teaching responsibilities for an area of study, it is normally an interdisciplinary program involving staff and subjects from a number of departments. An exception is the Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies which has responsibilities for a disciplinary area of study. There are also some centres within departments. Two institutes have coordinating responsibility for activities which involve various departments and centres. These are the Monash Asia Institute, which houses six centres related to Asian studies, and the Institute for Critical and Cultural Studies.
In its legal sense the faculty is a statutory body of which all full-time members of the teaching staff are members. The major academic responsibilities of the faculty are vested by legislation in the faculty board, a smaller body of about eighty, including all heads of departments, other departmental representatives elected on a proportional basis, and eight student members, two graduate and six undergraduate, elected in November of each year by the students enrolled in the faculty. The faculty board normally meets about every six weeks from March to November. Except in certain matters on which it has power to act, it makes recommendations to the Academic Board or through the Academic Board to the Council.
The organisation of teaching and research rests with the heads of the departments, who act in consultation with other members of their departments and within the framework provided by the degree regulations and any other conditions which may be agreed upon from time to time by the faculty board.
The faculty board is concerned with questions which affect more than one department, with interpreting and amending the regulations, and, in particular, with new developments within the faculty. It has certain committees, some of which have power to act on behalf of the board when an immediate decision is needed. These committees include:
(1) the Committee for Undergraduate Studies, which advises the board on all matters relating to undergraduate students as they arise including questions of student workload and matters concerned with assessment; approves admissions to fourth-year honours courses and advises the board on matters concerning the honours degree; acts for the board in cases involving use of discretionary powers conferred on the faculty by the degree regulations and considers proposals for the introduction of new subjects;
(2) the Committee for Graduate Studies, which advises the faculty on all matters concerned with the admission of candidates for higher degrees and graduate diplomas and the awarding of higher degrees and diplomas;
(3) the Admissions and Exclusions Committee, which acts as a subcommittee of the Committee for Undergraduate Studies in controlling the selection of new undergraduate students and considers the cases of students who become liable to be excluded for unsatisfactory progress.
Finally there are various service and administrative components within the faculty. The faculty office consists of the offices of the dean and the faculty registrar, the Finance and Resources Office, the Computer Services Unit, and the Language and Learning Unit. The Language Centre provides services and facilities for the teaching of languages within the faculty.
The faculty has four associate deans, who are responsible for teaching, intercampus liaison, research and graduate studies.
The faculty registrar (Arts) provides student administration and student services needed by the faculty, and provides information on policy and planning matters.
The manager of undergraduate studies is responsible for undergraduate student-related matters on the Clayton campus. Course advisers are available at Clayton to advise undergraduate students on the planning of their courses and on changes of course, and the Office of Graduate Studies is established to assist graduate students. Students based on the Caulfield and Peninsula campuses should consult faculty staff on their home campus for course-related advice.
Any student wishing to see the dean, the faculty registrar (Arts), the coordinator undergraduate studies, course advisers, postgraduate administrative officers or other faculty staff is normally able to make an appointment at fairly short notice. Inquiries should be made at the faculty office, first floor, west wing of the Robert Menzies School of Humanities (Clayton students); fourth floor, B block (Caulfield students); or fourth floor, A building (Peninsula students).
The Language and Learning Unit assists students to improve their approaches to studying, reading and writing. Appointments should be made directly with the unit, which is based on the Clayton campus.
Students wishing to bring any relevant matters to the attention of the student members of the faculty board should feel free to do so. The student members can be contacted c/o the office of the faculty registrar.
A student can complete the BA on any of these three campuses.
Final subject in major sequence must be taken on the Clayton campus.
Also offered is a Bachelor of Social Welfare degree, as well as diplomas of arts in Koorie studies and social welfare, a Graduate Certificate of Arts (Humanities and Social Sciences) and graduate diplomas of arts in humanities and social sciences and in social welfare.
In addition, students may complete the following double degree programs: BA (Humanities and Social Sciences)/BBus(Multidiscipline); BA(Humanities and Social Sciences)/BSocWelf; BA(Journalism)/BSocWelf; BA(Psychology and Humanities)/BSocWelf, BA(Communication)/BComputing, BA(Communications)/Associate Diploma of Arts(Professional Writing and Editing); BA(Communications)/Associate Diploma Business (Tourism); BA(Communication)/Associate Diploma Business (Marketing)
The broad teaching and learning objectives of the Monash BA degree ask of students that they satisfy the requirements of study within some elements of the very wide range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences offered by the faculty, and of some disciplines offered by other faculties. In the process of satisfying these requirements, students are enjoined to grasp the very special opportunity provided by the BA to open their horizons of understanding and imagination to the many new materials, ideas and values with which they will be confronted.
Graduates in arts are expected to have:
+ come to a self-conscious understanding of the present interpretations and (in the case of honours students) future likelihoods of the major issues underlying the content of and approaches to the disciplines they study;
+ developed the intellectual capabilities inherent in reading and interpretation, written argument, quantitive analysis, qualitative critique and creative thinking required of scholarship and practice in various humanities, arts and social science disciplines;
+ mastered the practical skills (including computing skills and those of oral presentation) determined by the various departments and centres as necessary to operating in the student's chosen spheres of study and interest;
+ become aware of the kinds of personal and cultural understanding, ethical attitudes and, where appropriate, physical and aesthetic appreciations that underpin the traditional liberal education provided by the faculty;
+ demonstrated the flexibility needed to apply these studies in the rapidly changing circumstances of intellectual life and the world of the professions they are likely to inhabit.
Graduates with a Bachelor of Arts degree are expected to be able to pursue further formal learning and to apply their understanding, no matter their walk of life or wherever in the world they choose to study or work.
Under the present regulations, students in the faculty are given a wide variety of paths by which they can achieve the objectives set out above. This breadth constitutes one of the great strengths of the Monash BA, which offers the largest range of humanities, social science, creative and performing arts courses of any university in Australia.
The teaching of all disciplines is structured in such a way that, in general, students find they are led from an elementary appreciation of the objectives set out above in their first year to a relatively sophisticated understanding by the third year. Honours students, in fourth year, will begin to test themselves on the possibility that they may make a certain original contribution to the learning and scholarship of their chosen discipline or combination of disciplines.
Not all disciplines, however, work in exactly the same way. Some - especially languages and creative arts - build on skills and abilities incrementally acquired over the years of the degree, and are quite tightly structured and layered. After the first year, others will revisit similar texts or issues, asking more of students' understanding and critical ability on each encounter. Students are sometimes likely to find themselves in a class with both second and third-year students, or third and fourth-year students. In such a situation, they will discover that the third or fourth-year students will be expected to show a deeper understanding and an ability to discuss more extensively the literature on the topic.
The disciplines from which students may select subjects for inclusion in an arts degree are not confined to those taught by departments within the Faculty of Arts. The disciplines from which, within certain limitations, subjects may be chosen are shown in the lists included in the section `Availability of subjects in 1996' in this handbook. In most disciplines there is more than one subject at a given level. A student must spread first-year work over at least three disciplines from List A, Part 1.
The value of a subject is expressed in points and a normal year's work by a full-time student is valued at forty-eight points.
Major, minor and first-year sequences may be completed within a discipline or in an interdisciplinary program. The current list of approved disciplines and interdisciplinary programs which have these sequences is as follows:
Students majoring in psychology and police studies must complete an additional major in a discipline marked `(A)'.
A minor sequence shall comprise two successive parts, being either a first-year sequence followed by a second part comprising second-year level subjects totalling at least sixteen points, or second-year level subjects totalling at least sixteen points followed by a second part comprising third-year level subjects totalling at least twelve points.
A major sequence shall comprise three successive parts, the first part being a first-year sequence, the second part comprising second-year level subjects totalling at least sixteen points and the third part comprising third-year level subjects totalling at least sixteen points, provided that the second and third parts shall jointly total at least forty points.
To ensure both depth and breadth in a program of studies a candidate for the degree is expected to include in the course subjects to a total of at least 144 but not more than 162 points including:
(1) a minimum of eight and a maximum of ten subjects taken at first-year level;
(2) first-year sequences in at least three different disciplines, or interdisciplinary areas, including at least three from List A (I);
(3) not more than two first-year level subjects that do not form part of a first-year sequence;
(4) such additional subjects at the second and third-year levels as are required to complete a major sequence in an `Arts' discipline and a minor sequence in another `Arts' discipline.
To satisfy the requirements of the degree, students must complete at least ninety-two points of work in disciplines included in List A (I) in this handbook. This work must take the form of at least a major sequence, a minor sequence and an additional first-year sequence.
The course of study must be completed over not less than three years and normally not more than eight years.