As part of its aim to engage closely with the university’s Board Members, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) organised the UTM Board Retreat 2013 at Nilai Springs Resort Hotel, Negeri Sembilan for three days starting 8th November.
The UTM Chairman of the Board of Director (BoD) Tan Sri Halim Ali led the meeting which was also attended by other Board members including Tan Sri Dato’ Mohd Ramli bin Kushairi, Tan Sri Dato’ (Dr.) Wan Abdul Rahman bin Hj. Wan Ya’acob, Dato’ Abu Bakar, Dato’ Low and Prof. Dr. Md. Nor bin Musa.
Meanwhile, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation, Prof. Ir. Dr. Mohd Azra’ai bin Kassim, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Academic and International, Prof. Dr. Rose Alinda bte Alias, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs and Alumni Prof. Dr. Mohd Ismail bin Abd Aziz and Registrar Tn. Hj. Wan Mohd Zawawi bin Wan Abd. Rahman were among 24 UTM senior officers who also participated in the meeting.
The Board Retreat aims to share information and provide input of the draft proposal of the 2014 Strategic Planning and Management Focus, to gain insights and feedback from the Board of Directors on the direction and strategies of the university, to consolidate the engagement between the Board of Directors and the UTM Management Team in determining the future direction of the university through an informal sharing session and to foster unity and togetherness towards the successful implementation of strategies to bring UTM to greater heights.
The Board applauds the vision and mission set forth by the UTM management team but calls for the team to identify priority areas for better collective action and resource investment. The Board advises the UTM management team to merge academic programmes, research groups, Centres of Excellence (CoEs), faculties and Research Alliances (RAs) in collating overlapping objectives and operations, which would lead to greater resource optimisation in the future.
The Board was updated on current progress of UTM as a RU since the attainment of the RU status granted in 2010. The Board was also informed of sectors requiring stepwise initiatives to leapfrog from current status quo, such as the lack of postdoctoral candidates recruited, the number of publications in disciplines identified as UTM competencies [1]by SciVal and the lack of research grants receivable from industry and international funding organisations.
The Board was updated on the university’s current standing nationally and internationally. Despite the fact that UTM has risen up the ranks in global benchmarking leagues for the past three years, much more needs to be done to enhance its performance as other universities within the country and beyond are slowly catching up.
The Board is concerned with the amount of investment made on the establishment and upgrading of all IT-related infrastructure, both physical and virtual, which are crucial in realising the university’s ambition as a digital campus. It was made known that the university requires greater financial support in accelerating its current momentum on IT-related establishment and upgrades to catch up with rapid technological changes occurring globally.
Of greater focus by the Board members throughout the Retreat was the university’s industrial relations, alumni relations and international collaboration, as the three categories constitute focus stakeholders for engagement in generating greater teaching, learning and research output for the university, especially research opportunities and funding as well as institutional endowment for scholarships and developmental projects.
It was agreed in principal that more has to be done to market UTM, its strengths, opportunities for collaboration and the UTM population to the external stakeholders. Among ideas put forward for deliberation include development of marketing kits for staff, the role of the UTM community as ambassadors and positioning of UTM achievements to externals.
The Board is in agreement with all recommendations provided by the UTM management on its direction for the upcoming year and advised the university to allocate its resources strategically to priority projects, which has to be identified collectively.
Based on the input provided by delegates of the Retreat, The Board recommends the following priorities to be pursued by UTM:
- Increase the number of postdoctoral fellows
- Make available all appropriate equipment and labs
- Equip UTM libraries, both for existing library and new library with necessary physical and digital content
- Encourage academic staff to participate more actively in academic publication
- With regard to non-academic staff development,
- Upgrade skills and competencies of non-academic staff
- Make attendance of English language class compulsory
The Board is of the opinion that UTM should continue its current collaboration with top universities and implement all collaborative projects effectively so as to maintain the momentum set forth by the previous Vice Chancellor and enhance UTM’s reputation globally.
The Board calls for the UTM community to provide full support to the UTM management team led by the new Vice Chancellor. The composition of the UTM management team will be completed within the next few months with the appointment of a new UTM Deputy Vice Chancellor (Development), subject to approval and announcement from the Ministry of Education.
The Board reminds the UTM community on the need to continuously improve its teaching, learning and R&D activities. Such efforts not only impact the productivity of the university as a RU, but also greatly contribute to national development.