On 24 March, the meeting of STA’s Academic Committee was held. The meeting was co-chaired by Prof Ye Changhai, Chair of Academic Committee and Prof Han Sheng, President of STA. The participants held warm discussions on the topics of the revision of the Charter of the Academic Affairs Committee of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, the arrangements for the re-election of the Academic Affairs Committee and the project-based academic review in relation to the 2015 budget.
As discussed and agreed at the meeting, the revision of the charter of the Academic Committee should be completed before June this year, which would be conducted as part of STA’s work to strengthen governance by law and system building and in conjunction with the formulation of the STA Charter which is progress, followed immediately by the re-election of the Academic Committee through a democratic procedure. In order to ensure the regular meetings of the Academic Committee, it was decided to re-establish the Secretariat which will be co-located with Research Department, and it was proposed that Prof Wang Yun, Director of Research Department, be appointed the Secretary-General of the Academic Committee.
The meeting stated that the Academic Committee is the highest academic authority of STA. In order to strengthen standardized academic management, a specialized and graded management system based on work functions would be introduced under which the Teaching Guidance Committee and the Creation and Performance Committee would work with the delegation from the Academic Committee to review the specific teaching matters and review the creation and performance project respectively, while the Academic Committee would review the major academic matters. The responsibilities of these committees would be clearly defined in conjunction with the revision of the STA Charter and strict rules would be implemented against conflict of interests.
The meeting also informed about the 2015 budget release and the Academic Committee’s tasks to review the relevant project-based budget items. The following arrangements were made after discussions during the meeting:
Five review teams would be set up according to STA’s discipline mix, i.e. theatre team, film and TV team, music and dance team, design team and art theory team with no less than three committee members as the reviewing experts in each team.
Convener (team leader) of theatre team: Lu Jun
Convener (team leader) of film and TV team: Hu Xuehua
Convener (team leader) of music and dance: Chen Jianian, Li Haixia (authorized and accredited)
Convener (team leader) of design team: Wang Luwei, Yin Tianfu (authorized and accredited)
Convener (team leader) of art theory team: Sun Huizu
If there are not enough committee members in any particular team, the convener (team leader) would nominate candidates from faculty members ranked at associate professor or higher for authorization and accreditation by Prof Ye Changhai on behalf of the Academic Committee.
