Abstract
Chris Davies, Associate Dean of Engineering Faculty in Monash University, stopped Qizhi Chen’s recruitment of 2 research students using wrong policies and consequently reduced Chen’s supervision quote well below the performance standards required for academic promotion.
Introduction
During Tam Sridhar’s time, the engineering faculty had a high turn-over of female academics. A number of competitive woman faculty were forced to leave or even fired by Monash University under Sridhar’s management. Professor Pauline Doran’s case was reported in “The Australian”
Incident I
1. Chris Davies instructed the academic in charge at Chen’s department to do H1 equivalency (pre-requisite mark for honours to enrols as PhD students) for a perspective self-funded student of Chen (Chenghao Zhu). Based on the incorrect (H1) equivalency, Chris Davies failed to approve the application in the first round, as Prof Suzuki explained to Chen: “Chris has provided me with some feedback. His main point was that the marks above 80 does not automatically qualify H1.” (CB227)
2. According to Monash University’s policy, self-funded students with H2B equivalency (a level down from H1) are eligible for consideration (A60A=CB156, p533).
3. Before 2011, Davies approved other students with H2B equivalency (CB251, p888), which was approved to enrol as a PhD student, coincidentally under the supervision of Birbilis.
4. After the self-funded student was re-evaluated with H2B equivalency, Davies took an unusually long period of time (twice longer than required, 4 weeks) (A60A, A60-67 = CB157-164), longer than the normal process (one or two weeks) (T642.25-27) to approve the case of Chen’s prospective student.
5. As a result of disapproval in the first round of the evaluation process, the subsequent re-evaluation and slowness of Davies’ last approval, the offer from Monash University was delayed; the student eventually did not accept the offer from Monash University, instead went to Melbourne University.
Incident II
6. In June 2011, Chen was approached by a prospective PhD student from India who wanted to undertake a second PhD and was seeking to secure a scholarship to do so. His first PhD was on computer modelling of carbon. He proposed to undertake a second PhD on tissue engineering (CB251, p887). Davies objected to this by claiming that there was a faculty policy that no student attempting their second PhD could apply for a scholarship. (A68=CB186, A126-127=CB187-188) For this reason, Chen was unable to recruit the candidate with a scholarship and she forced to forego supervising the PhD candidate.
7. The Monash Research Graduate School Scholarships policy stated awards will not be available to those who already has a PhD “unless the proposed research area for the second PhD or professional doctorate is significantly different to the prior PhD”(A124). Faculty policy (A125=CB57) is in consistent with the University’s policy.
8. Mr ### Zhou, who has a PhD from a university in China in the field of materials science, was approved to study with scholarships for a second PhD under the supervision of Professor Yibing Cheng (male).
9. It is very concerning that there appears to be a departmental policy which is inconsistent with Monash’s official policy on this issue. It is further concerning that the staff to whom this apparently differing policy affects (including promotional opportunities) were not appropriately made aware of its existence. This is the first time that Ms Chen is conscious of having been informed of this departmental decision, and we note that Monash has not provided any evidence of how employees were made aware of the existence of this policy and how it modified Monash’s policy. We (Chens’ then lawyers) consider it entirely inappropriate for the department to unilaterally modify the effects of a Monash policy in circumstances where this modification has not been communicated to staff and affects their promotion eligibility and opportunities. There appears to be two distinct policies in operation which apply to the same set of facts (the first, being the formal Monash policy and the second, being the informal department policy). These conflicting policies (of which staff were unaware) created an environment where staff members could be treated differently, with some second scholarships approved for some members of staff, and denied for other members of staff. In Ms Chen’s case, the differing policies were applied on a discriminatory basis.
Annotations of evidence documents:
· CB123 stands for Court Book Tab 123 of FCA VID857/2013.
· A123 or R123 refers to Exhibit 123, tendered by Chen or Monash University.
· T1234.1 refers to page 1234, line 1 of the court proceedings transcript
qizhichen04 
