College Board

Title	Approved on	Purpose
Academic Board Terms of Reference	Thursday, 23 June, 2022	Role of the Academic Board The quality of Higher Education providers is overseen and regulated by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), applying standards set by the Minister for Education, primarily under the Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards) 2021 (HESF) or such other guidelines enacted from time to time. It is recognised by TEQSA that a degree of separation between corporate governance and academic governance is a long-standing practice and facilitates effective oversight of academic issues. Consistent with this practice, the Governing Board of Eastern College Australia (the Board) wishes to delegate academic oversight to the Academic Board under the following terms of reference. Pursuant to this delegation, the Academic Board, as a sub-committee of the Board, shall be the peak academic body of Eastern College Australia for consideration of academic issues including policy development and decision-making to assure the quality of teaching, learning, research and research training.
Academic Freedom Policy	Thursday, 9 August, 2018	To clarify the rights and responsibilities that faculty have regarding academic freedom.
Anti-Bullying & Occupational Violence Policy	Monday, 12 February, 2024	This policy is designed to ensure that all employees understand what will be regarded as bullying and occupational violence, how complaints can be made and how claims will be treated by ECA.
Board Executive Committee Terms of Reference	Tuesday, 13 September, 2022	The Executive Committee of the Eastern College Australia Board acts on behalf of the Board between Board meetings to deal with matters requiring prompt responses and/or action.
Child Protection Policy and Code of Conduct	Thursday, 29 June, 2023	The purpose of this Policy is to guide Eastern College Australia in developing a child protective culture and in establishing and maintaining child-safe environments for the children who are part of the College education and faith community.
Commercial Transactions Policy	Monday, 29 April, 2024	This policy is intended to give guidance to the operations personnel of the College, to ensure integrity in all its commercial transactions as they relate to service agreements, banking (including cash handling), inventory control, asset purchases and contractual obligations. This policy is read in conjunction with the Financial Policy and Procedure Manual.
Complaints and Grievance Policy	Monday, 3 October, 2022	To outline how grievances, disputes and complaints are managed.
Computer Policy	Wednesday, 16 October, 2024	The purpose of this policy is to provide guidelines for the allocation and use of computers for staff within the College.
Credit Card Use Policy	Monday, 14 November, 2022	The purpose of this Credit Card Policy is to ensure that credit cards are issued and used appropriately for business-related expenses of both the Melbourne School of Theology and Eastern College Australia (the Colleges), and that all expenses incurred are properly approved and acquitted.
Critical Incident Policy	Friday, 16 June, 2023	The purpose of this Critical Incident Policy (CIP) is to provide a detailed plan of how Eastern College Australia will prepare and respond to critical incidents and emergency situations.
Cyber Security Policy	Tuesday, 29 October, 2024	This Cyber Security Policy has the following purposes: Protect the operational integrity and availability of the College’s normal operations facilitated by its personnel and IT resources; Protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and information managed and retained by the College; Protect against external intrusion, denial of service, ransomware, and all other malicious breaches of the College’s IT environment, whether internal or external in origin; Ensure all personnel are aware of potential cyber risks and are trained to detect, respond and recover from cyber events; Prevent unauthorised and unapproved IT activity of any type within the College’s IT environment; Govern IT practices to ensure cyber security is a normal and expected part of the way the College operates internally, and with its students, staff and external stakeholders; Manage and recover from any adverse cyber incident in the most effective and efficient manner to restore normal operations as quickly as possible; Continually review and improve cyber security as the College’s IT environment and the real-world cyber security environment evolve.
Data Breach Policy	Friday, 23 August, 2024	This Policy sets out the processes to be followed by Eastern College Australia (ECA) staff if the College experiences a data breach or suspects that a data breach has occurred. This Policy should be read in conjunction with the College’s Privacy Policy
Disaster Recovery Policy: Loss of Executive Principal	Tuesday, 11 September, 2018	To ensure that the college continues to operate in the event of an unexpected loss of the Executive Principal, by appointing an Interim Executive Principal for a period of six months, so the Board have time to find the right person for the future.
Executive Principal Succession Policy	Thursday, 9 November, 2023	To outline the process Eastern College Australia (ECA) will adopt in the event of an unexpected absence (an emergency succession) or planned departure (departure defined succession) of the Executive Principal (EP).
Finance Policy and Procedure Manual	Monday, 28 November, 2022	All finance transactions as noted in this policy are to be authorised by the noted authorised person prior to the transaction being undertaken. This policy is to be read in conjunction with other specific finance policies where relevant.
Fit and Proper Persons Policy	Monday, 20 February, 2023	This policy and procedure is required to ensure that personnel recruited to key administrative positions in the College, or to the Governing Board of Eastern College Australia are fit and proper persons to conduct their delegated responsibilities within the College. The policy and procedure is also required to ensure ongoing compliance with Chapter One, Provider Registration Standards of the Higher Education Standards Framework.
Fraud Prevention Policy	Friday, 14 July, 2023	The purpose of this policy is to set out the commitment, responsibilities, and procedures of Eastern College Australia in relation to fraud.
Gender Based Violence (Including Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment) Policy	Tuesday, 8 July, 2025	The policy presents a framework for providing a safe environment for students and staff in relation to Gender Based Violence (“GBV”) and incidents of sexual assault and sexual harassment. It will outline what behaviours constitute Gender Based Violence, Sexual assault and/or Sexual harassment and set out how the College will respond to such incidents.
Gender-Based Violence (including Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment) Procedure	Tuesday, 8 July, 2025	To outline how persons can report Gender-based Violence, Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment (SASH) incidents, the support a person who reports GBV & SASH incidents will receive; and processes for responding to and preventing incidents of GBV & SASH.
Leave Policy	Thursday, 9 November, 2023	To outline staff leave entitlements and arrangements.
Mental Health Strategy and Implementation Plan	Thursday, 24 February, 2022	Eastern acknowledges that good mental health is important to students’ academic success as well as to their general well-being – as it also is for our faculty and staff. With this in mind, and in response to Recommendation 8 of the Higher Education Standards Panel, Eastern has developed a Strategy to provide a sustainable approach to mental health promotion, protection and intervention for all College students and employees.
Occupational Health and Safety Policy	Saturday, 21 October, 2023	This policy sets out the guiding principles to ensure the highest level of health, safety and wellbeing for staff, students and visitors.
Policy on Policy Development	Monday, 20 September, 2021	The Policy on Policy Development establishes a framework for creating and maintaining the College’s policies, procedures and guidelines.
Privacy Policy	Friday, 28 May, 2021	EASTERN Privacy Policy is based on the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) and is committed to protecting the privacy of all personal information. Personal information includes information about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information. It includes “sensitive information”. “Sensitive information” includes information about an individual’s racial or ethnic origin, religious affiliation and health information. The College is bound by the Australian Privacy Principles (APP) contained in the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988 and will collect, use and store personal information including any sensitive information, in accordance with those principles. The College is also bound by the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) and for higher education students, the Tuition Protection (Up-front Payments Guidelines) 2020 and the Higher Education (Up‑front Payments Tuition Protection Levy) Act 2020.
Professional Development and Study Leave Policy	Monday, 30 April, 2018	This policy outlines the conditions and principles that apply to professional development and study leave for College staff.

College Board

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