Valuing professional staff in higher education

1. Melissa Bradley
Administration Manager, Faculty of Humanities, University
of Kent; UK, Co-convenor of Organisational Development
Network, Fellow and Trustee of the AUA
@BradleyMelissa
Carroll Graham
Research Associate, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences,
UTS (former Executive Manager, ISF, UTS); Association
Secretary and Associate Fellow, ATEM
@carroll_graham
Valuing the roles of professional staff
in Higher Education
A UK/AUA and a Australian/ATEM perspective

2. Outline of the presentation
• Setting the context
• The debate: key discussion topics
• Learning Points
• Questions
• Further reading

3. Setting the scene
John of Salisbury (died 1180)
wrote:
If you are a real scholar you are
thrust out in the cold. Unless
you are a money-maker, I say,
you will be considered a fool, a
pauper. The lucrative arts, such
as law and medicine, are now in
vogue, and only those things
are pursued which have a cash
value.
https://hist2615.wikispaces.c
om/John+of+Salisbury+-
+A+Medieval+Renaissance+
Man
Radford, J., Raaheim, K., De Vries, P. & Williams, R. 1997, Quantity and Quality in Higher Education, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Ltd, London.

4. Setting the scene (c. 1375)
Laurentius de Voltolinahttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Laurentius_de_Voltolina_001.jpg

5. Is the paradigm shifting though?
Charles Barsotti, The New Yorker

6. Global HE issues
• Costs of Higher Education
• New providers
• Student Expectations / Consumerism
• Employability / Graduate level roles
• Globalisation / Internationalism
• Managerialism
• Digital (r)evolution
• Regulation / accountability

7. Professional identity and value of professional
staff
• Are we professional and are we a profession?
Gornitzka and Larsen (2004) Blümel (2008)
The emergence of a common cognitive
basis
The development of a specialised body
of practical and problem-solving
knowledge that becomes systematised
An increase in requirements for formal
qualifications required to hold university
administrative positions
The establishment of an academic
program of study, qualification and
training
The growth and formalisation of
networks between university
administrative staff
A professional association or
occupational network, which regulates
entrance into the profession, provides a
basis for knowledge exchange and
licensing of qualifications
An increase in formal status of university
administrative positions
Increased status and autonomy in
decision-making
Frameworks for the professionalisation of university
professional staff.

8. Straw Poll - Has the role of Professional Staff
and our contribution changed in recent times?
• Are you professional in your work?
• Are you a professional?
• Are you part of a global profession?
• Did you select this profession by choice?
• What collective term for professional staff do you identify
with?
• Professional staff?
• General staff?
• Support staff?
• Admin staff?
• Other?
Simple show of hands*
* Adapted from an exercise devised by Dr Kenton Lewis - www.kentonlewis.co.uk"

9. Straw Poll II
• Are you contributing to the core academic purposes
of your institution in your work?
• Student learning outcomes?
• Research?
• Other?

10. Wider recognition of HE administration as a
career?
Few of us ever plan to be
a University
administrator, so what
does that mean in terms
of professional identity?
The invisible worker?
The invisible profession?
The accidental profession?
Used with permission of Matthew Andrews

11. Professional staff status and role in UK
• Development of the
status of professional
staff in higher education?
• “Any academics who
think their university and
all its elements revolve
around them may have to
prepare for a cosmic
shift.” THE, 14 April 2011
-10%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Expenditure Staff
Academic Other

12. Professional staff status and role in AU
• Similar pattern in
Australia
-10%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Expenditure Staff
Academic Other

13. Staff in AU and UK HE institutions
48%
49%
50%
51%
52%
53%
54%
55%
56%
57%
58%
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Percentage of Professional Staff of all University Staff
AU
UK

14. Career Pathways: UK view
AUA CPD Framework: http://www.aua.ac.uk/LGM/careerpathwaysfinal.pdf
See also Whitchurch, C. (2008). Professional Managers in UK Higher Education: Preparing for Complex Futures
Final Report. Research and Development Series. London: Leadership Foundation for Higher Education

15. Key discussion topics:
1. Is there a case for higher education as a profession?
2. Is there a need to promote higher education
administration as a career of choice?
3. Should we / do we attract and retain our graduates?
4. Are there concrete career pathways and routes?
5. What are the issues around specialist roles versus
generalist roles?
6. How does the interface between administration in
academic units and central services work?

16. Reporting back:
1. Is there a case for higher education as a
profession?
• Expectations have changed within the university
community – staff and students
• Career trajectories have emerged
• Academic recognition and qualifications of
professional staff
• Changing nature of academic work, and moving to
blended roles
• Other professions coming into the sector and needing
to gain an understanding of the complexity of
university work

17. Reporting back:
2. Is there a need to promote higher
education administration as a career of
choice?
• Difficulty understanding roles within the sector, let
alone for those outside
• Perception of students and academic staff not knowing
what we do during semester breaks – so what hope
others?
• No standards across titles or functions across the
sector, especially for generalists

18. Reporting back:
3. Should we / do we attract and retain our
graduates?
• Is it a profession?
• How is it viewed internally / externally?
• Some moved from being a student to graduate
employee in the same institution
• What do we mean by HE professional?
• How do we explain that both internally and externally?

19. Reporting back:
4. Are there concrete career pathways and
routes?
• NO! 
• Heterogeneity of role make it difficult to have a defined
career path
• Perhaps easier in central services (e.g. finances, HR,
etc.)
• Professional associations could ramp up efforts in
terms of benchmarking expertise and roles.
• Need for a common framework

20. Reporting back:
5. What are the issues around specialist
roles versus generalist roles?
• Is there a “versus”? Assume specialists means
professions that exist outside HE
• The route for generalists is more winding
• There is no qualification required to become a
generalist professional in HE
• Even within generalists there are specialist roles
• Order out of chaos = bureaucracy
• We need to value our work so that others can value it

21. Reporting back:
6. How does the interface between
administration in academic units and central
services work?
• Facilitation role played between central roles and
academic units
• Collaboration is essential
• Some senior leadership roles that were formerly
administration have been reclassified as academic

22. Practical ways to enhance professional identity
UK examples:
• AUA Annual Awards, THE and Guardian Awards
• Embedding the AUA CPD framework in universities
• Administration Projects
• Promoting and facilitating knowledge and qualifications
(e.g. Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Management
Administration, Management and Leadership)
Austral(as)ian examples:
• ATEM / Campus Review Best Practice Awards
• Creating debate in social and traditional media
• Promoting and facilitating knowledge and qualifications (e.g.
eLAMP)

23. Professional staff . . .
AUA / ATEM at careers expos?

24. Questions?

25. Further reading: UK
Recent Journal Articles from Perspectives:
• http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13603108.2014.88
2427
• http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13603108.2014.91
4107?src=recsys
Other Journals:
• http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/3199/2/3199.pdf
Higher Education Blogs:
• http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/change-
academy/category/professionalism/
• http://registrarism.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/administrators-
cannot-offer-enlightened-management/
• http://registrarism.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/the-imperfect-
university-who-should-lead-universities/

26. Further reading: Australia
Recent Journal Articles from Journal of Higher
Education Policy & Management:
• http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/doi/pdf/10.10
80/1360080X.2014.916470
• http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/doi/pdf/10.10
80/1360080X.2013.844663
Other Journals:
• http://higheredprofessionals.info/system/files/anothermatrixrevo
lution.pdf
Higher Education Blogs:
• http://www.lhmartininstitute.edu.au/insights-blog/2011/06/49-
managers-for-a-demand-driven-environment
• http://www.lhmartininstitute.edu.au/insights-blog/2014/06/181-
new-technologies-and-the-blurring-of-boundaries
• http://www.lhmartininstitute.edu.au/insights-blog/2013/09/152-
university-professional-staff-enhancing-student-outcomes