Mapping the Growth and Demographics of Managerial and Professional Staff in Higher Education

Abstract

This chapter presents a descriptive analysis of the growth of managerial and professional staff from Fall 1993 to Fall 2011 across institution types and sectors, and a detailed snapshot of the demographic composition of these staff in Fall 2016. Our results indicate tremendous growth in the population of non‐faculty staff over time, and reveal key patterns in staff employment by gender and race/ethnicity.

Student engagement and barriers to implementation: the view of professional and academic staff

“…The empirical findings clearly indicate that indeed there are many activities that HE institutes undertake to attempt to engage with their students and both academic and professional staff play an important role in that delivery (Roberts, 2018;Frye & Fulton, 2020). Wawrzinek et al, (2017) suggest that universities provide a platform for students, but other stakeholders (academics and service departments) need to learn from each other in order to ensure that students receive effective service quality that helps to co-create value.…”

“…The role of professional staff within universities and how they are involved in the student experience, including SE initiatives is an area that has received growing interest recently. Evidence clearly indicates that the number of professional staff employed within the HE sector has risen in recent years (Frye & Fulton, 2020) however, whilst extra resources are often appreciated, the role of academic staff versus professional staff has come under scrutiny. Roberts (2018) revealed the important role that professional staff in universities play with regards engagement and the student's 'life-cycle' within HE, suggesting that they have an important factor to play, but often this is an area that is under-researched as most studies focus solely on academic staff.…”

“Power does not exist, what exists is influence”: How mid‐level business and finance staff in private colleges navigate the higher education landscape

“…García and colleagues (2020) edited monograph Caught in the Middle: Understanding the Roles and Experiences of Midlevel Staff in Higher Education provides a scholarly overview of research dealing with the midlevel managerial position, highlighting both the importance and responsibilities midlevel managers have in organizational structure. The more complex modern‐day universities and colleges become in their organizational make‐up, the more they rely on midlevel managers for tending to the administrative needs of the organization (Desrochers & Kirshtein, 2014; Frye & Fulton, 2020; McNaughtan et al., 2018). With current research “first and foremost focused on what managers do, that is, their functions and how they actually spend their working time” (Gjerde & Alvesson, 2020, p. 128), the gap in research as it pertains to the way midlevel managers leverage their position while navigating their challenging roles becomes apparent.…”

Circling the divide: Gendered invisibility, precarity, and professional service work in a UK business school

“…What is now called PS work has long been segregated: women accounted for 93% of "clerks" in education in 1981 (Crompton &Sanderson, 1990, p. 122), andHESA (2021) data today shows that PS is still disproportionately female. Indeed, despite an increase in the number of PS roles at middle and senior levels (Szekeres, 2011), PS remains more disproportionately female in lower-paid, part-time, and junior roles (HESA, 2021), a trend replicated in the United States (Frye & Fulton, 2020), Australia (Gander, 2018), and New Zealand (Reilly et al, 2016). 2 Yet this sizeable "underclass" (Szekeres, 2011, p. 684) of female and feminized employees in disproportionately low-paid, low-status roles are largely invisible within literatures examining sexism and gender inequalities within academia (cf.…”

“…Arnold et al, 2019;Currie & Hill, 2013;Eveline & Booth, 2004;Reilly et al, 2016;Thomas Carruthers, 2019). Meanwhile, within a growing literature focusing specifically on PS staff, there is a strong tendency to render invisible questions of gender (Frye & Fulton, 2020;Wallace & Marchant, 2011). These absences are especially surprising since research on academics consistently shows that the same neoliberalizing processes that brought PS into being have disproportionately harmed women (e.g., Currie & Thiele, 2001;Teelken & Deem, 2013) and certain groups of women in particular (e.g., Johansson & Sliwa, 2014;Stockfelt, 2018;Strauß and Boncori, 2020).…”