Professional and Support Staff in Higher Education: An Introduction

Bossu, Carina; Brown, Natalie; Warren, Vanessa

doi:10.1007/978-981-10-1607-3_29-2

Cited by 6 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…For many occupational groups, the idea of a profession had become a powerful source of identification by the turn of the 20th century (Whitchurch & Gordon, 2009). The broader literature has recognised new features of professionalism, especially in relation to the development of an environment in the public sector that is more focused on the market and the consumer (Bossu et al, 2018). On the one hand, the scope of the academic profession has been broadened and diversified (Whitchurch & Gordon, 2013).…”

Section: The Emerging Professional Staff In Higher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Third space professionals and undergraduate teaching – A comparative study in China, the United Kingdom and Canada

Feng

2024

Higher Education Quarterly

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This research explores the emerging position of teaching professionals in research universities through the framework of ‘third space professionals’. The third space is described as an overlapping space between the professional and academic domains in university and usually staff who are neither traditional academics nor traditional professionals work in this space and considered as the third space professionals. This research is achieved through three case studies, each in China, the United Kingdom and Canada. By investigating the role and positioning of teaching professionals in higher education, this research provides empirical evidence supporting the existence of the third space for professionals in higher education. The findings show that the responsibilities of the teaching professionals are relatively similar at each university, mainly including training academics and supporting curriculum development. However, their positioning in the university and value in supporting teaching and learning can be influenced by their relationship with academics. Universities’ expectations of teaching professionals play an important role in shaping their collective identities. By proposing a three‐dimensional space model for higher education, this research builds on previous studies on the higher education space and offers an alternate framework for interpreting higher education space and analysing university staffing.

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Section: The Emerging Professional Staff In Higher Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Third space professionals and undergraduate teaching – A comparative study in China, the United Kingdom and Canada

Feng

2024

Higher Education Quarterly

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“…Other developments, such as the granting of further autonomy to institutions to position themselves in the market for higher education, accompanied by accountability mechanisms to protect the student as consumer, and to justify institutional public and third-party funding (Sarrico & Godonoga, 2021), generate the need for a cadre of management and administration profes-sionals within higher education. This has meant that academic staff, in the restricted sense, are now in the minority among staff in some higher education systems (Bossu, Brown, & Warren, 2018), with the possibility for partnership and/or competitive tension between professional groups seeking a voice in higher education.…”

Section: Factors At Play In Managing Academicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to the Research Handbook on Academic Careers and Managing Academics

Sarrico¹

2022

Research Handbook on Academic Careers and Managing Academics

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The academic profession used to be classified as a key profession in society (Perkin, 2018(Perkin, [1969); its specific status within society led authors such as Guy Neave to identify it as an 'Academic Estate' (Neave, 2015). In the old higher education systems of Western Europe, most academics were either considered public servants or their employment was closely aligned with public administration. In Anglo-Saxon systems, they typically enjoyed tenured status. Their protected status from dismissal assured the academic autonomy and freedom essential to develop academic work.Along the same lines, Kogan, Moses, and El-Khawas (1994) prefer the expression 'academic community' to 'academic profession' to highlight that although relevant differences were evidenced within the group, they all share a unique set of common values and norms related to knowledge production and dissemination.Nevertheless, in the last three or four decades the dominant perspective of academics being an elite profession has been questioned. The current situations of casualization, precarity, division between the haves and the have nots, long hours, surveillance, austerity, erosion of pay, exacerbated competition, work overload, and harmful power relations are the manifestation of these transformations (OECD, 2021).These trends are transforming the 'Academic Estate' into academics as 'managed professionals' (Rhoades, 1998), who are managed as any other workers in traditional industrial working relations (Musselin, 2013), questioning their long-established autonomy and freedom (Aarrevaara, 2010;Carvalho & Diogo, 2018a).There is a sense that the globalization of the academic labour market, and the digital transition, accelerated by Covid-19, has exacerbated these developments. However, there is actually a scarcity of knowledge about how academics are managed at system and institutional level and the impact that has on individuals. There is also a need to better understand how academics' characteristics, such as gender, age, and position in the academic career, influence or are influenced by the way academics are managed.There are a lot of sweeping statements and generalizations, regarding how neoliberalism, managerialism, and new public management have influenced the way academics are managed, but these can and are contested; they do not develop in the same way in different systems and institutions. Individuals, institutions, and countries make choices, negotiate change under different contexts, and the results are not the same everywhere. Nonetheless, most analyses on academics' management are Eurocentric or take a global perspective, without considering the differences between higher education systems.

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“…Professional and support staff refers to non-faculty members at universities. Their tasks range from clerical activity to high-level managerial activity to student engagement support in regards to learning, personal needs, and transactional activities to knowledge creation support to physical plant maintenance and security (Bossu, Brown, & Warren, 2018). For them, the goal that relevant to student success is quality services, which is composed of a series of specific services such as library service.…”

Section: Research Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How stakeholders’ data literacy contributes to student success in higher education: a goal-oriented analysis

Yang

2020

Int J Educ Technol High Educ

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Student success is becoming a shared vision for quality in higher education. Majority data in higher education have not been transformed into actionable insights for quality enhancement. Data are dispersed among stakeholders, and stakeholders’ data literacy influences the effectiveness of using data for student success. However, existing studies mainly focus on students’ data literacy; the analysis of other stakeholders’ data literacy for student success is still few. This study aims to explore how stakeholders’ data literacy contributes to student success in a holistic view. The salience model is used to identify core stakeholders. The goal-modeling language iStar is used to present how stakeholders contribute to student success. A competencies matrix of data literacy is used to discuss the specific data literacy competencies that stakeholders should focus on promoting student success. A survey is conducted to validate the goal-oriented analysis and the discussions on specific competencies of data literacy for stakeholders. The goal-oriented analysis presents the complexity of interactions and dependencies among stakeholders for student success. This study helps to raise stakeholders to be aware of the importance of their data literacy and the necessity of collaboration on exploiting vast available data for student success.

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Professional and Support Staff in Higher Education: An Introduction

Cited by 6 publications

References 9 publications

Third space professionals and undergraduate teaching – A comparative study in China, the United Kingdom and Canada

Third space professionals and undergraduate teaching – A comparative study in China, the United Kingdom and Canada

Introduction to the Research Handbook on Academic Careers and Managing Academics

How stakeholders’ data literacy contributes to student success in higher education: a goal-oriented analysis

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