Transforming spaces and identities: the contributions of professional staff to learning spaces in higher education (original) (raw)
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Society for Research into Higher Education 2022 (symposium), 2022
This presentation sheds light on educational support staff - as those supporting teaching and learning, students and academics - moving from this group as one of the first investigated in a multi-campus Italian university (Unibo). Through 15 semi-structured interviews, scheduled between 2021 and 2022 to inform a training programme for staff in education, we explore their community, identity, and also their network of relations with peers and academics. This group of professionals in today’s universities has not been extensively investigated so far so it has been less visible than other professional groups; still, the group has recently increased its visibility through the European strategy for universities, now calling on universities to prioritise education, research, innovation, serving society and economy. Later on in the presentation, this professional group has been compared with research managers working at the same university, with interviews conducted between 2014 and 2018 on the same set of topics. In conclusion, educational managers feel to belong to a plethora of communities; they have their say not only on their identity and the complexity of today’s education but also on the relationships with academics, which has never been enough explored in research, and this latter topic may even become most of what they wish to discuss further in coming months. On the one hand, the visibility for these educational managers has slowly become a burning issue not only at Unibo but in the broader university community, for example within the UNA Europa Alliance (and specifically, in one of its WGs on Staff development and on Building and Professionalising the UNA community of HE Professionals-HEPs). On the other hand, the visibility of research managers has grown steadily in recent years; proof of this visibility can be found in more research done on this professional group, in two Horizon Europe projects granted and just kicked off, in the work of professional associations worldwide, and also in books, including a new global book on RMA expected in late 2023 by Emerald (The Emerald Handbook of Research Management and Administration Around the World).
2013
This has been a substantial project that has required extended periods immersed in 'doctoral land'. Completion of this doctorate would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of many people, whom I'd like to acknowledge. My supervisor, Dr Tony Holland, and my second supervisor, Professor Alison Lee, both provided me with invaluable support. Tony understood the conflicting demands that a research degree has with an exacting full time job, and was understanding of my lack of progress when I wasn't making any. Nevertheless, he always displayed faith in me, my decisions and my research. Alison provided intellectual challenges along the journey, regularly questioning my thinking and writing, which led to improved outcomes and outputs. Thank you also to Dr Ann Reich, who willingly joined my supervisory team when needed, and was of invaluable assistance at the 'pointy end'. I would also like to thank the staff and students at the Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), particularly my work supervisor Professor Stuart White. Stu's encouragement and support for the completion of this doctorate, including approving several periods of leave during 2012, was typical of someone who values professional staff, their work and their development, despite the inconveniences caused by the associated absences. To my staff (the 'CSI Ultimo' team), who filled in during those absences-especially Suz and Neridah-I could not have completed this doctorate without knowing that you were there covering for me. To those ISF PhD students who accepted me into their Groups for Accountability and Support (GAS)-Phil, Rosemary and Sarina; and especially Tani and Nicole-thank you for keeping me accountable and for providing support, even though I wasn't exactly an ISF PhD student. And thank you to Damien Giurco who was a critical friend for some of my journal articles. Thank you to the professional staff at UTS. The contributions that these staff gave to my research were immense-some through participating directly in this research project, while others voiced their encouragement. I also valued the encouragement I received from my wider professional networks, through the Association for Tertiary Education Management (ATEM), the Association of University Administrators (AUA) and the Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE).
The paradoxes and pressures of trying to maintain academic professionalism in Higher Education
2019
In UK HE where students are increasingly constructed as consumers, little is written about the corresponding academic conceptualisation; the lecturer as service provider. Whilst some authors embrace such metaphors, others identify negative behavioural consequences. This interpretivist study of academics seeks to examine the notion of academic as service worker by examining how academics experience interactions with students and how these influence their professional identities. Early data interpretation reveals themes of boundary setting in student encounters; the need to regulate emotions; and evidence of self-exploitation suggesting academics are complicit in extra responsibilities and how this contributes to new forms of academic labour. A final theme depicts an idealised version of academia as a coping mechanism. Market pressures are reshaping what it means to be an academic, forcing them to face the many paradoxes of maintaining professionalism characterised through their every...
Transitions into higher education professional and professional identity
2019
The study draws on an IPA analysis of 8 interviews, conducted in 3 UK universities (Post/Pre 1992). It explores the perceptions of dual professionals, specifically: what aspects of professionalism are important to them, how they express their professional identity and negotiate it in an academic context. The focus of this paper is chiefly on how dual professionals conceive professionalism and how these beliefs affect their capacity to negotiate themselves in their new HE career. Insight into how these individuals negotiated their professional identities, as they experienced inbound trajectories ranging from peripheral to full membership of a university community is very relevant to those responsible for professional development. The findings may aid fellow academics and university management to consider, develop and create a sense of HE identity and belonging for dual professionals.
2017
The University third space is often presented as a powerful driver and an increasingly widespread phenomenon of shifting job roles and identities of both professional and academic staff in the contemporary global university environment (Birds, 2015; Graham, 2013); Whitchurch, 2008/2015). It is defined as new and emerging, or re-invented forms of university activities that transcend traditional academic and professional portfolio binaries, as well as professional identities, creating new work engagements between academic and professional staff (Whitchurch, 2012, 2015). The advancement of globalisation leads to convergences of higher education policies and workplace practices (Gopinathan, 2001; Gopinathan & Lee, 2011; Green, 1997, 1999; Mok & Lee, 2003); to renegotiation of spaces occupied by university staff in the course of their professional engagements, and to redefined boundaries within universities and across multiple national and international professional, geographical and sec...
Occupying a ‘third space’: research trained professional staff in Australian universities
Higher Education, 2010
Despite the expansion and professionalisation of university administration over the past 20 years there has been no scholarly study on the extent to which universities, which promote the value of generic skills from research degrees to prospective research students and their employers, capitalize on the research and transferable skills of PhD graduates later employed in the university sector as professional staff. Findings from this study of research-trained professional staff at one research-intensive Australian university suggests that these professionals are using their research and generic skills in management roles, to the benefit of the university. In the context of the knowledge based economy, this study suggests that universities could benefit from actively targeting the products of their own system for professional roles.
Social Change in Higher Education Staff Professional Life and Work
2016
aim of this project was to explore and understand how scholars establish a dialogue, resist, adapt themselves or adopt changes, in the process of constructing their professional identities. As the members of the research team were scholars ourselves, teaching and carrying out research in Spanish universities, we started this research by writing our own autoethnographies. As a result, we developed nine autoethnographies which give a complex and in-depth account of senior and junior scholars’ journeys into their process of constructing their professional identity and working lives in a rapidly changing world. This article starts by giving a context to the research project and arguing the need for conducting autoethnographies. It goes on to discuss the process itself of writing Page 1 of 15Hernández