The rise of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">blended professional</Emphasis> in higher education: a comparison between the United Kingdom,Australia and the United States

This paper builds on earlier work by the author to explore the international dimensions of a study of the changing roles and identities of professional staff in higher education (Whitchurch 2008a, b). It further develops the concept of the blended professional, characterising individuals with identities drawn from both professional and academic domains, and examines the institutional spaces, knowledges, relationships and legitimacies that they construct. Comparisons between the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States are used to provide indicators of possible futures for this group of staff, including their positioning in the university community, the challenges they face, and the potentials that they offer to their institutions.     

Expanding the parameters of academia

This paper draws on qualitative data gathered from two studies funded by the UK Leadership Foundation for Higher Education to examine the expansion of academic identities in higher education. It builds on Whitchurch’s earlier work, which focused primarily on professional staff, to suggest that the emergence of broadly based projects such as widening participation, learning support and community partnership is also impacting on academic identities. Thus, academic as well as professional staff are increasingly likely to work in multi-professional teams across a variety of constituencies, as well as with external partners, and the binary distinction between ‘academic’ and ‘non-academic’ roles and activities is no longer clear-cut. Moreover, there is evidence from the studies of an intentionality about deviations from mainstream academic career routes among respondents who could have gone either way. Consideration is therefore given to factors that influence individuals to work in more project-oriented areas, as well as to variables that affect ways in which these roles and identities develop. Finally, three models of academically oriented project activity are identified, and the implications of an expansion of academic identities are reviewed.     

Diversifying Academic and Professional Identities in Higher Education: Some management challenges

This paper draws on an international study of the management challenges arising from diversifying academic and professional identities in higher education. These challenges include, for instance, the introduction of practice‐based disciplines with different traditions such as health and social care, the changing aspirations and expectations of younger generations of staff, a diffusion of management responsibilities and structures, and imperatives for a more holistic approach to the “employment package”, including new forms of recognition and reward. It is suggested that while academic and professional identities have become increasingly dynamic and multi‐faceted, change is occurring at different rates in different contexts. A model is offered, therefore, that relates approaches to “people management” to different organisational environments, against the general background of increasing resource constraint arising from the global economic downturn.     

Diversifying Academic and Professional Identities in Higher Education: Some management challenges

This paper draws on an international study of the management challenges arising from diversifying academic and professional identities in higher education. These challenges include, for instance, the introduction of practice-based disciplines with different traditions such as health and social care, the changing aspirations and expectations of younger generations of staff, a diffusion of management responsibilities and structures, and imperatives for a more holistic approach to the “employment package”, including new forms of recognition and reward. It is suggested that while academic and professional identities have become increasingly dynamic and multi-faceted, change is occurring at different rates in different contexts. A model is offered, therefore, that relates approaches to “people management” to different organisational environments, against the general background of increasing resource constraint arising from the global economic downturn.

     

Some implications of ‘public/private’ space for professional identities in higher education

The interplay of public and private sector dynamics in higher education has impacted not only on the roles and identities of academic staff, but also on those of professional staff, who often have the task of bringing together, and achieving congruence between, activities that are geared towards the public good and also towards more commercially oriented enterprise. In this context, a new cadre of “blended professionals” has emerged, whose roles include initiatives associated with the social responsibilities of institutions to their communities, as well as more market-oriented, income generating projects (Whitchurch 2008, 2009). This paper reports on case material relating to a sub-set of these staff, working specifically in the area of Community and Business Partnership, and on the impact of their work for traditional management structures and relationships. It will be argued that, although unlikely to be acknowledged in formal accounts of the university such as organisation charts or institutional plans, these staff are responsible for providing and maintaining a framework that holds together more publicly oriented strands of activity, such as widening participation, with more privately oriented strands, such as enterprise. In so doing, they make extensive use of multi-professional team- and networking with a range of colleagues, both inside and outside the university, not only helping to re-balance their institutions, but also to protect them against undue organisational fragmentation and bureaucracy. They therefore contribute to an increasingly ‘mixed economy’ of broadly based portfolios of activity. The implications of these ‘public/private’ spaces and activities for professional identities are explored in the context of institutional management.     

The work of academic development – occupational identity,standards of practice,and the virtues of association

Abstract

The paper addresses the questions of identity, ethics and organization for academic developers ('AD’ is used as an umbrella for academic staff development plus a number of other academic‐related professional university roles). It inquires into the degree of role differentiation between this occupational cluster and others that resemble it, outside as well as inside the universities. It argues, following Clark and Boyer, that ‘AD’ is both a scholarly and an academic pursuit, and adds that it is characterized uniquely by its focus on change and development, and that the nature of its ‘discipline’ is somewhat problematic. The paper examines the occupational freedoms of AD people and their special knowledge‐base, and argues for a ‘temptations‐based’ rather than a ‘virtues‐based’ approach to creating an ethical schema. It concludes with observations about how to achieve a firm professional identity for AD and recommends new organizational machinery to both politicize and defend the distinctive AD role in academia.     

Imagining a future: changing the landscape for third space professionals in Australian higher education institutions

In the last decade there has been a shift in the discourses around professional staff in higher education that has been influenced by neoliberal agenda that focused on driving education reforms. Earlier discussions centring around nomenclature variations have progressed to those about creating and developing borderless professionals operating in the third space – a notional space where professional staff and academic staff with diverse and valuable skills work as equal professional partners on complex and multifaceted projects. This article looks at the evolution of the debates around professional staff. It considers how the notions of professionalism and professionalisation are being reconceptualised in the third space. Discussion progresses towards capability building and developmental opportunities of aspiring third space professional staff in higher education settings. Possible pathways of engaging with and empowering professional staff in designing their future careers and professional identities are considered. Building a community of research practices under the auspices of the Association for Tertiary Education Management (ATEM) and engaging postgraduate students in the university third space project work are proposed as potential areas for further research in the field of professional staff capability building.     

Faculty Liaisons: an embedded approach for enriching teaching and learning in higher education

This paper explores the experiences of a group of academic developers who support educational development work as Faculty Liaisons at a large, research-intensive university. These academic developers inhabit complex ‘third spaces’, providing support through an embedded partnership relationship that requires lateral movement across functional and organizational boundaries to create new professional spaces, knowledge, and relationships. The authors utilize narrative inquiry and auto-ethnographic approaches to present an interpretive qualitative analysis of their experiences supporting Faculty and University projects across complex and evolving organizational boundaries. From this analysis, they highlight key roles and responsibilities associated with their blended context and identify challenges that academic developers who occupy third spaces within academic organizations face as they negotiate competing interests, identities, and requirements associated with the diverse range of their projects and the blended experience of working in scholarly and administrative, central- and Faculty-based roles. The lessons they have learned from these experiences will be of particular interest to academic developers who are experiencing the flux of change within higher education settings that are impacting teaching and learning practices both for faculty in the classroom and for those across the institution who support them.     

Future and changing roles of staff in distance education: a study to identify training and professional development needs

Abstract

The roles of distance education teaching staff are changing, necessitating role clarity and the development of appropriate competency frameworks. This article investigates the perceptions of the teaching and research staff at the University of South Africa, regarding the current and future roles of distance educators, their own competencies in each role and training that they require in order to address competencies required in these future roles. This research forms part of a larger project that focuses on capacity and continuous professional development processes that are necessary to train staff to be prepared for these changing roles. A quantitative web-based survey was sent to all academic (teaching and research) staff at the University of South Africa. Key results indicate that competencies in the roles of technology and instructional design have emerged as crucial for distance educators, and that future training programmes need to be developed to support these areas.     

NEW ROLES AND NORMS FOR OLDER ADULTS THROUGH HIGHER EDUCATION

A growing number of older adults develop new roles and identities in their retirement years. They may be trend‐setters in creating new norms for future generations of retirees. Research conducted by the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement at the University of North Carolina at Asheville on middle‐class, well‐educated retirees with professional or managerial prior work roles indicates that these retirees want volunteer, leadership, and learning opportunities. A study of 101 alumni of the center's leadership for seniors program showed how institutions of higher education can play a prominent part in facilitating the development of roles and norms that often transcend the general public's ideas of what retirees can do and contribute.     

Changing academic identities in changing academic workplaces: learning from academics’ everyday professional writing practices

In this article we examine issues of academic identity through the lens of academics’ everyday workplace writing, offering a complementary perspective to those already evident in the higher education research literature. Motivated by an interest in the relationship between routine writing and aspects of professional practice, we draw on data from interviews with 30 academics across three different universities. Our discussion is illustrated with excerpts from interview data, and is organised around three emerging themes: ‘reconstructing academic identities in a shifting academic workplace’, ‘considering new articulations of disciplinarity’, and ‘moving on from the golden age’. We conclude that the reconstruction of academic identities, through engagement with established and emerging workplace documents, may well be enabling academics to build new identities within the changing university.     

The Morphing of Academic Practice: Unbundling and the Rise of the Para‐academic

Teaching, research and service are the three conventional elements of academic practice, recognised on an international basis. However, evidence suggests that academic practice is rapidly disaggregating, or ‘unbundling’, as a result of a variety of forces including the massification of national systems, the application of technology in teaching and increasing specialisation of academic roles to support a more centralised and performative culture. This article will present an analysis of these changes linked to the emergence of the ‘para‐academic’: staff who specialise in one element of academic practice. This includes the ‘up‐skilling’ of professional support staff and the ‘deskilling’ of academic staff. The implications of this change for the quality of the student experience and the sustainablity of academic citizenship are considered.     

Ex Corde Ecclesiae and American Catholic Higher Education: The Calm Before the Storm or Dead in the Water?

Amid the struggle that Catholic colleges and universities, especially those in the United States, face as they seek to preserve their religious identities, Rome formally entered the fray on August 15, 1990, when Pope John Paul II promulgated the Ex Corde Ecclesiae (Ex Corde) (literally, “from the heart of the Church”). John Paul II wrote Ex Corde in an attempt to reinvigorate the debate over how Catholic colleges and universities can remain true to their religious missions while being viable institutions of higher learning wherein faculty members are free to work as researchers and teachers who can meet the same objective performance evaluation criteria as their professional colleagues in the world of academics. In reviewing the status of Ex Corde over the more than 5 years that expired since the controversy over the adoption of The Application and The Guidelines designed to implement Ex Corde began, this article is divided into three parts. The first part reviews the basic elements of Ex Corde while the second examines both the events surrounding the adoption of The Application and The Guidelines along with their subsequent (non)implementation in the United States. The third part of the article reflects on the current status of Ex Corde in American Catholic colleges and universities, revealing that its critics have little to fear for academic freedom and/or job safety unless its terms are expressly included in employment contracts—a prospect that is not even remotely on the horizon.     

Preparing for new academic roles: An holistic approach to development

Abstract

In recent years there has been sustained emphasis in many countries on preparing academic staff for their teaching role. However, the necessary emphasis on teaching has distracted attention from the fact that university teachers are facing many other complex demands. University teachers are being appointed from a greater range of backgrounds and types of experience and performing an increasingly diverse range of roles. Moreover, while the emphasis has tended to be on the needs of full‐time tenurable staff, the numbers of casual and contract staff have grown. While much has been achieved, staff development provision is not coordinated, resources are not necessarily provided, centralized schemes do not link with departmental activities and responsibilities are often ambiguous.

The paper identifies some of the influences on preparation for academic roles being faced today and argues that new frameworks are needed. It suggests that a holistic view should be adopted: one which places as central the staff members and their roles, and which emphasizes negotiation and flexibility in response to the diversity of academic activities. The paper outlines the dimensions of such an approach.     

The professional development needs of staff in Wales on behaviour management and attendance: findings from the NBAR Report

This paper presents the evidence collected for the National Behaviour and Attendance Review (NBAR) in Wales on the professional development needs of staff on behaviour management and school attendance. These data were collected in two stages between 2006 and 2008. At Stage 1, data were collected from four pre‐selected professional focus groups who met throughout Wales to consider specific topics relating to the behaviour of children and young people in schools at the present time (n = 121). At Stage 2, relevant professional focus groups were established to specifically examine the themes of professional development and training in behaviour management and attendance in both North and South Wales (n = 62). This latter group activity built on the preliminary work of the NBAR review group’s own sub‐group on professional development and training. The paper considers the outcome of all these findings and their implications for future practice in Wales.     

Photo essay: The border is …

Based on autobiographical data, the paper describes six ideal types of teacher identities conceived as different patterns of perceiving and coping with professional demands. One hundred and twenty full‐time seventh through ninth grade teachers were selected in a stratified random sample. Teachers’ experience ranged from 5 to 29 years and 12.5% of the selected teachers were female. Data were collected in the form of semi‐structured interviews that started with a short overview of the interviewee's professional biography [Stegreiferzählung]and continued with self‐image and attitudes, social and professional mobility, vocation, start as a classroom teacher, professional competence, best years and burn‐out, professional satisfaction, and social network questions. The first step of data analysis included content and frequency analyses of these topics. In a second step, the Stegreiferzahlungwas analyzed by classifying the different biographical phases and defining biographical types. In a third step, identity‐types were constructed by using the biographical type as an “independent” variable to analyze the systematically explored topics according to Mex Weber's method of forming ideal types. This led to the six ideal types of teacher identity: the stabilization‐type, the development‐type, the diversification‐type, the problem‐type, the crisis‐type, and the resignation‐type.     

The impact of an Irish‐medium education option in initial teacher training on a third level institution

Abstract

This paper is based on a small‐scale study carried out to evaluate the change situation that arose in a Belfast third level institution with the introduction of an Irish‐medium option in initial teacher training within the BEd degree in 1996. Data were collected from stakeholders by way of questionnaire and semi‐structured interviews with a focus on four aspects. The first of those aspects was the change's impact on the institution. Stakeholders’ perceptions of the change was the second aspect and included academic staff, management, students taking the Irish‐medium option and head‐teachers in Irish‐medium schools. The third aspect was the way in which the academic staff coped with the change situation and the fourth was the likely future of the provision. The paper reports on recommendations around both the use of a second language as a teaching medium in teacher training and striking a balance between subject‐content and language teaching in teacher training for Irish‐medium education.     

It’s very different here: practice-based academic staff induction and retention

The sociologist, Max Weber (1864–1920), suggested that few could withstand the frustrations of academic life. As the strategic management of human resources begins to differentiate higher education institutions (HEIs) in league tables, the costs of voluntary staff turnover (attrition) become more significant. In this paper, we consider links between induction (orientation) and retention for academic staff. We report on a qualitative study of thirty academic staff in five United Kingdom HEIs who were recruited on the basis of their professional experience. Their practice-based knowledge lends our participants particular insight into their HEI induction experience which, where found wanting, led in several cases to resignation. We analyse the induction experiences of our participants to glean explanations for these perceived shortcomings. Since induction interventions are thought to lead to improved retention, we recommend policy and practice changes to induction, which may benefit all academic staff.