Recruiting Academic Amalgams

Laura Czerniewicz 05 November, 2009 13:31 General Permalink Trackbacks (0)
Here in CET we are recruiting. We are looking for an exceptional someone with a wide range of capabilities: what is becoming the usual learning technology competencies, some specialist skills, and a commitment to and track record of research, oh and please teach on our post-grad programme (and supervise as well). I thought it was a big ask until I saw a similar advert for a position in New Zealand at http://www.otago.ac.nz/vacancies/vacancy.php?vacancy=1107. Similar level but even more demanding: a Phd and a tertiary qualification in Computer Science, web development, supervision…the whole bang shoot.

Both of these are academic positions, neither of them are "typical" academic jobs (ie undergrad teaching etc and a research day). Yet when we advertise these positions we have to choose between two conditions of service: academic and general (or non-academic or PASS as they are known in my university [Professional and Support Staff]). Those are the choices and it seems to me that they work less and less well for us. We run the danger of framing the position around the conditions of service rather than the needs of the job itself.

Its always interesting when there is a coalescence of observations; I have noticed this issue arising in a few places of late. So, a piece by Marcia Devlin in University World News (http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20091023103130927) on what Australian universities might look like in 20 years time includes an endnote which says "Nowhere in this article is there a reference to the majority of staff in institutions - the professional staff - and how their roles and functions may change over the next 20 years. By then, I hope, we will have 'university staff' as the accepted terminology so there will be no more nonsensical conversations about 'academic' and 'general' staff, and who runs universities."

Then I read an illuminating paper by Celia Whitechurch, called Shifting Identities, Blurring Boundaries : The Changing Roles of Professional Managers in Higher Education (Research & Occasional Paper Series: Cshe.10.2008 , University Of California, Berkeley, http://cshe.berkeley.edu/. It is really worth a read even though it focuses on "managers" as her suggestions of new identities resonate for the field of learning technology.

She posits four categories of Professional Identity

Categories of identity

Characteristics

Bounded professionals

Work within structural boundaries

(eg function, job description)

Cross-boundary professionals

Actively use boundaries for strategic advantage and institutional capacity building

Unbounded professionals

Disregard boundaries to focus on broadly-based projects and institutional development

Blended professionals

Dedicated appointments spanning professional and academic domains

It is these last two which are of special interest; are our job and that at Otogo not blended professionals? Yes they are academic positions with academic obligations, but they are more than that. And those additional professional competencies are something to name, and to praise are they not? We know that where and how positions are located influence the focus and nature of the work.

And of course just to muddle things a little more, we are higher education professionals. My colleague Duncan Greaves suggests the following typology for professions and their relationship to the academe:

1. Profession Type 1: Emerges outside the university and then moves into it eg law, accountancy and medicine

2. Profession Type 2: Emerges outside the university and remains outside the university eg estate agents. Such types have professional bodies and a knowledge domain, but it are not studied as a scholarly undertaking.

3. Profession Type 3: "Near professions" eg trades with tacit knowledge, accreditation and professional bodies, eg artisans and traders boiler makers fitters and turners

4. Profession Type 4: Emerges inside the university, gains status and moves out eg business studies through modern business schools

5. Profession Type 5: Emerges inside the university and stay inside – this results in a close relationship between communities of practice and scholars eg higher education studies, higher education leadership studies.

Learning technology has sites outside the university of course, but the confluence of roles and sites in the university make these even more complex positions.

What is encouraging is that there are recently several conversations and studies beginning to engage with these issues. The fundamental tenets of academic rigour, scholarly commitments and sound knowledge bases are not being questioned. But hopefully all this attention will coalesce into some concerted change and acknowledgement about the changing nature of academic work. (And that will be good for the emergent scholarly and professional field of educational technology.)

comments

  1. An important thing (to remember, and I know you know that Laura is) that blended professionalism can go in both directions. May of us working as a professional staff in the University have responsibilities that are academic in nature. But in the university discourse, we are regarded as peripheral and appropriate substitutes.

    Posted by Dental Plan — 05 Feb 2010, 20:38

  2. Laura's text 'We run the danger of framing the position around the conditions of service rather than the needs of the job itself' really resonated with me. Spot on.

    Wider readers may be interested in a parallel discussion that has very recently been taking place at: http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/1872 - and Laura has contributed to this. This was undertaken as a project funded by the Higher Education Academy in the UK.

    Tom, U/Exeter, UK

    Posted by Tom Browne — 12 Nov 2009, 15:49

  3. @DaveH - Celia Whitchurch's work focuses specifically on those "non-academic" posts that transcend strict categorisation into either "academic" or "non-academic" camps. It is, in fact, the anomaly for hybrid posts to be appointed on academic conditions - they are definitely the exception rather than the rule. During interviews for my thesis I was given "reasons" for this ranging from "we can't appoint then on academic conditions because they would not qualify for RfJ by virtue of the specialist nature of their work" to a more honest "it costs the university less to appoint on PASS conditions" - since "academic" staff qualify for sabbatical, access to all kinds of grants and funding to support their research and development and, of course, have a whole infrastructure designed to support their work while "non-academics" typically are on their own on all counts.

    But, thanks for the timely reminder - I really ought to publish from the thesis now that it's done - not that I have any expectations of anything changing, but it does provide a few reams of paper to thump tables with in support of an argument that no one really wants to hear...

    Posted by PASSed on — 10 Nov 2009, 16:18

  4. Laura,
    This'll be of interest to people becoming certified members of the Association for Learning Technology and I posted a link on the CMALT community site: http://cmalt-net.alt.ac.uk/posts/7411280.
    Seb

    Posted by Seb Schmoller — 06 Nov 2009, 08:36

  5. An important thing to remember (and I know you know this Laura) is that blended professionalism can go both ways. May of us employed as professional staff across the university have responsibilities that are academic in nature. Yet in the university discourse we are seen as peripheral and expediently replaceable.

    Posted by DavidH — 05 Nov 2009, 15:57


Add comment

Add comment
 authimage

Powered by LifeType
© 2006 - Design by Omar Romero (all rights reserved)