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

Not All Managers Are Managerial: A Self-Evaluation of Women Middle-Managers' Experiences in a UK University

The focus of this small-scale self-evaluation is the implementation of a new middle-management role in a post-92 UK university. A realist appreciative inquiry was undertaken with five women who had been promoted to a middle-management role 18 months prior to the inquiry. This evaluation for knowledge offered an opportunity to reflect on experiences in practice and sought to understand the experiences of the women in this role and how they cope with the challenges middle-management brings. Particular challenges (instability-generating) accorded with existing literature and included: lack of role clarity, lack of pre-preparation for management role, colleagues’ views of management, including perceptions of women in management roles and malicious intent of managed academics in rare cases. Supportive factors (provisional-stability-generating) included: personal resilience, informal peer support, external support and reflection. The co-evaluators offered reflections for the future from this co-evaluation. These suggest that training may contribute to provisional-stability in role and should be considered for new entrants to middle-management. The alternative construct of humanistic management is proposed as a way of understanding these women’s values-based decision-making practices in complex situations

Academic Professionalism in the Managerialist Era: A Study of English UniversitiesAcademic Professionalism in the Managerialist Era: A Study of English Universities

This article examines the relationship between managerialism and academic professionalism in English universities. Managerialist ideology has introduced to higher education a range of discourses and practices originating in the corporate world. According to much of the existing literature this is leading to feelings of proletarianisation and deprofessionalisation amongst academics. It is argued here that this somewhat depressing portrait may be overly pessimistic. Following a Foucauldian epistemology, this article presents the findings of an empirical study that suggest a willingness to tolerate managerialist modes of governance provided autonomous niches can be protected. The findings indicate constructive interaction and interdependence between managerialism and academic professionalism, in which academics exploit strategies of power to manage and reconstitute their self-concept within an evolutionary context. As such, they are instrumental in realigning power relations and sustaining managerialism as a mode of university governanc