Centre for Higher Education Studies

1. SRHE Access & Widening Participation EventProfessional Practices and IdentitiesWorking in a Third SpaceDr Celia Whitchurch Centre for Higher Education Studies

2. Contexts • Blurring of academic/’non-academic’ binary • Professional staff gaining academic credentials (qualifications and experience) • Academic staff undertaking more project oriented work eg around widening participation • Partnership and team working • Areas such as widening participation working out where they sit institutionally and their relationships, individually and collectively

3. Case Material • Two LFHE funded studies 2005-2009 • 9 institutions; 70 respondents; UK, US, Australia • 42/64 respondents in professional roles with significant academic elements (mainly non-academic or split contracts) • Mixed career backgrounds eg adult and continuing education, academic literacy, policy research, regional development, third sector • Widening participation recurred as a broadly based project area

4. Locating Widening Participation • 1980s expansion – access policies • Initially established as adjunct to admissions • Now crosses eg recruitment, equity and • diversity, learning partnerships, outreach, • ambassador programmes, employability, • academic literacy, teaching and learning • Some incorporated as part of Widening • Participation offices, others contiguous • WP crosses external as well as internal • boundaries

5. The Emergence of Third Space ‘Perimeter’ roles eg Examples of institutional projects in Third Space ‘Perimeter’ roles eg Professional staff Academic staff Access Preparatory/ study skills Regional partnership The Student Experience eg: Life and welfare Widening participation Employability/careers Equity and diversity Outreach Learning Support eg: Programme design/development Web-based learning Academic literacy Community/Business Partnership eg: Regional regeneration Business enterprise Incubation and spin out Knowledge transfer Employer engagement Generalist functions eg registry, department/ school management Specialist functions eg finance, human resources ‘Niche’ functions eg quality, research management Pastoral support Teaching for non-traditional students Links with local education providers Teaching Research ‘Third leg’ eg public service, enterprise Mixed teams “The Higher Education Professional” From Whitchurch (2008)

6. Preference for project-oriented roles • People who could have gone ‘either way’ • Doctoral programmes provide platform for professional as well as academic roles… • Also mid-career changes arising from eg: • Ideological commitment to project • Functional or disciplinary area no longer interesting • Prefer team working • Prefer applied research eg factors affecting student progress and outcomes • Pragmatic reason eg route into higher education, career or funding opportunity, job in specific location

7. Example: Learning Partnerships Manager I • Job description required: “…academic credibility to ensure that innovative and complex operations are delivered with high standards and quality… experience of generating external income and involvement in project management” and • “… commitment to generating, recognising and imaginatively meeting demand for higher education in such a way as to address the needs of students and generate growth for the university… A major aim… is to create new synergies and cross team working”

8. Example: Learning Partnerships Manager II • “I’ve always worked at interfaces…I’ve never been mainstream… although I will use it and occasionally say ‘well of course we’re just marginalised’, that’s where I like to be. I like to be where it doesn’t matter if you can bend the rules…it’s part of what makes life interesting… the battles that go on and the fighting over contested areas, I find that quite stimulating…” • “… there is quite a lot of contested space that we are working out... So the identity of the section … is it an income generator, or should it be a service provider; or can it occupy a hybrid space?”

9. Third Space as a concept • Concept from sociology/cultural theory: • “A dynamic, in-between space” in which “cultural translation” takes place (Bhabha 1990) • Activity not constrained by unitary set of “rules and resources”(Giddens 1991) from one or other space • “a difficult and risky place on the edge, in-between, filled with contractions and ambiguities, with perils but also with new possibilities … containing more than simple combinations of the original dualities’ (Soja and Hooper, 1993)

10. Spaces I • A plural environment with ambiguous conditions: • “Sometimes an academic unit, sometimes an office” (learning partnerships manager) • Turning this to advantage… • Not associated with specific agendas • Often support from eg senior mentor • Safe space in which to be creative/experiment BUT

11. Spaces II • Lack of organisational checks and balances (the ‘dark side’) • More self-reliance and struggle • Sometimes working with given structures for practical purposes, but also critiquing them • Sense of being ‘under the radar’ • Reflected in perceptions of “invisible • workforces” (Rhoades 2010) and “secret • managers” (Kehm 2006)

12. Example of dissonance in Third Space • “A lot of the activities I undertake have an academic component to them, and I think people find that difficult because I’m not an academic… the notion that you can encompass academic activities within an administrative set up is very uncomfortable for a lot of people… Why are we [running programmes] when we’ve got no full-time academic staff within the department, and where is the quality control, even though we go through institutional processes like everyone else. It makes people uneasy I think” (learning partnerships manager)

13. Knowledges I • Applied, evidence–based (Mode 2) institutional knowledge eg practice-based research • Transforming information into knowledge: • “I know what’s important to the institution; I know where it needs to be positioning itself; I know what the external context is; I know where we sit in terms of government agendas and stuff like that…”(learning partnerships manager)

14. Knowledges II • Awareness of impact of knowledge on different audiences • “I sometimes feel like an arms dealer… I have an obligation to provide data … in an objective way; but … the data can be viewed through multiple lenses” (institutional researcher) • Contribution to academic field of higher education (eg conferences, publications)

15. Relationships I • “…if you get the relationships right everything else falls into place” (educational technologist) • Lateral team working across hierarchies • At earlier stage of careers • May lead in one setting, be led in another • ‘Partnership’ rather than ‘management’ • Internal and external networks (‘weak ties’ Granovetter 1974; Florida 2002) • Building social and professional capital

16. Relationships II • Dissonance between perceptions of individuals and the collective: • “… learning partnerships as an entity is probably seen with suspicion by a lot of the academic body and people aren’t really sure what its purpose is and what it’s for. But there are a very large number of academics who will have interacted with [us] over particular projects or with particular individuals and will hold that in very high regard…” (learning partnerships manager)

17. Legitimacies I • Credibility via non-positional authority: “It’s what you are, not what you represent” (learning partnerships manager); “There’s no authority that you come with” (planning manager) • Confidence to participate in disinterested debate “learning to divorce argument from people” (teaching and learning manager) • Being non-partisan but politically aware: • “I’m trying to represent both sides to both • sides…” (teaching and learning manager)

18. Legitimacies II • Ability to take the part of others • Awareness of: • Different academic/professional work “rhythms” • Some project activity seen as “trade” or “dirty” work • Attitude of academic colleagues that “If you solve a problem for us, we’ll come back and work with you again” (teaching and learning manager) • The fact that academic and professional staff each perceive the other as being more powerful

19. Practical challenges • Managing mixed teams: “… there is a difficult • leadership role in integrating and managing • the staff in the unit who are a combined group • of academic and administrative staff • undertaking similar work with different working • conditions and entitlements” (academic • practice manager) • Status of Third Space activity eg in promotion, career? • Possibility of movement back into mainstream space?

20. Paradoxes and dilemmas • ‘Safe’ and ‘risky’ space • Academic credentials but ‘non-academic’ • Different academic/professional ‘rhythms’ • Neutral positioning but politically aware • People-oriented but diffident about managing • Differential perceptions of power • Networks cross-cutting formal hierarchies • Recognised by those within, but not those outside • Can Third Space become ‘mainstream’?... ‘Authenticity’ arises from ability to handle all this?