SOME THOUGHTS ON THE PROFESSIONALISATION OF INTERNATIONAL OFFICE STAFF

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SOME THOUGHTS ON THE PROFESSIONALISATION OF
INTERNATIONAL OFFICE STAFF

• IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
• Fiona Hunter - Università Carlo
  Cattaneo, Italy

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OUTLINE

• How do we see ourselves?
• Changes in roles and responsibilities
• Blurred identities and possible tensions
• Are we emerging as a profession?
• The EAIE response to professional development in
  international education

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HOW DO WE SEE OURSELVES?

• Whats in a name?
• Administrators or managers?
• Generalists or specialists?
• Facilitators or initiators?
• Followers or leaders?
• Peripheral or central?
• Job or career?

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CHANGES IN ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• In a changing higher education environment
• New positions, higher levels
• More involved in decision and policy making,
  greater responsibilities
• Increasingly complex functions
• Working with many stakeholders

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BLURRED IDENTITIES AND POSSIBLE TENSIONS

• Interface with academics
• Blurring of lines
• Service role or partnership?
• Friend or foe?
• Balancing different agendas
• A chameleon - adapting to different teams
• Achieving goals through persuasion and
  negotiation

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THE CHALLENGE

• University managers more traditionally called
  administrators must live with inordinately high
  levels of role ambiguity and embrace paradoxical
  contradictions. They must tolerate uncertainty
  and accept the contradictory plurality of what is
  true, right and expedient. (Chris Duke 2002)

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KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCES

• Requirements
• University level education
• Developing and managing programmes,
  Administration of systems, Coordination and
  supervision, Information and advising, Budget
  management, IT skills
• Analytical and practical strengths, accurate and
  efficient, structured and well organised
• Understanding/experience of international
  environment
• Work independently and in team
• Cultural awareness/knowledge
• Communication skills verbal and written
• Language skills
• Interpersonal skills, empathy and sensitivity
• Flexibility
• Responsible and committed
• Willingness to travel

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ARE WE EMERGING AS A PROFESSION?

• How to define a profession?
• Increase in formal status
• Increase in requirements for educational
  qualifications
• Emergence of common cognitive basis
• Growth and formalisation of networks
• (Gornitzka and Marheim Larsen 2004)

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THE EAIE RESPONSE TO PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

• Analysing needs
• Identifying competences
• Developing courses
• Building pathways
• Creating tools
• Training trainers

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THE EAIE RESPONSE identifying competences

• Management skills
• Communication skills
• Intercultural communication
• Student advising
• Credential evaluation
• Marketing and recruitment

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THE EAIE RESPONSE developing courses

• International project management
• Negotiating successfully
• English in the international workplace
• Building the international campus
• Advising international students
• International credential evaluation
• Recruiting for your institution
• Working with recruitment agents

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THE EAIE RESPONSE creating tools

• Managing an international office
• Implementing exchange programmes
• Marketing your institution internationally
• Managing projects, bids and tenders
• Preparing students for study abroad
• International accreditation and quality assurance
• Managing institutional collaboration and joint
  degrees
• Working with EU institutions
• Managing international admissions
• International offices as agents of change