STAFF DEVELOPMENT FOR UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE ADMINISTRATORS IN AUSTRALIA
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009729 |
| Date | 01 February 1975 |
| Pages | 13-22 |
| Published date | 01 February 1975 |
| Author | ROBERT McCAIG |
| Subject Matter | Education |
THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
VOLUME XIII, NUMBER 2 OCTOBER, 1975
STAFF DEVELOPMENT FOR UNIVERSITY AND
COLLEGE ADMINISTRATORS IN AUSTRALIA
ROBERT McCAIG
The universities have traditionally seen as one of their major functions the preparation of
persons for the higher professions. Though the definition of
high
profession has been ex-
panded in recent decades to include a wide spectrum of occupations ranging all the way
from forestry to accountancy and including various kinds of administration, whether it be
business or hospital or
school,
the universities hate
been
very slow in recognising university
administration as an area requiring their attention. Universities provide preparation for
many professions including those relating to administration, but they
have
been slow to
develop courses to meet
the
requirements of
their own
complex administrative
systems.
The
reason for this lies in an outmoded perspective of the modern university. In Australia,
programmes of training are now being introduced. Some of these are examined and
described.
The training ground for university and college administrators has been
very much the university of hard knocks; academics and administrators
themselves have generally agreed on this approach.
Many an administrator prides himself on his upward grind from quill
pen and high stool to his present position of doubtful eminence
and
status,
and,
in some sado-masochistic way, sees it as good for the souls of young
administrators today to go through this same fortuitous and expensive
process. Academics, for their part, still see as the peak of the university
pyramid a fellow academic—one of their members who has survived the
upward struggle through deanships and chairmanship of university com-
mittees to the vice-chancellorship. That these experiences might have
equipped him well for the politicking, the
infighting,
the sectional loyalties
and the achievement of short term goals appropriate to one situation and
not for the global demands, broad political perspectives, and long term
goals of the other, is a question not raised or considered.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, this system has worked fairly well until
recent times. Fortunately, in that, while institutions were small, where
there was stability among staff
and
students, when the call on the public
purse was not so loud as to attract undue attention, there was
a
sufficient
supply of persons of
the
calibre able to meet those demands; perhaps un-
iversities have been doubly fortunate in that so many very able ad-
ministrators did emerge. Unfortunately, however, in that it encouraged
reliance on and belief
in
a system which led to its retention long after the
ROBERT McCAIG is Senior Lecturer in Educational Administration at the University of
New England. In 1973 Mr. McCaig received a substantial grant from the W.K. Kellogg
Foundation to introduce programmes for the professional development of university
and
col-
lege administrators in the South-West Pacific region.
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