The Development of Professional Attitudes Among Administrative Staff in Universities and Colleges of Advanced Education in Australia

Abstract

This paper reviews the situation of administrative staff in universities and colleges of advanced education with a view to assessing the degree to which they have a professional attitude to their work or might be described in more common terms as professionals. The numbers and functions of such staff in tertiary institutions are surveyed in the first section and some of the factors affecting the attitude of these staff are noted. The second section looks at the definition of a profession and at the alternative terms professionalism and professionalisation in order to establish a basis of comparison. The establishment and subsequent history of the Australian Institute of Tertiary Educational Administrators is then examined to see what light it throws upon the changes of attitude which have taken place in the last few years. In the fourth section the various criteria by which professionalism is judged are reviewed to determine to what extent the attitudes of administrative staff may be regarded as professio...