I have always worked very closely with my academic colleagues, on whichever programme, or sets of programmes, that I have worked on. The change in team set me thinking about the qualities that are necessary for support staff within Universities.

There are some who will have you believe that the role of an administrator in HE is mainly data entry, with little responsibility and decision making. I have to say that this, in my experience, is not the case. In order to be an effective administrator, you need to have excellent attention to detail – it is likely to be you who picks up on little things that your academic colleagues may miss. You need to know your programme(s). I have learnt over the years that having intimate knowledge of the workings and nuances of the programmes you work on is vital. Each programme, or group of programmes, will have its own little differences – you may have a flexible part time programme. You may have a post graduate programme that operates strangely out of sync with under graduate programmes. Each student on the programmes will have their own set of circumstances that may effect them in assessments, and considerations will need to be made at assessment board time. It is often you, the administrator, who has some of this specialist knowledge. There are times when you will be the point of contact for a troubled student. I have managed to retain students on a programme in the past when they were on the verge of withdrawing, but was able to advise and suggest a suspension of studies as an alternative. This kind of ability is invaluable to a university and to a programme team (especially when numbers can make or break a programme!).

I have always felt that a programme needs a dedicated administrator – and the last two weeks have confirmed this for me. A collaborative programme is likely to have differences that a home programme does not. You are often working within more than one set of regulations – your institution, and the partner institution. These programmes can not be managed by multiple people. They need to have a single person who can truly get to grips with the nuances.

I’m hoping that support staff reading this blog post are nodding sagely at what I say. We are the foundation of the success of our institutions. If you are the type of person who does have attention to detail; who notices the little things; who works well to a structure that has deadlines, regulations and application, you will make an excellent HE administrator.

What does this have to do with higher education? The debate about how the education system fails to provide students with soft skills and how little it does to prepare them for real-life challenges once they embark on a career has been going on for decades. The argument that higher education modules need to escape the stereotypical classroom learning model and discover more connections with the real world couldn’t be more relevant. Employers are complaining that college graduates, who are undoubtedly bright people, have difficulties grasping the practical issues of work and adapting to workplace requirements. These graduates are just used to different ways of thinking – more academic than practical – and they definitely need, and do indeed take, their time to adjust.

This is the challenge that enterprise modules at universities aim to tackle. They are designed to teach students those all-important transferable skills that sadly tend to be overlooked while at university, yet constitute essential requirements for any career: communication, teamwork, public speaking, problem solving, leadership, creative thinking, and business acumen. In other words, enterprise modules aim to bridge the gap between academia and the workplace. My university has started to realise the importance of these classes and has introduced enterprise modules across different degree disciplines, from business to sports and life sciences. By learning and practicing how to write effective business plans, overcome challenges, solve day-to-day problems, and pitch their ideas, students develop the soft skills that will allow them to be successful outside academia and will prepare them for a range of careers beyond graduation.