Relationships and reciprocality in student and academic services

Abstract

As part of the ‘face’ a university projects to the world, student service staff play a key role in constructing an institution's external identity. Yet, there have been few studies of who are the general staff providing these services, and how they define their role within their institutions. Although there have been several excellent studies about the (often difficult) relationship between academic and general staff, and the attitudes of general staff in relation to their customers, these studies have generally considered general staff as a single grouping. This article unpacks the term ‘general staff’, considering a particular occupational cluster within the loosely grouped classification of ‘general’. Drawing on focus groups and interviews, it considers the understanding of the nature of the ‘customer’, and of a range of working relationships, from the perspective of a group of general staff based in a student and academic service office. It also advances the analysis of the ‘customer’ in higher education by considering the concept of student and academic service staff as both serving customers, and as the internal customers of academic and other general staff.