Academic administration

When I describe myself as an administrator, people immediately ask: But what do you do? Administration, it seems, is all things to all men. A common mistake I find is that people confuse administration with management. University management is most commonly understood to be the policy‐making structure of bodies like Senate and Council, whereas the administration is the organisation which puts this policy into practice. The job content varies of course from department to department, and it certainly varies in different universities. I have heard people in my job described as clairvoyants, paragons, prophets, jacks‐of‐all‐trades, and it is even said that we can walk on water. Alas, I must admit I cannot claim to be representative of any of those people. “Measure me not by the heights to which I have climbed, but by the depths from which I have risen”.