PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF STUDY PROGRAM MANAGERS: TOPICALITY AND ESSENCE

As today is the time of rapid changes, the activities of academic personnel become more and more complicated. This also refers to study program managers, who are the responsible persons for higher education study programs. Study program managers are not specially trained to manage study programs. It is usually assumed that anyone with enough academic experience and specific academic degree can become a study program manager and manage it through its existence. However, being a study program manager entails a wide range of different responsibilities which underlies a need for study program manager to possess many competences that a manager in any other organization or position should have - specific knowledge, skills, abilities and also -preferably- certain personal traits. Taking this relevant issue into account, a research was carried out in two Universities of Latvia, where both lecturers and study program managers were asked to fill in questionnaires in order to define a set of professional competences a successful and effective study program manager should possess. Besides, it was concluded that study program managers do need further education and training regards improving their competences and acquiring new ones. Not surprisingly, this need for further education was more stressed by the lecturers than by study program managers themselves.