A crisis in identity: The view of a postgraduate student of higher education

I am a professional university administrator who fits neatly into the account provided by Celia Whitchurch earlier in this volume: my professional identities are multiple and fluid. I undertook the MBA in Higher Education Management offered by the Institute of Education as a part-time student from October 2003 to September 2005. It is this new identity as a part-time postgraduate student that I intend to consider here, although it will become clear that my identity as ‘student’ is inextricably linked to my identities as ‘university manager’. I will also suggest that my own multiple identities cannot be considered without forming a view of the identity of the contemporary university.