While no two P.A.'s are alike, they are united by their devotion to the president and the institution. I could be directing a group of 30 people on a committee and giving them assignments at one meeting, and end up taking minutes at the next meeting because it seems like the appropriate thing to do. You just do whatever it takes to make things happen. Membership in the group has grown to more than 620, but Sharon McDade, an assistant professor of higher education at George Washington University, estimates that there are at least 2,000 assistants at colleges and universities today. According to the results of a 1995 survey she conducted for the association, more than half of the 800 respondents were the first to hold the position at their college, and nearly a third had held the job for less than two years.
Presidential assistants have diverse backgrounds, according to the survey.
As executive assistant to the president, I get my bloody little hands into almost everything. You can't think of a more broadly focused job than the one I've got. A successful P.A. is organized, able to handle multiple tasks, and an excellent writer and communicator. But that's just for starters, says Pamela Transue, president of Tacoma Community College and a former assistant to the president of the University of Washington. To be effective you have to be able to think like, talk like, write like, and behave like the person you are representing, and so you become a kind of an alter ego.