TWENTY years ago, Richard Turan bought something new for Briarcliffe College: a bunch of newfangled devices called desktop computers.

Soon the clunky electronic boxes proliferated in the classrooms on the campus in Bethpage. In those days Briarcliffe was owned by Mr. Turan's family and provided training in typing, shorthand and other office skills.

''I just had the feeling,'' Mr. Turan said with a slight smile, ''that computers might one day become useful office equipment.''

So Mr. Turan introduced new courses in computer technology into the curriculum, anticipating that employers would soon require secretarial candidates to handle word processing, database management and other Information Age tasks. It's no accident that what was once national Secretaries Week is now called Administrative Professionals Week. (It begins today, by the way.)

By the time the Turan family sold Briarcliffe two years ago, it had thoroughly overhauled its curriculum, and the old secretarial school had become a center of technology training.

Just two decades ago, new technology was turning the office inside out. The computer and other new office machines were making it possible for managers and professionals to handle their own correspondence, record keeping and even telephone calls. Secretaries were evolving into a new breed: computer-literate, multitasking, self-directed executive assistants.

Or was it administrative assistants? Office managers? How about receptionists? No one, it seemed, wanted to be a secretary anymore.

''Unfortunately, to some people the word still means someone who only gets coffee for the boss,'' said Diane Engelhardt, the president of the Katharine Gibbs School in Melville, part of the nationwide chain of schools that teach office administrative and computer skills.

Mr. Turan, who is now the president and chief executive of the Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, said: ''The profession has changed. Yesterday's secretary has evolved into today's administrative assistant. The advent of computers changed everything about secretarial work.''

Well, almost everything. Paradoxically perhaps, Mr. Turan's own executive assistant at the medical center is Mary Masterson, 74, who has 45 years of experience. On one hand, she is a paradigm of the secretary of old, known for crisp manners, accurate spelling and excellent grammar.

Yet Mrs. Masterson is no Luddite. She has incorporated today's technology into an approach rooted in the days when being a secretary meant getting your hands smudged on typewriter ribbons and carbon paper and when a little old-fashioned finesse could smooth over problems before they blew up into something bigger.

Mrs. Masterson, who grew up in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn, said she became a secretary to oblige her parents: ''I had four brothers. One died and the others went into business as they were supposed to do. I had three sisters, and we all became secretaries. This is what we were expected to do. Personally, I wanted to go into business like my brothers. But I did what my mother asked.''

After she graduated from Fort Hamilton High School, she was hired as a secretary at the United States Rubber Company in Lower Manhattan. There, she become quite proficient at shorthand. ''I can still take shorthand,'' she said, ''but no one has asked for it in years. No one does dictation anymore.''

Not that she stands around waiting. About the time Mr. Turan was introducing the computer to Briarcliffe, Mrs. Masterson was taking a computer course herself at a training center in Syosset. Working as an executive secretary at what was then North Shore Hospital, she realized that computer skills would soon be essential.

''I enjoy being busy, and I didn't want to be left behind,'' she said.

These days, she maintains Mr. Turan's appointment calendar on her computer, so she usually knows where the boss is, although that is not information she will pass along to every caller.

''There are always so many people who want to speak to the top person, and everyone feels their need is urgent,'' Mrs. Masterson said. ''Sometimes they do need to get right through. Other times I see other solutions, and I forward the call. There is no one answer for everything. You have to get a feel for the best solution to every call.''

During the 1970's, when women of the baby boom generation flooded into the work force, they often took jobs that had traditionally been closed to women. And many of those who went to work in offices sought ways to blend the traditionally supportive secretarial role into their generation's emphasis on individuality and self-expression.

''I have never considered myself a secretary,'' said Nancy Tepper, 58. ''In my last three jobs I worked as an assistant to the president. My title there, or anywhere, doesn't really matter. What I love is the challenge of solving problems. I want the ball, and I want to run with it.''

She found her current job by answering a newspaper advertisement that called for ''assistant to an entrepreneur.''

The entrepreneur turned out to be Peter Reiss, who runs Office Furniture Resources in Centerport and also works as a feng shui consultant. Recently, he helped develop a CD-ROM called ''Seven Timeless Principles for Success.'' His segment is intended to help companies organize their offices harmoniously, using the principles of feng shui. Mr. Reiss said he hired Ms. Tepper to handle many traditional office functions but not necessarily to be his secretary.

''I don't need her to sit and answer calls, like a gatekeeper,'' he said. ''You can use a telephone answering machine that way. And believe me, many people do.''

John Fanning, who is the chief executive of Comforce, the staffing company based in Woodbury, calls his longtime executive assistant, Roseann Perone-McMahon, one of the best in the business. ''She is the model for today's executive assistant,'' he said. ''She is able to finish my sentences for me, she is totally Internet-based, and never hesitates to take the initiative.''

Whatever the title or job description, there is still paper to file. ''We may be a paperless society, but somehow every year there is more paper,'' said Robert Seiler, the group marketing director at the Esselte Corporation's North American headquarters in Garden City. Esselte, which makes filing and storage systems, says the volume of paper in United States offices rose 12 percent every year throughout the last decade, and the piles continue to grow.

''In the old days, it was the secretary's job to properly file the documents,'' Mr. Seiler said. ''Today, the executive assistant's job is moving the information to the right people. It's an important distinction.''

O.K., so who gets the coffee?

Mr. Reiss confessed that he sometimes asked Ms. Tepper for tea, but never coffee. ''I'm not a coffee drinker,'' he explained. ''But it's not the traditional 'secretary gets cup' thing. I am just as likely to get her cold water or a cup of tea.''

So how does she take her tea?

''Black,'' he said without hesitation. ''And no sugar.''

Photo: ''I can still take shorthand, but no one has asked for it in years,'' said Mary Masterson, executive assistant to Richard Turan, president of Nassau University Medical Center. (Kevin P. Coughlin for The New York Times)