Students who were adopted are a unique and underserved identity group on college campuses who experience challenges, have complex needs, and can benefit from targeted support. Their lived experiences and developmental paths differ from their nonadopted peers and need to be understood to support them. Student affairs staff at most institutions are…

Many Student Affairs Professionals leave the profession within the first 5 years. A common position for new Student Affairs Professions is the Residence Hall Director position. This study aimed to determine the level of job satisfaction and what factors contribute to job satisfaction for Residence Hall Directors in the California State University…

Housing and residence life professionals help students through crises and traumatic events, which may affect their own well-being. Members of higher education student affairs professional organizations, including ACUHO-I, were surveyed to investigate the following relationships: (1) work factors (i.e., job demands, job resources, exposure to…

Student affairs practitioners in higher education have been leaving the field at an alarming rate (National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, 2022). As personnel working on the front lines in efforts related to student success and retention, early-career incumbents in these positions experiencing such high rates of attrition…

Adjudication of allegations of student misconduct in campus living facilities is one of many responsibilities often held by residence hall staff. After receiving an incident report, these administrators may address concerns like roommate conflicts, fire safety, vandalism, and alcohol consumption with their residents in formal or informal meetings…

The purpose of this action research study was to increase a sense of community in the upperclass student residence halls at my institution by creating a new residence hall programming model centered on large-scale programs on various topics, social interactions between resident advisors and residents, and smaller-scale social programs. Scholarly…

Entry-level student affairs professionals play a significant and influential role in the growth and development of college students. Despite the value of these entry-level professionals, attrition from the student affairs profession is a pressing issue (Renn & Jessup-Anger, 2008), primarily because 55% of student affairs professionals leave…

Promoting staff well-being has been a challenge for many residence life departments long before the COVID-19 pandemic led to a decrease in the mental well-being of the general population as well as in residence life staff. The stressful work environment and demanding work hours in residence life have been linked to burnout and intentions to leave…

Housing and residence life has identified the need and priority to recenter the purprose and role of our work in a post-COVID world. Housing and residence life has not, in the same way, identified the need and priority to critically examine how the systems and models of our work are founded within an oppressive system, steeped in whiteness and…

Using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems model (1979, 1993), we analyzed grounded theory data from 31 student affairs professionals about supporting students with and without disabilities in, and beyond, the university microsystem of housing. Participants described the challenge of simultaneously meeting the needs of students with and without…

"Rentz's Student Affairs Practice in Higher Education" introduces readers to the functions of all student affairs services on college campus and to the nuts and bolts on what student affairs professionals in each specific area do to achieve their goals of providing students with meaningful collegiate experiences and accomplish the…

Supervising resident assistants (RAs) on college and university campuses is one of the most critical roles of housing staff. The job responsibilities of RAs are demanding, and the position is filled with multiple stressors, including role ambiguity, role conflict, and burnout, which can lead to attrition and reduced job satisfaction. Supervision…

The researcher identified a gap in the knowledge of competencies needed for midmanagers that work in housing and residence life at the southeast colleges and universities in the United States. The purpose of this study was to identify and develop a consensus on competencies needed by mid-managers. The review of the literature describes and…

The outbreak of COVID-19 and the lockdown measures that were widely implemented in response to the pandemic forced many of the forms of engagement and activities promoted by student affairs and services staff among students at universities to be curtailed or transformed -- at first, so that they entailed no interpersonal contact and later so that…

The role of student affairs educators is to ensure that students not only obtain an educational experience, but also that out-of-classroom experiences contribute to holistic development. In particular, student affairs professionals often coordinate residential living, student activities, and advising programs. These programmatic offerings need to…