This dissertation investigates student experiences on a four-year public U.S. college campus, focusing on the impact of humanized support services in non-academic administrative offices. Chapter 1 introduces the study's purpose, while Chapter 2 reviews literature on customer service practices through the lenses of Experience Management, Service…

This thesis overview summarizes a study (Brandt, 2021) examining the institutional and professional practices that enable community engagement professionals (CEPs) to play vital roles in fulfilling higher education's civic mission. Drawing on field-building research by community-engaged practitioners and scholars, such as Welch and Saltmarsh…

This executive dissertation assumes a sensemaking lens to investigate how Assistant and Associate Vice President (AVP)-level administrators in student affairs approach their supervisory roles within the current climate of higher education and employment. The study's primary goal is to identify how leaders can prepare for changing employment trends…

This qualitative study investigated staff retention in higher education by focusing on the retention of academic advisors. Academic advisors play an integral role in student success and advising is notably one of the fields in higher education with the greatest turnover. This turnover comes at great costs, financial and otherwise, for the…

Student affairs professionals often grapple with how to attain proper work/family balance (WFB), as being a part of a helping profession can make it extremely difficult for these professionals to set limits and boundaries. In addition, successfully balancing one's work and family domains appears to be more challenging for parents that have…

One of the most challenging times for campus communities is when a crisis occurs. It often causes higher education to question their policies, missions, and values. Additionally, the crisis managers and those affected by it may experience trauma as they navigate the crisis (Bataille & Cordova, 2014; Lynch 2023). Despite the research on crisis…

Many postsecondary students in the United States exist at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities, such as race, socioeconomic status, (dis)ability, and legal status. Amidst a tumultuous sociopolitical context, a number of higher education institutions in the United States established Undocumented Student Resource Centers (USRCs),…

One fundamental aspect of organizational transformation in higher education is the change to the profile of universities' non-academic workforce. Key staffing trends identified in recent studies conducted in a variety of national settings include an increase in the proportion of non-academic staff at universities and a shift toward more highly…

This mixed methods phenomenological study explored experiences and perceptions of professional support personnel in higher education regarding roles, responsibilities, and contributions to their institutions. Professional support personnel are the largest population of nonfaculty staff in higher education institutions, and they serve an integral…

Civic learning and democratic engagement (CLDE) work has become a central piece of higher education's mission, woven in daily tasks. This chapter explores how the community engagement professional (CEP) role can be reimagined across institutions and the opportunities, challenges, and next steps for moving forward. The strategic positioning of…

This study explores staff and faculty's self-efficacy in advocating for transgender and nonbinary students within higher education. Through a multi-part self-efficacy assessment (n=249), this study specifically examines the general sense of self-efficacy staff and faculty have regarding transgender and nonbinary advocacy self-efficacy, differences…

Purpose: Scholarly studies on student engagement are mostly focused on the perceptions of students and academic staff of higher education institutions (HEIs) with a few studies concentrating on the perspectives of professional staff. To address this knowledge gap, this paper aims to examine how professional staff who are members of a professional…

As leaders at colleges and universities continue to review processes to help support students towards achievement of goals, scholars suggest they consider the organizational missions, structures, behaviors, values, and culture within their institutions as well as their institutional definitions and benchmarks for student success. They must ask:…

Staff development in teaching is an important driver of efforts to further enhance learning and teaching (L&T) at European higher education institutions. Indeed, several previous European University Association activities and projects have recommended enhanced efforts to offer adequate (continued) professional development to higher education…

The purpose of this exploratory research study was to examine the roles instructional designers (IDs) play in the integration of generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) into their higher education institutions, and how they use GenAI technologies in their own professional practices. Data were collected from 15 participants in the United States…