Employees in service-oriented, relationship-based jobs are prone to experiencing feelings of burnout. As such, paraprofessional staff in college housing environments, resident assistants (RAs), are not immune to its effects. Since navigating relationships is the root cause of burnout, it makes sense to focus on the relationships between…

The multidimensional role of entry-level, live-in residence life and housing staff has grown even more complex in recent years. These staff members, often referred to as resident directors, are frequently asked to go beyond the role of RA supervisor, community builder, and policy enforcer. Now they also serve to support students with significant…

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…

Objective: The purpose of this viewpoint is to discuss the lack of research on resident advisor (RA) self-care and how behavioral interventions can be used in housing programs to educate and improve RA self-care. It is essential for live-in housing staff (both professional and paraprofessional) to learn how to develop appropriate strategies that…

Live-in college residential life positions often involve extensive and diverse responsibilities including the support of residential students experiencing traumatic life events. While live-in staff undergo extensive training in regard to supporting these students, they are often ill-equipped to understand and prevent potential negative…

Resident Assistants (RAs) are often faced with working and living among residents who are struggling, in distress, and, at times, in crisis. This article provides a primer on identifying residents in crisis as well as the tasks faced when working with students in transition and crisis. A discussion of the prevalence of distress reported by…

Hypothesizes that student affairs professionals' low retention rate may be due to job stress. Examines the relationship between residence hall work environment and the degree of burnout experienced by full-time directors. Burnout was defined by emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment and occurred when…

Determined the types of constructs with which resident assistants (RAs) (N=23) interpreted their experience and examined the way in which RAs used these dimensions to evaluate specific aspects of their jobs, as well as the relation of the constructs to levels of reported burnout. (ABB)

Presents to student affairs professionals a process for designing physical activities that can actively and metaphorically communicate a message and that can be implemented as part of staff inservice, retreats, or orientations. Describes rationale for activities, historical overview, and example of burnout prevention metaphor for resident…