This study collected information on the professional development of 177 senior student affairs officers (SSAO) at higher education institutions in the United States. The purpose of the study was to identify the professional development activities that these SSAOs engaged in to prepare for the role and the perceived effectiveness of those…

Addressing working conditions in higher education is crucial to retaining student affairs professionals. This study explores the current state of working conditions in the field and the influence working conditions have on professionals' turnover intentions. Perceptions of psychological contract fulfillment is a factor that can interact with…

Women comprise most of the professionals in student affairs in higher education in the United States. They are tasked with supporting students and campus communities with complex challenges and needs. Women student affairs leaders simultaneously manage multiple roles and responsibilities, both personal and professional. The work of women student…

More than 17,000 professional staff live where they work in Residence Life and Housing (RL&H). Those staff members live in the dorms with the college students whom they serve, as has been the arrangement of RL&H staff members since the inception of colleges in the U.S. in the 1600s. However, there have been recent shifts in the ways in…

This qualitative study explored how supervisors in student affairs describe their supervisory learning journey. Supervision is an important facet of the student affairs profession, yet there is an apparent lack of intentional supervisory training and development for these professionals. This study endeavored to understand how supervisors in…

The principal purpose of this doctoral study was to investigate how intersectionality is understood and utilized by practitioners within the field of student affairs in North American higher education. Additionally, the study explored how intersectionality is applied to student affairs practitioners' student development and identity development…

In a recent study conducted by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), Pritchard and McChesney (2018) identified three key challenges to student affairs professionals: increasing student diversity, higher costs and reduced funding in higher education, and business-model pressures for efficiencies. The same report…

A vocation is an individual's sense of being called to pursue a given profession. Vocations are typified by passion, absorption in work, a desire for prosocial work, and a tendency to sacrifice for the vocation. Vocations have been linked to both advantageous and adverse effects, including the propensity for vocational workers to suffer workplace…

Housing and residence life as a functional area serves as a major entry point for careers in higher education and student affairs. With the majority of annual job postings within entry-level, live-in housing roles, the future of the field may well be predicted in these high-impact, high-turnover positions on college campuses. As these functional…

Student affairs professionals help students who experience trauma. Repeated and prolonged traumatic exposure has significant adverse effects on other helping professionals; burnout is one consequence of trauma exposure. Burnout as a construct has not been quantitatively researched in the student affairs profession recently. This study provides a…

A great deal of research has established training student affairs and higher education (SAHE) professionals in helping skills is important to assist undergraduate students in college and university programs with mental health needs. The COVID-19 global pandemic placed SAHE professionals in a unique position to support college students as students…

Starting a new job can be likened to be thrown into the deep end of a pool and being expected to swim with no prior lessons. Not only is this practice dangerous at actual swimming pools it is also detrimental in the workforce. Student Affairs is a high turnover field with over 50% of new employees leaving the field completely within the first 5…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational-predictive study is to examine if and to what extent performance expectancy, effort expectancy, attitude toward using technology, social influence, facilitating conditions, self-efficacy, and anxiety, individually and combined, predict the behavioral intention of U.S. higher education student services…

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…

Higher Education Student Affairs (HESA) practitioners play important roles in supporting their campus communities, specifically students, when bias incidents occur on campus. These HESA practitioners often hold the same minoritized identities as students impacted by bias and see their work in higher education as advancing missions of inclusion and…