Working and Living in Student Crisis: The Emotional Labor of a Live-in Residence Life Professional

Open Access
- Author:
- Shell, Laura Jean
- Graduate Program:
- Higher Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 06, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Julia Green Bryan, Outside Unit & Field Member
Kevin Kinser, Major Field Member
Alicia Dowd, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Royel Johnson, Major Field Member
Kevin Kinser, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- Student affairs professional
residence life professional
emotional labor
crisis
Student affairs professional
Residence life professional
Emotional labor
Crisis
Trauma - Abstract:
- Live-in residence life professionals have unique responsibilities on college campuses because they live amongst the students in order to be available around-the-clock for crisis situations. Crises can include a wide variety of issues, ranging from facility issues to mental health concerns. To assist the increasingly diverse students who attend college, the skill sets of residence life professionals are expanding. Assisting students can require a variety of response, but almost all responses have one thing in common – they have emotional labor expectations in place. Emotional labor expectations are communicated through onboarding, training, policies, and professional development. Existing research has not studied live-in residence life professionals and how they experience emotional labor. Furthermore, emotional labor research has not examined the lived experience of professional staff who live in their work environment. Using the oral history methodology, a narrative qualitative research study was completed to investigate the emotional labor of live-in residence life professionals. In this study, 9 live-in residence life professionals from 2 campuses shared their experience working and living in campus residence halls. Data from the 27 hour-long interviews and 16 journal entries were analyzed using a combination of inductive and deductive coding. Data analysis led to the development of five themes characterizing the emotional labor experienced by live-in residence life professionals: role ambiguity and unpredictability, no escaping without being away, support or lack thereof, routinized work, and carrying and sustaining the effort. Findings in this narrative qualitative study reveal that the burden of emotional labor expected of residence life professionals is contributing to trauma. Recommendations supported by the findings of this study include the need to clarify the job of live-in residence life professionals to reduce role ambiguity and related stress, establish boundaries between professional and personal spaces (physically and emotionally), and strengthen support for live-in professionals in their work. This study offers insights for university administrators and residence life professionals who seek to improve the emotional labor experience for residence life professionals working and living in the midst of student crises.