New Research on Stress & Coping in Residence Life Professionals

I began my career in higher education in residence life and experience many of the challenges of work-life boundaries and the “fishbowl” effect when I was a live-in professional. I recently co-authored a study with a former doctoral student, Dr. Bradley Wolfe (Vincennes University) in which we examined the experiences of a residence life professional in small scale qualitative study. In this study, we use Lazarus & Folkman’s theory of stress and coping to explore the nuanced ways in which live-in residence life professionals negotiate their working conditions and how they identify their stressors and coping strategies. Participants struggled to separate and achieve a work-life balance because of on-duty responsibilities and long hours. Residence life professionals used different coping strategies, including leaving campus, spending time with family, and exercising to manage immediate stressors. Implications for practice are suggested for residence life departments to increase individual support for live-in professionals, which include teaching counseling skills, humanizing the position, and increasing privacy.

The findings appear in the Journal of Student Affairs on Campus in open-source format.