The Subconscious Balancing Act: Understanding the Various Functions, Demands, and Agency used by Program Staff in Academic Support Initiatives

Abstract

The present study extends organizational labor models such as street-level bureaucrats, bureaucratization and specialization, and labor theory of poverty governance to explore the roles and identities of university staff in academic support programs (Lipsky, 1980; Weber, 1973; Seim, 2017). University staff members in academic support programs work in the margins of the organization to serve marginalized student populations. This study used the comparative case study approach (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017) to study three separate academic support programs, and Seidman’s (2006) phenomenological interview sequence to interview eight staff members. Past experiences inform how staff members perceive their work, and the structure of the organization drives how they seek to support student persistence by reforming individual students, rather than systemic, exclusionary barriers within the institution. University staff members respond to institutionalized barriers to student persistence based on their relative distance from the core of the institutional mission. In addition, three personae emerged from university staff members’ interpretation of their work with students in academic support programs: nurturing guide, administrative facilitator, and quiet disrupter. These personae not only reflect the institutional structure that drives university staff members to reform students in order to help them persist and develop a sense of belonging, but they also reveal the gendered nature of this part of the workforce. This study contributes to existing literature and theory on academic labor and poverty governance by acknowledging the influence gender, race, and past experience has on emotional labor in academia, as well as applying labor models to academic support initiatives, which are designed to help students persist to graduation.