Crisis Response Work in Residence Directors

Abstract

The number and acuity of crises experienced by college students is increasing, and for those campuses with on-campus housing, entry-level Residence Directors (RDs) often oversee and implement institutions’ initial crisis response. RDs conduct this crisis response work while being faced with competing institutional pressures and stress on their internal resources. Literature on street-level bureaucrats, on-call professionals, and crisis responders demonstrate how such individuals navigate their labor realities. However, the available literature reveals little as to how RDs navigate their crisis response work. I conducted an institutional ethnographic study to explore how RDs make meaning of and process their crisis response work in addition to investigating their internal resource management while serving in an on-call capacity. I first conducted a national survey of campus housing programs to set a previously non-existent baseline for crisis response protocols and on-call structures for RDs. I then recruited RD participants across four schools of varying size, control, and geographic location. These 15 total RDs participated in two interviews bookending one on-call shift each in the Fall 2021 semester; they also each submitted an on-call journal for this shift. I analyzed these interview and journal data alongside protocol and training documents from each school to demonstrate participants’ meaning making, processing, and resource management in their crisis response work. My findings show how RDs make meaning through interactions with student Resident Assistants, campus and external partners, peers, and managers within a locally managed yet professional position; they further show that RDs apply various mental schema to process their work and conserve constantly called-upon internal resources. These findings contribute to not only the existing literature on managerial professionals and on-call work, but also the training and supervision of housing professionals and structuring of college and university crisis response.