The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 2 - 66

Pressley R. Rankin, IV * Needham Yancey Gulley

ment, and do crisis interventions as situations
dictate" (Schuh & Shipton, 1985, p. 380).
Providing these services creates significantly
more overlap of work and home domains for
residence life professionals in comparison to
other similar populations. The intensity of
this overlap makes residence life professionals
an excellent population to explore in terms of
their management of work/life boundaries.

. . . the implicit assumption

Certainly, those who hold residence life
positions exhibit stress and tension associated
with living where one works, since this situation challenges their ability to create boundaries between their personal and professional
identities. Job requirements, pressures from
students and staff, overt and tacit supervisory expectations, and the physical proximity
of home and work create a highly integrative
environment, making the establishment of
boundaries difficult. Belch and Mueller (2003)
found that among the student affairs graduate students in their study sample, quality of
life was a major reason they did not intend to
pursue a career in residence life. The graduate students "indicated greater intolerance
than senior housing professionals of the lifestyle of a live-in staff member that may include
late-night disruptions as well as day-to-day
challenges of living and working in a single
environment" (p. 40).

expanded .

Further studies have consistently shown
that residence life professionals have a high
rate of burnout and turnover, and student
affairs supervisors are reporting difficulty in
recruitment for entry-level positions (Barham
& Winston, 2006; Belch, Wilson, & Dunkel,
2009; Collins & Hirt, 2006; Renn & JessupAnger, 2008), but few studies have focused
on the quality of life for live-in residence life
66

in work/life balance literature is that
the domain of work is a negative
that needs to be controlled and the
domain of home/family is a positive
that needs to be protected and

professionals (Belch & Mueller, 2003). The
purpose of this study was to understand how
residence life professionals who live where
they work understand their personal and
professional roles and create or don't create
boundaries between those roles.

SEGMENTATION VERSUS
INTEGRATION
The Industrial Revolution changed the nature
of the work landscape from work centered
around the home (e.g., handicrafts or domestic production) to paid work in large-scale organizations separate from the home (Clark,
2000; Warhurst, Eikhof, & Haunschild,
2008b). The separation of the workplace
and the home created a struggle between
the need to make a living and the desire to
spend time with family and friends (Ashforth,
2001; Nippert-Eng, 1996b). Research into the
problem of work/family balance began in
earnest in the late 1970s and intensified in
the late 1990s and through the 2000s (Ashforth, 2001; Clark, 2000; Hochschild, 1997a,
1997b; Nippert-Eng, 1996a, 1996b; Warhurst
et al., 2008b).

T h e J o u r n a l o f C o l l e g e a n d U n i v e r s i t y St u d e n t H o u s i n g

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 2

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