The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 3 - 138

David H. K. Nguyen * Joan Collier * Angela Watts * Camille Cartwright * Amelia King-Kostelac

Participants with reporting
responsibilities for Title IX and
the Clery Act described the
importance of being accurate
about the information required,
as well as policy compliance
under both legal policies.

amari described training as a means to
ensure professionals have a basic knowledge
of policies and procedures. amari articulated
his understanding of his employer's perception of employee preparedness around legal
consciousness:
"I think it's really just expected that at this
level, you understand what you need to be
doing in regards to reporting and Title IX, as
well as any other aspect of what we deal with.
So, there's no set training. I guess there's kind
of a brief overview just to kind of make sure
that you are on the same page, and they kind
of just set you loose."
participants described legal consciousness through purposeful education primarily through higher education law courses in
master's programs and secondarily through
formal training (i.e., training).

Legal Consciousness as a Function
of Job Necessity
participants described their awareness of laws
and policies through their use of policies and
laws in their job performances. participants
noted use of law in their current roles as resi138

dence life professionals with regard to crisis
management, emergency/on-call responsibilities, title iX compliance, and student conduct.
participants shared specific experiences about
their consciousness as those experiences
related to their job functions. Campbell described their consciousness around compliance with regard to ferpa as follows,
"I think that's [FERPA] most relevant because
I do have access to a lot of student academic
information and then conduct information
as well. So, we can't really share that, and
understanding the law and how that affects
if that information was to be shared and who
can share it."
amari described his consciousness of law
in his former role as a student life employee.
he described the necessity of legal knowledge:
"In Student Life, we were responsible for
compiling contracts and making sure that all
of our legal jargon . . . was up to date and
benefiting the university so [that] we were on
the up and up . . . So my job was doing all the
contracts for homecoming, special programs,
[and] nightlife . . . About 20 or so [contracts]
a semester."
emory described his need to have a thorough understanding of title iX policy and protocols because of his role as a person with staff
training responsibilities: "i am responsible for
kind of training our housing Csas on what
their role is." Descriptions provided above illustrate the ways that legal consciousness acted
as a function of job performance for current
residence life professionals in this study.
While job necessity was the most described
function of legal consciousness, remy described her use of legal knowledge in an advi-

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 44, No. 3