The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3 - 100

Danielle K. Molina

ronments in which they carry out these roles,
and the experiences that shape their overall development of emergency management skills.
To address such concerns, this study examined
the notion of professional identity for earlycareer RAs and resident directors (RDs) and
its potential impact on perceptions of their
roles as front-line emergency responders. The
results of this year-long ethnography elucidate
a particularly strong theme related to hero
imagery among early-career RAs and RDs.

PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
AND RESIDENTIAL LIFE
PRACTITIONERS
Professional identity refers to frameworks
that members of an organization internalize
to understand themselves in the context of a
particular organization or work environment
(Albert, Ashforth, & Dutton, 2000). Not only
does professional identity shape the social networks with which workers affiliate, it may also
impact their overall perceptions of belonging
and purpose (Conroy & O'Leary-Kelly, 2014).
Moreover, workers' dispositions on professional identity can shape the decisions they make
about work-related tasks and the manners in
which they enact those decisions (Ashforth,
Rogers, & Corley, 2011; Weick, Sutcliffe, &
Obstfeld, 2005). Identity plays a particularly
significant role in emergency response environments where individuals with disparate
roles and skills must nonetheless coordinate
required actions amidst time pressures and
insufficient information (Weber, Thomas, &
Stephens, 2015). Therefore, in order to understand the lived experiences of residential life
emergency management from an early-career
perspective, we must correspondingly recog-

100

nize the forces at play in the formation of their
professional identity.
As the field matures, student affairs practitioners increasingly recognize a common set
of values that underlie a shared identity for the
profession. These are evidenced in artifacts
such as professional guiding documents and
ethical principles as well as in mechanisms of
socialization such as graduate preparation programs and professional organizations (Collins,
2009; Liddell, Wilson, Pasquesi, Hirschy, &
Boyle, 2014; Reason & Broido, 2011). Narrowing
the scope even further, functional areas housed
under the larger umbrella of student affairs can
exhibit specialized traits of their own. Residential life is particularly strong in this regard.
The unique work involved in residential life,
the types of relationships developed therein,
and the rewards systems at play throughout
this functional area all contribute to a unique
and shared professional identity (Collins &
Hirt, 2006). One facet is the assumption of
multiple, often conflicting, work roles (Everett
& Loftus, 2011; Longwell-Grice & Kerr, 2013).
Another facet is a propensity toward maximum
engagement with proximate coworkers and
affiliates-but near isolation from other nonresidential institutional colleagues (Collins &
Hirt, 2006). Finally, due to on-campus living,
high student contact, variable daily routines,
and unconventional work hours, residential
life administrators share tendencies toward
ambiguous personal/professional boundaries and work/life balance (Belch, Wilson, &
Dunkel, 2009; Blimling, 2010; Paladino,
Murray, Newgent, & Gohn, 2005).
Acknowledging the important role that
RAs play in today's campus emergency management, it is instructive to understand the

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 43, No. 3

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