Abstract
Ideal worker norms are perpetuated and passed down in student affairs through graduate assistantships, supervision, and the hidden curriculum (Sallee, 2020). In this case study, we explore the tensions of ideal worker norms amidst a growing hostility towards racial/ethnic diversity on campus and increasing expectations of graduate students.
Keywords/Phrases: Graduate Student Support; Ideal Worker Norms; Diversity and Equity; Staffing Practices
Primary Characters
Nicole (she/her) – Graduate Assistant for Leadership & Engagement in the Office of Student Life. Nicole is a second-year SAHE student who identifies as biracial. She has held multiple leadership positions in her undergraduate career and in her previous professional role. Before returning to school, she supervised approximately 50 undergraduate orientation leaders. In her current role as a graduate assistant, she is contracted to work 20 hours a week.
Lori (she/her) – Assistant Director of Leadership & Engagement in the Office of Student Life. Lori is a white woman who started at the institution this past fall. This is her second time supervising students and her first-time supervising graduate students. Lori also has her masters in SAHE from another university.
Professor London (she/her) – Associate Professor of Student Affairs and Higher Education. Newly tenured, she has often towed the line to avoid controversy despite doing her best to support students like Nicole, for whom she serves as a SAHE faculty advisor. London is a white-passing Latina woman, and her father is a retired faculty emeritus from Chilton’s Francine Puff College of Business.
Context and Case
Chilton University is a predominantly white, medium-sized land-grant public university. The university is primarily undergraduate students with some master’s and doctoral programs, totaling approximately 9,000 students. Undergraduates have a residential requirement for their first and second years on campus. The residential program serves roughly 4,500 students. Of those enrolled, 2,500 are graduate students.
Chilton’s culture has been labeled as chilly, hostile, and otherwise difficult to navigate in both the campus and local newspapers by undergraduate students. As the student body demographics increased to include more women of color, religious minorities, and self-identified LGBT+ students, some students have reported feeling as though Chilton is using them to “demonstrate” diversity in numbers without providing material resources or support for their needs. Some of the recent news articles discussed student disagreements over confederate statues and monuments, antisemitic comments regarding Jewish students taking up space, and calls for greater consistency in reprimands for campus sexual violence and harassment against women. Despite these issues, the campus demographics mirror national trends on PWI campuses.
Chilton’s student body identifies as 52% women, 47.5% men, and 0.5% undisclosed. Staff identify similarly at 51% men and 49% women. The campus is racially diverse, as the campus is 65% white students, 15% Asian American, 6% Hispanic/Latino, 5% Black/African American, 1% Native American, and 10% are international/undisclosed. Similarly, 70% of staff members identify as white and 30% identify as BIPOC or other. Chilton University is home to a leading Student Affairs Administration and Higher Education (SAHE) program that offers students graduate assistantships as part of their funding pathways. Through their assistantships, SAHE students are offered the opportunity to blend theory and practice in their scholar-practitioner roles. Of 27 current SAHE students, 16 students identify as BIPOC and 25 of the 27 students hold roles in Student Services, thereby leading students to feel campus staff are “pretty diverse”.
The Issue(s)
In a letter to staff, faculty and stakeholders, Chilton University’s president wrote in August of the previous year: “Chilton has one of the most diverse campus staffs and pathways to leadership in the country. Our programs and policies over the last two decades have proven successful. For this reason, we are pleased to announce that we are moving to a new leadership phase– Chilton Forward. In the coming weeks, we will announce the sunsetting of our existing hiring and recruitment programs to expend those resources in other meaningful ways.” Immediately after the letter, campus diversity critics rallied that the university was finally returning to American values as the initiative would deprioritize diversity in favor of focusing on the kinds of students for whom Chilton has always been of service.
Over the course of the academic year since the announcement, 10 staff members in Chilton’s Student Services Division (SSD) announced their departure despite the division already seeking to fill five vacancies. The Interim Vice-President for Student Services was tasked with filling 15 staff positions, eight of which were previously held by practitioners of color. However, 13 of the 15 staff in the new hire group racially identified as white. This year, Chilton is facing increasing staffing challenges because of that mass exodus of practitioners during the previous academic year. Not only did many of the staff who left self-identify as practitioners of color who were part of the recently discontinued cluster-hiring program, but they also held a wealth of institutional knowledge about the SSD. The practitioners who left were at Chilton for a median of eight years with a range of 3-17 years of service to the institution. Some of the SSD professionals who have remained at the university through the staffing changes have expressed concerns that the shifting priorities of the Chilton Forward movement will funnel funds away from student services and diversity initiatives towards STEM and business academic programs, which are predominantly white and male.
In recent weeks, Nicole has been given a workload closer to that of a full-time employee. Since the office of student life is approaching the Fall Concert Series, a large-scale weekend event that brings multiple performers and serves approximately 3,000 students, and the team is understaffed the office is relying on Nicole to “pick up the slack.” Nicole has communicated to her supervisor, Lori, that she is feeling overwhelmed and overworked. She explained that in addition to the expanding duties, she has also had to provide support for several identity-based student organizations in the past few weeks, as the staffing shortages have left many students from marginalized backgrounds feeling unsupported. She has especially had to focus on the LGBT+ center where there are no full-time staff remaining and where the only two employees are first year graduate assistants.
Considering these issues, Nicole has also relayed to her SAHE faculty that she is unsure how to manage her competing priorities given the graduate assistantship funds her education. The SAHE faculty encouraged Nicole to speak with her supervisor and are planning to host a one-on-one-on-one (1:1:1) to gain a better sense of how the office is perceiving the workload demands. Though her supervisor Lori sympathizes with her, she is also struggling with capacity as she learns her new role. Lori relies on Nicole heavily to provide institutional context and logistics information for the Fall Concert Series because no transition notes existed for her position. Lori tells Nicole that when she was a SAHE student in the Midwest, she was able to manage a full-time job, a graduate assistantship, and the program at the same time–embodying some of the old ideal worker norms of what it means to be a good student affairs professional (Sallee, 2021). Lori insists that sometimes, being a student affairs professional means working late hours, giving 110%, and pushing through the hard times. “Can’t you just do it all,” she quips before encouraging Nicole to self-advocate, especially during the upcoming staff meeting.
In the weekly staff meeting, Nicole shares that her program area is struggling and needs support from the entire office in order to help the Fall Concert Series run smoothly. Only one other person in the office helps with the event. Nicole feels disappointed by the lack of support from others in her office and has a conversation with Lori about it after their staff meeting. Though Nicole has been told by her supervisor that she can say no to things, she feels like she cannot because of her identities and her reliance on her supervisor to provide a good recommendation when she does her job search at the end of her academic program. In response to hearing this concern, Lori reassures Nicole that she’s a rockstar and has handled her workload incredibly well so far, and that nobody would think poorly of her if she set a boundary. Nicole wonders if Lori understands the reality of navigating a PWI as a woman of color and the pressure to represent BIPOC staff members well, given the dwindling number of practitioners of color on campus.
As she prepares for the 1:1:1 with her SAHE faculty advisor and Lori, Nicole wonders if strength in numbers would help her in the office. She plans to suggest that the office affirmatively hires another BIPOC student to join her, because she knows that some of her cohort mates desperately need an assistantship to fund their education–in lieu of loans. She takes this idea to her advisor, Professor London, in advance of the meeting who expresses concern for how such an ask is out of alignment with the new Chilton Forward movement and given these practices have been discontinued on campus. Professor London plans to go to her father for advice, but before she can do so, Nicole along with some of her classmates who are also serving in SSD and feeling overworked write a list of demands and grievances about SAHE and Chilton. These demands are then posted on TikTok, despite the students knowing the SAHE program is preparing to recruit a new class of students. Everyone involved goes home feeling dejected, demoralized, and unsure of how to proceed.
Discussion Questions
- How might individual social identities change the way(s) people experience and negotiate ideal worker norms and expectations of “good student affairs practice” generally and within the context of this case?
- What, if any, tensions exist within the supervision and development structure for Nicole as a SAHE graduate assistant? Are there forms of advice, support, and resources that should be provided to graduate students like Nicole who are tasked with filling in gaps in the workplace?
- Given the current identity-related demographic shifts in SSD and at Chilton under the Chilton Forward campaign, how might these changes impact current and prospective SAHE students, staff, and faculty?
- Despite Nicole exploring multiple avenues of support for feeling overworked, she ultimately resigned to posting to social media. How does the era of social media and campus activism impact and influence student affairs and student services practices within and beyond this case?
References
Sallee, M. W. (2020). Creating sustainable careers in student affairs: What ideal worker norms get wrong and how to make it right. Stylus.
Author Bios
Brittany M. Williams (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration at the University of Vermont. She primarily studies career development and supervision issues, social class, and the nexus of education and health. Williams centers Black women and girls in her scholarship and believes in the power and possibilities of higher education.
Gabi Cuna (they/them) is a 2nd year graduate student in the Higher Education & Student Affairs Administration M.Ed. program and the Graduate Assistant for Diversity & Community Engagement in the College of Education & Social Services at the University of Vermont. They earned their B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Fullerton where they found a passion for post-secondary educational access and supporting students from historically marginalized backgrounds.
Lexi Kane (she/her) is a 2nd year graduate student in the Higher Education & Student Affairs Administration M.Ed. program and the Graduate Assistant for Fraternity and Sorority Life at the University of Vermont. She earned her B.A. in Drama from Hofstra University and found her love for inspiring women to dream big and challenge the present.