journal_vol49no3 - 73

Under Pressure: The Impacts of Judicialization
While the foundation of student conduct philosophy is grounded
in holistic student development, the process has increasingly been infiltrated
by attorneys, legal issues, and case law, creating a quasi-judicial system
in place of one designed to be educational in nature.
designed to offer protections to institutional stakeholders. Several scholars agree that
such awareness includes knowledge of the law and of key judicial decisions that inform
student conduct administration (Gehring, 2006; Glick, 2016; Waller, 2013).
While the foundation of student conduct philosophy is grounded in holistic student
development (Greenleaf, 1978), the process has increasingly been infiltrated by attorneys,
legal issues, and case law (Horrigan, 2016; Miller, 2018; Shook & Neumeister,
2015; Waller, 2013), creating a quasi-judicial system in place of one designed to be
educational in nature. Researchers are only beginning to explore the lived experiences
of conduct practitioners (Glassman & Lewis, 2022a; Nguyen et al., 2018), particularly
as they navigate the tension and dissonance of using an educational lens to support
students while being required to maintain procedural fairness (Gehring, 2001) under
the scrutiny of students, their attorneys, senior administrators, and even the media.
In 2021, the term judicialization, first used within the realm of politics to describe
the " spread of judicial decision-making methods outside the judicial province proper "
(Vallinder, 1994, p. 91), was applied to the phenomenon of lawyers encroaching
on the disciplinary process, along with the intrusion of senior-level decision-makers
and the misrepresentation of facts by the mass media. Glassman and Lewis (2022b)
explored the impacts of judicialization on the personal lives and professional work of
350 self-identified student conduct administrators who serve in diverse student affairs
departments, including offices of student conduct, housing and residence life, student
activities, and offices of institutional equity. Findings illustrated how judicialization
had strong impacts on participants' personal lives, including negative impacts on
personal well-being.
This article contributes to the body of literature examining the reported well-being
of those residence life and housing staff who also serve roles as conduct officers by focusing
specifically on the ways that judicialization may have affected them. Specifically,
this study is guided by the question, " In what ways is the well-being of residence life staff
impacted by judicialization? " Through a quantitative approach using the same instrument
from Glassman and Lewis (2022b), I evaluate reported impacts on various aspects
of well-being-including physical and mental health, coping mechanisms, communication
skills, and persistence-and compare responses within this demographic across
genders and professional levels, as well as against the responses of conduct administrators
who do not work in residence life. Connecting the current study to the body of
literature on student affairs burnout, the implications of this research may reveal unique
aspects of the dual role of housing/conduct officers who provide guidance for onboarding,
career development, and supervisory support of these professionals.
70 The Journal of College and University Student Housing
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