journal_vol49no3 - 79

Under Pressure: The Impacts of Judicialization
listservs and social media. In spring of 2022, a total of 87 respondents completed the
survey. The majority of respondents reported that they earned a master's degree and
were in mid-level positions. Fewer than 20% of participants reported being sued or
otherwise involved in a lawsuit. Table 1 (see page 77) provides further demographic
details about the participants.
RESULTS
This study sought to explore the ways that the well-being of residence life staff is being
impacted by judicialization. Subscale C (Questions 29-40) on the CALSSCP addressed
impacts on their personal life. The mean score for all 87 participants on Subscale C
was 2.95. It may therefore be inferred that the well-being of these administrators is
moderately impacted by judicialization.
Because only three residence life professionals did not disclose their job level, those
participants were excluded from analyses based on self-reported job level. A one-way
ANOVA was performed on each of the CALSSCP items as well as on each of the subscales
and the overall instrument based on residential staff's job level. Only the effect
of position level (entry-level, mid-level, and director) on the belief that " There is inequity
among students who have the ability to hire lawyers and those who don't " (Item
22) was statistically significant, F(2, 81) = 5.082, p = .008. After examining the Tukey
post-hoc from the ANOVA calculations, statistically significant differences were found
between residence life professionals at the entry level and director level for Item 3
(MI-J = .88; t(df) = -3.948; p < .001; " I believe that errors made by the staff I work with, both
in my office and across the institution, may leave me vulnerable to litigation " ), Item 13
(MI-J = 1.11; t(df) = 3.064; p = .004; " It is rare that the thought of litigation comes to
mind when working with a student " ), and Item 34 (MI-J = .94; t(df) = -2.692; p = .01;
" Litigation in student conduct matters is not necessarily due to practitioners' error " ).
While entry-level staff reported stronger agreement with Item 13, directors reported
stronger agreement with 17 ( " Litigation against student conduct practitioners harms
students " ) and 34. With the majority of the study participants working in 4-year public
and private institutions, no significant differences were found on any instrument item
or subscale between the two institutional types.
Within Subscale C, however, there are some notable results with regard to potential
critogenic harms. The lowest score (strongest disagreement; M = 1.90) for residence
life staff appeared in Item 29: " Thinking about the possibility of litigation has made
it difficult for me to sleep at night. " However, this demographic group also reported
that they somewhat agreed that their " personal relationships have been affected by job
stress " (Item 31; reverse-coded; M = 3.69) and that they " relive/reenact conversations
with students in my head to recall whether I made any errors with them " (Item 33;
M = 3.49). And while there is stronger agreement that residence life staff " often
find [themselves] venting about work to loved ones " (Item 38; M = 3.79), this group
also reports having " good support from my colleagues if I need to discuss my concerns
about attorney involvement " (Item 36; M = 3.93).
76 The Journal of College and University Student Housing
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