The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2 - 20

Rachael H. Stark * Sharon K. Anderson

respond to resident behaviors as they had been
trained to do and to hold residents accountable
accordingly.
Throughout the interview process, participants articulated a sense of role conﬂict. They
shared numerous stories about feeling torn
between their position responsibilities and
their desire to remain respected and liked and
seen as a resource by the residents on their
ﬂoors. Participants felt that if they held their
residents accountable for policy violations,
residents would no longer come to them with
questions or concerns. The participants also
believed that the friendly relationships they
worked so hard to establish with their residents would be destroyed if they held residents
accountable for violating hall policies.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE
The information gathered from this study can
assist student affairs professionals in better
understanding what challenges undergraduate
student leaders face when they are confronted
with upholding disciplinary policy and how
they think about their decisions in light of their
RA role. The ﬁndings can aid student affairs
professionals as they consider RA training.
As previously mentioned, the student entrusted with the RA position has multiple roles:
student, employee, peer, academic advisor,
crisis counselor, policy implementer and disciplinarian, program planner, and emotional
supporter. Some of these roles have overlapping obligations and expectations. However,
other roles (i.e., policy implementer and peer)
are incompatible and conﬂict, often resulting in role strain. Highlighting what makes
multiple relationships ethically problematic,
Kitchener (1988) introduced the notion of dual

role relationships, role conﬂict, and role strain
in helping relationships. In summary, when
obligations and expectations of one role (i.e.,
RA) conﬂict with the obligations or expectations of another role (i.e., peer, friend) there is
role strain and possible loss of ethical objectivity. In addition, those in relationship with the
professional who holds multiple roles (i.e., the
resident in relationship with the RA) can experience frustration, anger, and confusion as
they wonder which role the professional is in
at the current time.
Although these multiple roles are part and
parcel of the job description and expectations
of the RA position, training that overtly identiﬁes and addresses the nature of role conﬂicts and how to minimize their impact could
beneﬁt both RA and resident. Professional
staff need to meet RAs where they are and
explain that acting in a moral way, carrying out
one's position responsibilities, is at times difﬁcult and conﬂicting. This sense of role conﬂict
tends to be a struggle for RAs because "they
are students too and they need time to develop"
(Dodge, 1990, p. A39).
Foubert (2013) compiled an entire book
about the lessons that various RAs had learned
from their RA experience. His book speciﬁcally focuses on mistakes that RAs make while
on the job. Similarly, during staff training,
returning or former RAs could be invited to
share what went wrong when they decided not
to follow through on their expected moral behavior (implementing the policy) or were overzealous when it came to policy enforcement.
They could share about times they selectively
enforced policies and the results of such a decision or about incidents when a resident came

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 42, No. 2

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