SEAHO Report - Spring 2024 - 21

FEATURE ARTICLES
Running To or Running From:
An Excerpt
By Kate Gannon-Cullinan, Louisiana State University
What?
Housing and residence life (HRL) as a functional area has always and continues to serve as a major entry
point for careers in higher education and student affairs (HESA). With the majority of annual job postings
each hiring season that are for entry-level, live-in housing roles, the future of the field may well be predicted
in these high-impact, high-turnover positions on college campuses. As various functional areas continue to
struggle to find themselves fully staffed throughout their academic year cycle, the impact on both the student
experience and organizational health is impacted. This study utilized an interpretive phenomenological
approach to explore the experiences and feelings of those entry-level, live-in housing professionals who
chose to leave their position mid-year to take another position within a different function of HESA.
In focusing on an off-cycle transition, the narratives collected were from those with a stronger motivation
to leave the function of HRL, in order to possibly highlight the cause for attrition. Twenty semi-structured
interviews were conducted with qualifying participants to better understand the essence of their experiences
of making this career transition decision. Much of the existing research follows the path of professionals who
chose to leave the field of HESA entirely. I hope this study might add to the literature both the narratives and
experiences of those professionals who have chosen to leave a career in HRL but remained engaged within
the field of HESA.
Why?
This research sought to explore why entry-level, live-in HRL professionals depart mid-year from their
positions yet remain committed to the field of HESA as a career. As such, there was no set hypothesis that
I hoped to answer, but rather I intended to investigate the reasons for this phenomenon to be prompted
by an individual. However, the desire to explore this came from my own work as a hiring manager in HRL
life for nearly 2 decades. With a good deal of anecdotal commentary in social media groups both pre and
post COVID-19, there seemed to be a growing narrative of employees fleeing the field of HRL specifically. I
wanted to explore the actual experiences of those who have made that choice, as I did myself in my career.
My first off-cycle transition came at the mid-year winter break where I left a live-in hall director role to move
closer to home for another live-in area coordinator role at another institution. Almost two years later, in the
role I had moved to, I left that live-in hall director role in the middle of the fall quarter to pursue a position in
housing assignments at a nearby institution.
The unique specifications of this study involve the off-cycle job turnover as well as the focus on entry-level,
live-in HRL professional staff members (at the time of job transition). There is certainly a percentage of
employee turnover that can be attributed to a lack of advancement opportunities or attrition from HESA as
a career field entirely. However, this study was specifically interested in what experiences prompted HRL staff
to leave that functional area of operations specifically but still choose to remain in the larger field of higher
education administration in general. As such, the following research questions were posed to guide the
inquiry of this study and its analysis:
R1: What are the issues that prompt entry-level, live-in housing and residence life professionals to choose to
leave their roles mid-year for another functional area within student affairs?
R2: What are the experiences of entry-level, live-in housing and residence life professionals who transition to
another functional area within student affairs?
21
SEAHO Report - Spring 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SEAHO Report - Spring 2024
