Frustrated and Considering a Change: Working Parents in Student Affairs During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Understanding Diversity, Resistance, and Change in Faculty and Staff Experiences

Abstract

What is keeping student affairs professionals in the profession and what is pushing them to leave? Using semi-structured interviews, we spoke with 26 working parents in the student affairs profession about their experiences in the profession and parenting during the pandemic. Preliminary results indicate that professionals are still drawn to the mission and values of higher education, but the inflexible, unnecessarily in-person work environments and their perceived devaluation relative to faculty are driving them toward other careers. Participants found the lack of flexibility exceptionally galling after the needed and rapid transformations toward an online environment during the 2020 pandemic period. These work environments made it difficult to be parents and student affairs professionals.

Authors

• Margaret W. Sallee, University at Buffalo - SUNY
  Presenting Author

• Saralyn McKinnon-Crowley, Baylor University
  Presenting Author