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Adjudication of allegations of student misconduct in campus living facilities is one of many responsibilities often held by residence hall staff. After receiving an incident report, these administrators may address concerns like roommate conflicts, fire safety, vandalism, and alcohol consumption with their residents in formal or informal meetings in concert with or as a part of the larger institutional disciplinary system. As students increasingly perceive any sort of conduct matter as adversarial and legalistic, they may enlist the support of parents, senior-level administrators, or even attorneys to navigate this process. However, residence life staff, who typically manage only lower level cases like those described above, may not necessarily have the training to comfortably address the encroachment of outsiders into the student disciplinary process. This phenomenon is called "judicialization," and as a direct result of this interference, full-time student conduct administrators experience real harms in both their professional work and personal lives. Based on a survey of 87 full-time housing and residence life professionals who also have conduct adjudication responsibilities, this study extends the body of literature on how concerns about litigation impact the lived experiences and well-being of those who adjudicate student conduct. Findings and discussion reveal insight into the ways that distinct demographic groups within this population experience the impacts of judicialization on their well-being. [Discussion questions developed by Jason Lynch.]

A qualitative study of twelve student conduct administrators sought to capture their lived experiences relative to the impacts of federal and state regulation, case law, the media, attorney encroachment, parental involvement, and the use of litigation to supersede traditional processes on their professional work and personal lives. The interviews invited participants to share personal narratives about their lived experiences and led to the discovery of seven themes pertaining to the judicialization of their work: (1) communication, (2) conservative decision making, (3) mental health concerns, (4) responding to perceptions of what student conduct is, (5) the role of campus legal counsel, (6) the shift from being student-centered to process-centered, and (7) impacts of students' attorneys. Findings revealed that although this phenomenon has created harms for these practitioners, it has also allowed them to develop strategies for wellness, self-care, and sustainability in the profession.