Examining the Leadership Experiences of Campus Recreation Student Employees Utilizing Near-Peer Leadership

The purpose of this exploratory case study was to examine how the implementation of a near-peer leadership framework for student employee leaders, referred to as Operations Leads (OLs) in my practice as the manager of the Operations area at a university student recreation center, influences the supervisory and leadership ability of the student OLs. The following question guided this research: How does implementing a near-peer leadership framework in a campus recreation department influence the leadership experiences of four operations leads? Sub-questions include: (1) What challenges do the operations leads face as near-peer leaders? and (2) What support do the operations leads find beneficial in their experience as near-peer leaders? This new OL position was created to help support the area I oversee following organizational changes and challenges because of the post-pandemic impact on our department. I utilized convenience and criterion purposive sampling (Miles & Huberman, 1994) to better support the Operations area to interview four OLs employed in my department. These interviews (group and individual) served as the primary data source to explore the OLs perspectives on the influence the near-peer leadership framework had on developing their supervisory and leadership ability as student employees. Additional data sources included my researcher's journal and the OLs' reflection journals. Findings from this research included three themes categorized as benefits and two themes categorized as challenges. The benefit themes were: (1) the OLs grew personally through their experiences; (2) the OLs provided professional support to the Operations area; and (3) the OLs experienced instances where they were seen as leaders by their peers. The challenge themes were: (1) the OLs experienced growing pains as near-peer leaders and (2) the OLs experienced difficulty balancing personal relationships as near-peer leaders. This study provides insight into future implementation of a near-peer leadership framework in a campus recreation department. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]