Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Higher Education (Education)

Disruptive activism has been a part of college campus since 1766 when the Bad Butter Rebellion at Harvard took place (Dickey, 2016; Ireland, 2012; Moore, 1976). More recently institutions have been facing an increase in disruptive campus activism (Dickey, 2016). When disruptive campus activism occurs on a college campus it is often the student affairs professionals that are asked to help manage the situation. These professionals serve as both the advisors to the student activism and campus managers representing the university. Understanding how student affairs professionals reconcile the role they play will add to the existing research on activism on college campuses. The findings of this study show that operationalizing a specific role can be challenging when it comes to disruptive campus activism. Reconciling the role is also challenging, especially if you don't have the preferred role of advisor. Student affairs professionals who perform the advisor role often understand what their role is and how to operationalize the function. Campus managers, however, have less of an understanding of how to operationalize their functions, and when disruptive campus activism occurs, they are forced into stressful situations. For both groups, there were six main factors that influenced how they reconciled their particular role. The student affairs professionals' personal identities played a major factor in reconciling the actions in their roles. This factor was particularly influential when the 4 professional held a minoritized identity. All participants believed that the advisor role was more central to their work than was the manager role. The advisor identity was based on a core value of student advocacy and education. Interestingly, this value was articulated more clearly by those participants who occupied professional roles that were more managerial in nature. For both advisors and campus managers, the issue at the heart of the disturbance played a major factor. When issues (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Pete Mather Dr. (Committee Chair); Laura Harrison Dr. (Committee Member); David Nguyen Dr. (Committee Member); Dwan Robinson Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Higher Education; Higher Education Administration