Date of Award

Fall 2025

Language

English

Embargo Period

11-18-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Educational Policy and Leadership

Program

Educational Policy and Leadership

First Advisor

Heinz-Deter Meyer

Second Advisor

James Stellar

Third Advisor

Elizabeth Jach

Keywords

higher education administrators, occupational stress, resilience, mindfulness

Subject Categories

Educational Administration and Supervision | Educational Leadership | Higher Education Administration

Abstract

This dissertation explores stressors experienced by higher education administrators (HEAs) and examines the role of mindfulness practices in mitigating stress and fostering resilience and job satisfaction. HEAs manage essential institutional functions yet face intensifying pressures from volatile funding streams, shifting demographics, changing public perceptions, political and cultural challenges, technological disruptions, and pandemic-related change. Despite HEAs central role in sustaining higher education, limited research examines how these professionals experience stress, and even less has considered mindfulness as a potential resource for coping and resilience.

Guided by a qualitative methodological approach, this study draws on semi-structured, thick description interviews with 18 HEAs across diverse institutional contexts. Data were coded thematically to capture patterns in lived experiences and perspectives.

Analysis demonstrated three overarching themes: 1) participants’ mindfulness practice, 2) stress experiences by participants, 3) mindfulness and resilience. Stress was found to be pervasive and structural, rooted not only in workload but in institutional instability, role ambiguity, and unrecognized emotional labor, especially for student-facing roles. Participants reported that mindfulness practices, both formal and informal, helped them regulate emotions, establish boundaries, reconnect with values, and sustain leadership presence, even amid unchanged external demands. Resilience was framed less as endurance and more as agency, discernment, and, at times, resistance, with participants emphasizing that individual coping is insufficient without organizational cultures that model care and support.

This study finds that higher education administrators experience stress as chronic, cumulative, and systemic, rooted in political volatility, budget and enrollment pressures, institutional restructuring, role ambiguity, and persistent emotional labor, especially in student-facing and equity-oriented positions. To cope, participants in this study turned to mindfulness, adopting practices such as meditation, breathing exercises, mindful walking, journaling, yoga, and brief intention-setting rituals. These practices functioned less as cures than as “pause buttons,” enabling emotional regulation, stress transformation, boundary-setting, and a renewed connection to purpose. Participants consistently reported reductions in perceived stress, improved capacity to remain composed during crises, and greater resilience and job satisfaction. At the same time, they emphasized that mindfulness alone could not resolve structural overwork or institutional dysfunction. Its benefits depended on context, support, and integration with broader systems of care. Thus, mindfulness emerged as a sustaining but limited resource, vital for individual grounding, yet insufficient without organizational change.

The study contributes to scholarship and practice by illustrating how resilience emerges through both individual strategies and institutional conditions, offering implications for leadership development, organizational policy, and long-term workforce sustainability in higher education.

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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