“First thing that comes to mind is my role as a defender of the decisions my staff makes. Because I trust them to make the right decisions for our students and as an office, our role is to provide access to education for all of our students… personally my role is to defend the decisions that either my staff make or that we make as a team. And to inform and educate people.” As indicated in the quote above, DSO directors often grapple with a nuanced identity when it comes to their offices, staff, and the students with disabilities they work to advocate for and support. Because of the nature of DSO work–e.g., implementing federal policies of ADA and Section 504, among others, as well as collaborating with other university personnel to ensure accommodations for disability are provided and discrimination is avoided—directors indicate their need to be flexible with where their energies were focused at any given time. This includes work with students who have disabilities to explain and engage the accommodation process, but also with faculty to explain why an accommodation is needed and how it can be implemented. However, some of the less flattering aspects of the DSO director identity were tied to what might be described as conflict with university administration, often over programming, funding, and general exposure of the office, thus providing tension within the DSO director’s identity and feelings of power/lessness regarding their office, work, and goals. As such, the phenomenon of being a DSO director can be (but is not always) one of unique power and purpose. This analysis provides insight into these tensions for this critical role of DSO director on postsecondary campus and offers suggestions for postsecondary institutional leadership to provide meaningful change, which can result in a far-reaching impact for DSO offices and campus and community stakeholders.

Significance
This study provides insight to the shared experiences of DSO directors in postsecondary environments constituting a unique phenomenon, which can only be described as personally complex while also critical to the success of an institutional disability agenda and the upholding of federal disability policy. These DSO directorial experiences and extracted phenomena should be prioritized and integrated as data so that institutional leadership can understand how to better support these leaders and their offices. This will improve DSO director job satisfaction and retention, in turn positively impacting feelings of shared governance and institutional integration.