As discriminatory national rhetoric continues to grow and impact higher education institutions, it is essential to study how non-instructional staff (staff) both understand post-secondary organizations and how institutional cultures shape their own practices and engagement with students. Scholars identify staff as crucial to creating conditions for student success and retention within the campus culture; yet, there remains limited scholarship delving into the experiences of post-secondary staff negotiating the cultures of an organization as they engage in practices that shape the organization. To expand this area of scholarship, this critical organizational discourse analysis (CODA) applies a power-conscious framework to investigate patterns affecting the practices and decision-making of staff working in co-curricular departments. The study sets an Office of Undergraduate Experience in the division of Academic Affairs at Desert West University, a large, primarily nonresidential research one university in the Mountain West, as a stage to showcase organizational patterns through the lens of co-curricular staff. Using CODA and the power-conscious framework in tandem to analyze individual interviews and documents, this study investigates how staff encounter manifestations of power through their routine work then explores how staff navigate, and sometimes disrupt, systems of domination embedded into organizational processes and practices. [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.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]