Chapter 5 in the text focuses on organizational identity. The authors defined organizational identification this way, "A person identifies with an organization when he or she seeks to select alternatives with the interests of the organization--as best they can be determined--uppermost in mind" (p. 114).As an employee in an organization, I've never been overly enthusiastic about identifying with the organization. Developing a sense of community is important, but I like having "me" at least somewhat separate from the organizations in which I'm embedded. Still, in a place like SJSU with commuter students, faculty, and staff, creating community and organizational identity can prove challenging. Recently the department embarked on an initiative to examine its curriculum. As part of interrogating the program, faculty also developed a tagline (Listen • Speak • Engage), a tagline image (aka, our logo), and revamped the department website. Although the outcome was important because we now have tangible representation of who were are as a department, what brought us together more, and encouraged identification with the organization, was the process. We worked as a group to come up with the tagline. For our tagline image, one of our graduate students (a graphic designer in a previous life) took us through 3 rounds of ideas until we identified an image we all liked. For the department website, we integrated that image along with our renewed commitment to making program information more accessible. And students have noticed this. Several have told me Listen • Speak • Engage is "everywhere" and they say it helps them articulate what it means to major in communication studies. I have no interest in assimilation, but I do want students, faculty, and staff to feel like they have a stake in the department.~ Professor Cyborg
Much of the work in organizational culture has taken an ethnographic approach, studying the culture of a particular organization. As Cheney et al. note, "ethnographers . . . study how social realities are constructed locally" (p. 81). The research involves observation or participant observation and detailed descriptions of organization members' everyday sensemaking.
Over 10 years ago, John Haas, Beverly Davenport Sypher, and I observed that although there are distinctions across organizations in cultural practices and other indicators, there are commonalities. We'd been involved in collecting data in several organizations on communication climate and information flow. What interested us was that in every organization, members wanted more information, no matter how much information they already received. With one exception, across all channels and sources, organization members wanted more communication. The only source they didn't want more information from was the grapevine--they didn't want more rumors. Yet, the grapevine was rated as both healthy and accurate in every organization. In the Journal of Business Communication article we published on our research, we identified this desire for more communication as a metamyth "whose basic tenet is that 'more communication is better'" (p. 196).
What also sets apart this research from more traditional organizational culture studies is the use of quantitative methods. Examining survey data from five different organizations allowed us to observe the metamyth trend that ethnographic data would not have revealed.
~ Professor Cyborg
Box 4.2 in Chapter 4 discusses the work of one of my colleagues at SJSU, Dr. Federico Varona. The article cited, Conceptualization and Management of Communication Satisfaction and Organization Commitment in Three Guatemalan Organizations, was published in the American Communication Journal when I was editor. This research is interested in the influence of the larger culture on the organizations studied. The two most important contributions of Dr. Varona's are understanding communication satisfaction as a more nuanced construct and recognizing the multidimensionality of organizational commitment.
But what I like best about the study is what Dr. Varona's cultural and professional background brought to the research. Summarizing his experiences living and working in Guatemala he says in a footnote: "During the fourteen years that I lived in Guatemala, I had the opportunity to interact with people of all social classes Indigenous and Ladinos, poor and rich, and professionals and workers from a great variety of organizations and institutions. This experiential knowledge along with my expertise as a scholar allowed me to get to know Guatemalan culture and Guatemalan organizations." As with Kay Meidlinger's extensive knowledge of the Catholic church and her research on parish staff members' stories, Dr. Varona's background provided a level of analysis and insight those unfamiliar with Guatemalan culture could not provide.
~ Professor Cyborg
In the section near the end of the chapter on overall research orientations, Cheney et al. observe: "Most analyses of communication content emphasize what is said or what is present in the 'text' . . . . In some cases, however, there might be important elements that are notable for their absence" (p. 465).
Several years ago one of my master's students, Shannon Waltrip-Sequiera, did her thesis research on how parents and teachers socially construct the notions of progression and regression in children with autism. She focused on the communication of two teachers and one parent about the parent's child with autism. As part of the program designed by the child's school, the teachers and parent wrote in a notebook that went to school and home with the child each day. The main focus of the notebook was addressing the child's needs, although topics varied. Shannon analyzed several years of the notebook's content and conducted in-depth interviews with the teachers and parent.
One interesting finding was the near absence of the parent's voice. The teachers dominated the communication in the notebook; the parent generally followed their lead in defining the child's progression and regression. In this case, as Cheney et al. suggest, the absence of the parent's communication was noteworthy, particularly when it was replaced by a grandparent's contributions to the notebook.
~ Professor Cyborg
In Chapter 15, Cheney et al. observe, "To understand organizational communication, it's often important not to focus on a single message but rather to look at a broad pattern" (p. 440). This quote reminded me of my dissertation work. My committee included an interpersonal communication scholar, a qualitative methods media studies scholar, a quantitative health communication scholar, and two sociologists, one a critical theorist and the other a specialist in complex organizations. Quite a mix of perspectives for my project on person-centered communication in hospice interdisciplinary health care teams.
For my dissertation, I used observation, focus groups, individual interviews, and a questionnaire to gather data. My primary focus was on the messages team members exchanged when comforting and persuading each other. By examining a large body of messages, I was able to tease out patterns of person-centered communication. Still, that provided a fairly micro view of organizational communication. The sociologists on my committee encouraged me to consider the broader environment in which the teams functioned, including the larger organizational structures and the realities of the U.S. health care system. For example, the critical theorist pointed out that these hospices, which were not-for-profit, functioned in a for-profit world, interfacing with hospitals and insurance companies. As I blogged about previously, interacting with these highly bureaucratic organizations influenced the hospices' internal structures.
When Cheney et al. emphasize the need to go beyond a single message and examine patterns, they're also suggesting that organizational communication researchers place their work within the larger contexts in which such communication takes place.
~ Professor Cyborg
I really enjoy reading the Voices from the Field boxes, so you may notice that I blog about them often. In Box 15.2, the authors feature Jill McMillan discussing native organizational communication research in which scholars study the organizations in which they're embedded. Several years ago one of my master's students, Kay Meidlinger, studies the stories of the organization where she worked, the office of her local Catholic church. Kay had attended Catholic church all her life and at the time of her study had worked as a member of the parish staff for some time. She collected stories during the regular staff lunches. Because of her extensive knowledge of her own parish and the larger organization in which the parish functioned, she could provide insight into the stories not possible from an outsider's viewpoint. After she completed her thesis, we collaborated on two articles. The first, published in the American Communication Journal focused on the types of interpersonal stories the participants told. In the second, published in Management Communication Quarterly we took a critical view in examining how the stories supported (or didn't support) the status quo. Having both an insider's and outsider's view provided greater depth of analysis as we discussed our interpretations of the data.
~ Professor Cyborg
In Box 15.1 the authors of the text report on Connie Bullis's work in environmental communication. Bullis argues, "our greatest challenge maybe to change our personal choices while also looking to innovative organizational approaches" in addressing environmental issues. So cycling to the grocery store instead of driving, not buying products with excess packaging, and raking up the leaves in the yard rather than using a leaf blower.
Going green at the organization can prove challenging. When I was acting chair this past spring and summer, I decided the department would no longer buy water in 16 or 20 ounce containers. We already had a water cooler in the copy room (old pipes in HGH make the tap water suspect), so I ordered one for the COMM Lab as well (old pipes an issue in the Clark Building as well). Then I set about trying to find a "green" reusable water bottle that the department would purchase and sell at cost to students, faculty, and staff (with the department's new tagline stamped on it). First I thought we could use bottles made out of recycled plastics. But there were concerns about chemicals leaching into the water. Then I checked out the popular naglene bottles, but similar issues with those. I finally settled on a stainless steel bottle. More expensive, but no leaching issues. Now I'm trying to find out if it's made in the U.S. (lower carbon footprint).
Of greatest concern in Bullis's comments is the symbolism associated with going green. It's become the "in thing" to do, so companies use language associated with sound environmental practices but may not actually be implementing such practices at all. "Green" is used because it sells, not because the organization is concerned about the Earth's future. I found when searching for water bottles that "eco-friendly" and similar terms were associated with products that didn't seem to be good for the environment at all.
~ Professor Cyborg
In Chapter 15, Cheney et al. suggest that "the metaphor of text draws our attention to how much of an organization is written, spoken, and, thus, constructed by its members through the linguistic and other symbolic resources available to them" (p. 438). Other communication scholars have argued that organizing is communicating. Still, the text metaphor presents a specific view of communication. The authors go on to note that the metaphor illuminates issues of authority and power and takes the mystery out of organizational structures and processes.
Although the text metaphor is intriguing, it is also static and linear, as is the notion of "reading" an organization. Text also suggests a notion of permanency, which considering the latest failings of financial firms in the last few weeks, may not provide a useful representation of the changes and flux organizations experience. Particularly in the current turbulent environment, other metaphors may better serve our understanding of organizations and organizing.
The recent near-collapse of very large and very old U.S. financial institutions suggests that as communication scholars we must go beyond a myopic focus on communication and consider the real implications of accounting in organizations. One of my colleagues at Central Michigan University suggested that all organizational communication students take at least one class in accounting so they could read a balance sheet. There's no doubt that communication played an integral part in the rise and fall of the subprime mortgage fad, but when the money simply isn't there, all the talk in the world won't bring it back.
~ Professor Cyborg
The emphasis on the rational actor that persists today in organizational studies and practice also impacts the norms that have developed associated with the expression of emotion. Rational decision making suggests that emotions play no role in how decisions are made in organizations, yet organization members often are driven by how they feel about others and the organization.
Another aspect of emotions in organization is what emotions are okay to express and what must be hidden--the emotional labor the authors of the text discuss in Chapter 3. While the organizational norms associated with the expression of emotion are culturally-bound, the growth of transnational corporations has blunted some of the impact of local cultural practices on the organizations in which they're embedded. Norms may also vary with the type of organization. For example, in the hospices I studied, expressing joy, happiness, sadness, and grief were quite accepted. Providing comfort to others in difficult times was common. Crying, especially in response to a patient's death, was considered normal behavior. Expressing anger was not as accepted, however.
The study of emotions in organizations is fairly recent and still hasn't received much attention. This likely stems from the dominance of the machine metaphor in our understanding of organization. Even later metaphors such as organizations and organisms, organizations as brains, and organizations as political systems ignore the role of emotion in everyday organizational life.
I first read about the garbage can model of decision making in a graduate course at the U of Kentucky. As Cheney et al. describe this approach, decision making in organizations involves "collections of: solutions looking for problems; issues and feelings seeking to be aired; and decision makers looking for decisions to make" (p. 60).
Rather than decisions occurring in a logical, linear fashion, decisions are much more haphazard and driven by all sorts of forces that aren't apparent. Once a decision is made, then a narrative is developed to explain it. For example, the recent decisions to bail out AIG insurance, Freddie Mac, and Fanny Mae have far-reaching implications. Rumors abounded for weeks and months that the federal government would rescue these institutions. The garbage can model suggests that the decisions were made and then those involved worked to develop a rationale for those decisions, what the authors of the text (and others) call "retrospective sense making" (p. 60). In this way, the decisions were legitimized after the fact rather than following a systematic process to reach a conclusion.
In Images of Organization Gareth Morgan discusses eight metaphors for organization: machine, organism, brain, culture, political system, psychic prison, flux and transformation, and domination. Relying on Morgan's conceptualization of organization as brain, the authors of your text discuss the brain metaphor in box 3.4. One strength of this metaphor is it promotes the idea of the learning organization, so it goes beyond the organism metaphor that portrays organizations as adapting to their environments. The brain metaphor suggests that organizations enact their environments and can be proactive and reactive.Still, the brain metaphor suggests a rational approach to organizing and decision making. Yet as you've probably found, organizational decisions are often all but rational. Hidden agendas, personal biases, political maneuverings, and emotions are all involved in how organization members make decisions. This was certainly the case with a professional organization I belonged to for several years. Organization members made several poor decisions in spite of information that would have suggested a different course of action. Personalities became more important than reasoned discussion. The organization--already small--lost several key members due to the conflict.
Although the brain metaphor is useful, Morgan notes "there is a danger of overlooking important conflicts that can arise between learning and self-organizing, on the one hand, and the realities of power and control, on the other hand. . . . Moreover, the process of learning requires a degree of openness and self-criticism that is foreign to traditional modes of management" (p. 117). Images of Organization is a fascinating book and a classic in the field. I've used it in the past for the BUS/COMM 244 seminar. But the second edition is over 10 years old and I wanted a text that was published more recently. Still, Morgan's book is an essential read for all students of organizational communication.
Systems theory is grounded in the organism metaphor for organizations (although the application of organizations as systems can implicate the machine metaphor as well). As the authors of the text note in Chapter 2, systems theory encourages communication scholars to examine the larger environment in which organizations are embedded. Although this theory has its drawbacks, such as the emphasis on unity and harmony, it provides a way to take a more macro view of organizational life.
The notion of equifinality underscores one of the problems with highly bureaucratic structures. Equifinality suggests that there are multiple ways to reach the same endpoint and the starting point doesn't determine the endpoint. When applied at a micro level to teaching, this means all instructors teaching a particular course can have the same learning objectives but have different ways to achieve them. The trend toward assessment and standardization of course curriculum runs counter to equifinality. Although this trend has been well entrenched in K-12 for some time, it's just beginning to occur at the college level as well. For example, in the upper-division writing class in my department, all instructors use the same syllabus with the same assignments. I find this trend discouraging.
I write a lot about SJSU, probably because I've taught there since 1990 and it's the organization I know best. Plus it provides so many great examples it's difficult to resist talking about when I'm teaching organizational communication.
But today I thought I'd write about hospice interdisciplinary care teams in the context of differentiation and integration discussed in Chapter 2. My dissertation research focused on hospice teams and I following that line of research for several years. I found hospice teams fascinating because I'd studied interdisciplinary teams in two other contexts, one in a large mental health institution and the other a diagnostic team for severely developmentally disabled children. The teams that functioned (dysfunctioned is the better term) in the mental hospital were not a happy group. They spent a great deal of time battling over turf and not much time focusing on patient needs. There was a high degree of differentiation, but little integration. The intensely bureaucratic nature of the organization made team functioning a challenge.
The diagnostic team also functioned within a highly bureaucratic organization--the university where I did my doctoral work. But the team was fairly independent. In addition, the team did not implement its recommendations, so there was a greater incentive to work together to determine the best treatment plan for the clients.
Hospice interdisciplinary teams develop treatment plans and implement them. What I found in my research is that while far from perfect, these teams did a pretty good job carving out their individual tasks while still coming together as a group. Hospice organizations do have some level of bureaucracy, in part because they have to interact with highly bureaucratic structures such as hospitals and insurance companies. But for the most part they strive to be team-based in every aspect of the organization, not just the interdisciplinary teams. Thus, hospices are generally fairly adept at balancing specialization/differentiation and integration.
Near the beginning of Chapter 12 Cheney et al. observe that new communication technologies "are designed to enhance the speed of communication, to facilitate the immediate access to information, and to enable complex information exchanges across different geographical locations" (p. 350). In other words, you can communicate anytime from anywhere with anyone. Coopman (Ted) coined the term pervasive communication environment to identify the degree to which communicators are immersed in a sea of interactive possibilities.
This pervasive communication environment gives us multiple access points to an integrated communication structure with text, audio, video, and voice capabilities. What does that mean? Much more than chatting with your friend in Hong Kong while you are stuck in Chicago traffic. A pervasive communication environment provides you with the ability to access, create, and share information in multimedia from almost anywhere, at anytime, for any reason. The impact on organizational communication has been far-reaching as many of you have blogged about this week. More than just checking for text messages on your cell, mobile devices connected to the internet have played important roles in organizing political protests that toppled governments. Websites such as Meetup.org enable thousands, if not millions, of people to unite over common interests and concerns. And consider the ways the internet has been used to mobilize individuals and raise money in this year's presidental campaign.
Because they so permeate our everyday lives, new communication technologies have formed an increasingly invisible network connecting individuals, groups, and organizations. It's the everydayness of these technologies that I find so interesting to study. My blog alias stems from the idea that the physicality of the internet has become a natural part of everyday life. (I discuss this in more detail in my COMM 144 blog.)
More information on the pervasive communication environment is here:
Coopman, T. M. (2006, September). Dumping dichotomies: Embracing the pervasive communication environment. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Internet Researchers, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
It's also prominently featured in my new public speaking book published by Wadsworth, Public Speaking: The Evolving Art, and the small group book Ted and I are working on for McGraw-Hill, Small Group Communication: A Practical Guide for the 21st Century.
Earlier this week I wrote about technology failures in organizations, focusing on Blackboard. On page 359 of your text the authors talk about the factors that make technology implementation a success. One technology success at the university is the implementation of the the Accessible Technology Initiative. The initiative is CSU-wide and based on a directive from the chancellor's office--after several lawsuits in which campuses were found in noncompliance with Section 508 of the federal Rehabilitation Act.
SJSU has taken a universal design approach to making sure all campus information is accessible to everyone. Universal design principles were first applied to architecture--designing buildings and other public spaces so that all individuals can use them easily. For example, rather than designing a building with stairs at the entrance and then adding a ramp for individuals who use a wheelchair for mobility, the entrance is even with the sidewalk. The MLK Library is an example of universal design.
In practical terms, accessible technology means that all campus websites and documents are fully screen readable and easy to navigate, video incorporates a transcript or is closed-captioned, and images include text descriptions. For faculty, this initiative means that all instructional materials in current courses must be accessible by Fall 2012; for new courses, the deadline is this semester.
I'm on the Accessible Technology Initiative Instructional Materials committee and the faculty in residence for ATI for the College of Social Sciences. Getting all instructional materials so they're fully accessible is a huge undertaking--one that will benefit all students. For example, all students benefit from having a class syllabus and other course materials online.
The university is approaching the implementation of this initiative in an effective way. The provost is heading up the initiative, so there's support from top management. The external pressure is there--four successful lawsuits across the CSU. The chancellor articulated a clear vision for the initiative. Now we're working on the implementation part--securing faculty buy in, committing resources to helping faculty develop accessible instructional materials, and creating venues for faculty to work together to implement this important change.
This is my first semester as the CoSS faculty in residence for ATI. I'll keep you posted on my experiences.
~ Professor Cyborg
On page 363 the Cheney et al. state, "In addition to its ability to stimulate a strong task-orientation in work groups, computer-mediated communication seems to facilitate more equal participation among organizational members." I've found this to be the case with online classes and my colleagues who teach online agree. In person classes privilege students who better speakers, are more outgoing, and more comfortable in a dynamic communication environment where there's often little time to reflect on what others have said. Some of my online students have emailed saying that the online class was the first one they spoke out in. I've observed this in faculty discussions as well. When we move part of our work online, as with editing documents on a wiki, one or two people are less able to dominate the conversation and we tend to make better decisions--because everyone has an equal opportunity to participate (whether or not they take that opportunity is up to the individual). With in person meetings, there's only so much time, and it can be difficult to divide up the talk time in any equitable way. Asynchronous online communication also gives faculty time to think about what others have said before posting their comments or making changes in a document. In developing the department's new major and graduate program (to be implemented in Fall 2009) faculty found the wiki indispensable. We met in person as well, but much of the hard work took place online.
Online communication doesn't necessarily lead to all group members (or all students in a class) participating equally. But in my experience asynchronous online communication levels the playing field so everyone has the opportunity to participate without worrying about a few people dominating the conversation. Although individuals can send many lengthy emails or write many long posts on a discussion board, other participants can delete or skip those messages--the lengthy messages don't take away from others' ability to participate. With in person meetings, if a few people use more than their share of talk time, there simply isn't enough time for others to have their say.
~ Professor Cyborg
Box 12.8 in your text discusses a research project Ted Zorn started on communication technology adoption and implementation in organizations. He began the project in early 2001, but after a year, found that the projects were either abandoned or implemented poorly. The authors of your text provide three reasons for the tech failures: (1) the systems led to increased rather than decreased workload, (2) the systems were too complex, and (3) insufficient training and development for users.
As someone who has taught online for nearly 10 years, I've observed these kind of mistakes in technology adoption at my university as well as other schools. For example, using Blackboard CE6 is far more work than using WebCT 4.0. One problem is that it can only be opened in one web browser window at a time. So as an instructor if all my files are in blackboard, I can look at only one page at a time, unless I open a window in a different browser. The system is much more complex to use and completely nonintuitive. And training has been spotty.
Another major reason technology adoptions fail is the lack of employee participation in the decision making process. This is true for any major changes in organizations. Without members' participation in all aspects of the change process, getting buy in during the implementation stage is challenging. In addition, important information is overlooked.
Involving faculty in deciding which learning management system to use may have led to a better decision at the university. As it is now, Blackboard is not compliant with accessibility laws, and if that remains the case, the university will have to go to a new system in two years--another failure in technology adoption. Consulting with a wider range of campus stakeholders might have resulted in choosing a different LMS that fit all users' needs.
~ Professor Cyborg
In Chapter 12 of the text the authors note early on, "Some writers warn that communication technologies imply increased management surveillance and control" (p. 346). There's no doubt this is happening in U.S. and international workplaces.
Several years ago two of my colleagues and I were on a hiking trip. We were talking about organizational communication (no surprise; we went to grad school together and all studied in that area). I had been teaching online for a few years and had recently taught the undergraduate course in organizational communication. I'd been amazed by how much students talked about organizational surveillance and the degree to which they were watched and monitored during their work day.
So the three of us decided to work on a project where we examined how organization members talk about surveillance. Rather than focusing on the types of surveillance, we wanted to know what people had to say about being surveilled. We developed a survey. Our students conducted interviews. We presented our findings in several venues, the most-recent one an article in Management Communication Quarterly. We thought study participants would report about all the ways they tried to subvert and work around surveillance systems. We were so wrong! Most organization members accepted the surveillance, buying into the reasons given when they joined the organization or when the surveillance was installed ("it's for your safety," "it increases productivity").
Especially in turbulent economic times organization members are hesitant to challenge the status quo and and their bosses. During times when jobs are easy to come by, organization members are more likely to resist control mechanisms such as surveillance systems. Still, consider the impact of upper management's poor decisions and unethical behavior (think of Enron, the savings and loan scandals, the current mortgage crisis). Where should the surveillance cameras be placed? In the organization's cubicles or the board room?
~ Professor Cyborg
The Mercury News today included an op-ed piece on the ethics of politicians using speechwriters. The author, who in the 1970s wrote term papers for a company that sold them to students, argues, "selling term papers to students to use as their own is still illegal, but selling speeches to politicians to use as their own remains a legitimate enterprise." What does this have to do with organizational communication? The issue may seem only related to political communication, but organizing is at the core of politics--the two major political parties often are referred to as "machines" because they're highly bureaucratic organizations.
Speechwriting brings up the notion of accountability Cheney et al. raise at several points in Chapter 14, particularly in the section on ethics as an issue for organizations. But there seems to be a double standard. For example, the author of the op-ed piece, David McGrath, points out that the president of Jacksonville State U was chastised for having someone else write at least three of his weekly newspaper column with crediting the writer. Yet politicians commonly use speechwriters without attribution and that's accepted.
For an interesting take on plagiarism, including an index on plagiarists, visit War on Plagiarism, a site developed by John Lekso, English Professor at Saginaw Valley State University.
~ Professor Cyborg
The authors of your text argue that ethical communication serves five ethical functions in organizations: coordination, community, inspiration, social control, and emulation. This practical approach underscores how ethical communication is more than just something that should be done for itself. Ethical organizational communication benefits all the organization's stakeholders.
Many organizations adopt a code of ethics. The National Communication Association published its Credo for Communication Ethics in 1999. The Academy of Management's general ethical principles focus on responsibility, integrity, and respect for people's rights and dignity. The National Speakers Association has a code of professional ethics that provides guidelines for how members should conduct themselves.
SJSU has incorporated an ethical stance in its goals for Vision 2010 with "Responsible citizenship and an understanding of ethical choices inherent in human development" for graduate and undergraduate students. In addition, the university has adopted Ten Principles of Academic Integrity for faculty and a Student Conduct Code for students. Five years ago Student Affairs started an Academic Integrity week to encourage dialogue about ethical issues on campus. In the past, the event has included guest speakers, workers, and discussions.
~ Professor Cyborg
Near the end of Chapter 13 the authors of your text refer to Edward Said's argument that organizations should celebrate diversity rather than try to management. This is the approach SJSU is taking in its strategic planning and the creation of a new position Assistant to the President and Director of Institutional Planning and Inclusive Excellence, currently fulfilled by Dr. Rona Halualani, professor of communication studies. Last year Dr. Halualani implemented a two series of focus group discussions, one with faculty and staff and the other with students, to encourage the campus community reflect on diversity issues at SJSU. The outcomes of these discussions are now part of the university's strategic planning process. Celebrating diversity is also part of Vision 2010, another piece of the strategic planning process. Part of Vision 2010 involved revisiting SJSU's mission and goals. One goal in particular suggests a celebration of diversity:
- Multi-cultural and global perspectives gained through intellectual and social exchange with people of diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds.
Still, in the faculty and staff focus group in which I participated, attendees voiced skepticism of the university's ability to commit the resources necessary to support diversity at all levels of the institution. For example, the university's Bridge Program, which helps first-year students adjust to college life has been scaled back in recent years.
~ Professor Cyborg
The forces of globalization and new communication technologies have increased the expansiveness of organization members' social imaginations--conversations about past, current, and future identities. I've observed this locally in my department, especially during the past year. At the end of the spring 2007 semester, four faculty left the university and two moved into administrative positions. Several of former group had been obstructionists, making it difficult to have any real dialogue in meetings. But with those individuals gone and the introduction of new communication tools (such as department wikis), the faculty were able to have useful conversations about the department's present identity and the ways that identity might change. The results were dramatic, evident in the department's new website, facebook group, tagline (Listen • Speak • Engage), tagline image (above), and the re-envisioned major and graduate program.
Many diverse scapes influenced our discussions, including those related to individual cultural identities, professional allegiances, university culture, economic realities, and the like. At the same time, faculty were reflecting on these scapes and seizing the opportunity to define themselves, the department, and the programs. The new identity has already started to emerge, but will come into sharp focus in Fall 2009 with the new undergraduate and graduate programs.
~ Professor Cyborg
