An Open Letter to President Obama from Someone "On Notice"

Dear Mr. President,

In your last State of the Union you put public higher education “on notice,” if we do not to try to keep costs down. I’ve been in academe for over 10 years both in information technology and more recently as faculty. Let me give you a little advice. Universities are raising tuition for two basic reasons: cuts in public funding and cuts in student aid. Not loans. Aid.

Universities now receive less funding from state government and more financial patronage from industry. Over the last thirty years, states have cut their budgets for postsecondary education by a national average of 34 percent. At the same time, vocational training in universities increased due to pressure from both students – who want to graduate and attain employment – and industries that need students to have certain skills. Institutions of higher education began engaging in market-like behaviors, a kind of “academic capitalism” in which educational outcomes (students and artifacts of research) are “products.” In the past twenty years, university autonomy has shrunk under the pressure of government, industry and student demands for accountability. Academia is becoming managed. We are doing more with less. This has led to some interesting consequences.

For example, as of 2003 only 44.9 percent of all faculty members hold full-time tenured positions. Schuster & Finkelstein conclude “contingent or term appointments became during the past decade the modal form of new full-time faculty appointments” (p. 55). In addition, from 1993 to the present, the percentage of all newly hired full-time faculty appointed to non-tenure track positions increased every year from barely more than 50 percent to almost three in five. Looking through a wider lens, in the last thirty years the categories of full- and part-time non-tenure-track faculty—both increased by over 200 percent. Just as in other areas of the economy, more and more faculty members are “outsourcers.” Outsourcers are contingent, non-traditional, term contracted employees, who are solely responsible for their career development and receive little, if any, organizational support, benefits, or recognition.

So in reality Mr. President we have been cutting back for years by hiring part-timers over tenure track faculty members. Guess what? It still doesn’t make up for all the cuts in government funding. It’s time to stop treating a higher education as a commodity and like a public good again.

Mr. President, your threat to put us “on notice” is redundant. We’ve been on notice for twenty years.

Sincerely,

Dr. Andrew F. Herrmann

On Teaching Group Communication Well, Pt 2

Serendipity? Coincidence? A link into the divine? Whatever the case, I’ll take it. 

In my last post I began talking about my Group Communication class. I included some of the dilemmas all teachers face when dealing with group work and engaging students in both theory and practice. Well, then a friend and mentor of mine – Bud Goodall – posted something on Facebook. 

It is a New York Times article called “The Rise of the New Groupthink” that plainly states,

“Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption.”

I agree with some of the assessment – that group work for group work’s sake is a pointless exercise. Anyone who has been sitting in a meeting to ‘brainstorm’ some totally nonsensical idea knows what I mean. (Especially if the boss isn’t going to take those ideas seriously anyway – but that’s another story of faux participation and paradoxes in organizations.)

However, the point of my Group Communication class is to bring communication theory to life and allow students to learn experientially. The author of the Times’ piece writes:

‎"But it’s one thing to associate with a group in which each member works autonomously on his piece of the puzzle."

And this is my thought process when I teach group communication. Sure students work in groups, but each person must come to the group with something of value to put on the table. Nor are the class group projects 'useless,' but vary in degrees of length, from the short to the large, and in complexity. Which brings me to what this post was supposed to be about: The assignments from my Group Communication class.

The first is an individual project: Strengthsfinder Paper: A one page paper that explains your strength based on the Strengthsfinder assessment, including a self-reflection on where you have seen this particular strength active in your own life.

Rationale: Most students haven’t spent a lot of time with Socrates’ dictum “Know thyself.” What can they bring to the table? What do they need to know about themselves and the way they relate to other people? This is an exploration of their talent. It’s what they bring to the table.

“Quad-Group” Discussion (QGD): Each initial smaller group of approximately 4 people (hence the term “Quad”) will lead a discussion (for about 30 minutes) on some section of the Rothwell text, between Chapters 4 through 5 to be negotiated in class with other groups and me. Please note that this is NOT a presentation, but a discussion. It consists of four parts:

One week prior to your presentation you must find and send a related academic article to everyone in the class.

Lead a discussion for 25 minutes on your topic.

A one-page handout for your classmates.

An activity to go along with your discussion.

Rationale: A short project to start. Something within the safe confine of the classroom experience. Think of this as the ‘getting to know each other’ part of this group experience. This is not a presentation (no PowerPoints) but a discussion of the topic they have negotiated with the other groups and myself.

"The Edge” Assignment: Each “Quad Group” will set up a time with ETSU’s “The Edge” radio station and lend their voices for a drop, a legal, a promo, a sting, or an ad.

Rationale: Stepping out into the world, even if it still the ETSU world. The groups have to make the contacts, set up the appointments with the General Manager, and then go into the studio and create what the GM determines needs to be made. This gives them practical experience in those areas, as well as lending their voices to the Broadcast Division of the Communication Department.

Dinner and the FSNP Paper: Two “Quad-Groups” will combine to become a “Double-Quad.” This larger group will have to plan a meal from scratch, eat that meal together, and produce one co-written paper. I will be looking for evidence of your group's development and its accomplishments, and of the various contributions to the dinner and the writing process. This five-page co-constructed paper is your group response to how your “Double-Quad” worked together, concentrating on the forming, storming, norming, and performing (FSNP) aspects of group development. You will present to the class you dinner menu, and a brief discussion of the group project. 

Rationale: Leaders and other roles are generally in place within the “Quads” by the time this project rolls around. This stirs things up. Power struggles often raise their heads as groups come together. Negotiating is more difficult and the number of persons in the group makes every thing more chaotic and complex. HOWEVER, the actual project of making dinner together provides students with a pretty relaxing, fun, enjoyable atmosphere – plus they get to eat well.

The “Double-Quad” Volunteer Project & Paper: Each “Double-Quad” will volunteer with a nonprofit organization in the greater Johnson City area to complete a project of some significance both to the agency you're working for and to yourselves and your group. Group members must work together on location for at least 7 hours during the semester--some might involve much more than this, depending on how much off-site preparation is required. The objective here is, as best you can, to do something for an organization that involves your group as a group and that utilizes your group's unique abilities. Documentation is essential. The grade for this project consists of two components on which you will be graded: A professional presentation to the organization for which you volunteered, which I also attend. A co-constructed paper of 12 pages (not including references) on how the team worked while doing your volunteer project, what theoretical concepts you found informative as you worked through the process of becoming a group, the accomplishment of the necessary tasks, as well as the struggles and dilemmas you encountered.

Rationale: The big Kahuna!: serving the Johnson City community. Getting students involved with individuals they don’t necessarily run into in their daily lives. For example when I did this at USF, one group worked at the Moffett Cancer Center. At Mizzou one group worked with a home for abused children. Another for a literacy program. Another for the local animal shelter. Another for undernourished kids. A LOT of planning and collaborating and negotiating goes into, not only the project, but the co-written paper. Students found these projects not only useful, but self-fulfilling.

So that’s it. Taking theory and making it practical. Going from small groups and small projects to larger groups and larger projects. While Organizational communication is my passion, this is –by far – my favorite class to teach.

On Teaching Group Communication Well

Anyone who’s spent any time teaching eventually runs into the dilemma of making theory come alive for students. That’s why I love teaching Group Communication. It is one of my most successful courses. Students come away with a real understanding of how theory works in practice.  How? I give students the requisite liberty to form autonomous groups – and then send them out into the world. As my syllabus states:

"A significant portion of the class time will be allotted to allowing you to meet with your fellow students in your groups. We will form groups by choosing class members - and being chosen - through a process to be described later in the semester. Groups will be challenged with a goal for the semester, as well as two ongoing tasks, and also will be provided activities every week that are related to the course content and designed to further both the development of your group and your ability to link the conceptual and experiential modes of learning. But most of what goes on in the group is up to you - and to your fellow group members. The groups will meet during class every week throughout the semester, and no doubt, will meet outside of class as well. The challenge is how to make the most of this unusual opportunity.”


This makes today's student nervous. Students have been trained in the banking system version of education, where the teacher deposits information into the student’s brain and then the student withdraws that information and puts it on a test. I feed you. You vomit it up. That training is not useful in this kind of class. I give my students forewarning on this aspect of what the class is going to be like:

“Some of you may find this form of active "learning-by-doing" a disturbing experience. I can't tell you "what to accomplish" or "what we should be doing in the group." It isn't that I won't. I can't. You have to work it out, individually and together. Learning about groups comes from struggling with the process of trying to become a group. For some, working together and learning to manage those differences will be one of the most rewarding educational tasks you'll ever face. For them, the opportunity to examine one's own needs for authority and the chance to learn openly about communication and human relationships in such a relatively unstructured and safe situation is a welcome one, even though some frustration necessarily will part of this process, too.”

Similarly, in contrast to the banking system of education, I don’t lecture in this class. No lectures. No PowerPoint presentations. No monologues. Rather I frame debates or situations and then let students do in-class team projects and lead discussions about how a particular theory fits within their everyday lives. Given that this is a relatively new way of ‘doing class’ for many students I put an important warning in my syllabus as well:

“Warning!! Please note that this is not a lecture class in any sense of the word, as lecturing in front of the room is the anti-thesis of what this class designed to do. Class time is going to be used for various group-building activities. Therefore, you must keep up with the readings on your own. Please, do not remain in this course unless you are willing to commit yourself to the challenge of learning about communicative processes in groups and about your own communication in groups through the active and student-directed process described above. This warning includes anyone participating on a team sport or who has a job. If you are dedicated to this class, you must be here. If you are dedicated to your athletic endeavors or your employment more than to this class, please be considerate and drop this class. If you remain in this class you are promising yourself to your group, your classmates, and me. Be aware that as a last resort groups can fire a member for nonparticipation – and if you are that member, you will fail the class, because you cannot do an individual project to make up for a group project.”

In my next post, I’ll provide some of the assignments students do during the semester. In in the meantime, here are links to the three texts I use in the class.

In Mixed Company

Strengthsfinder 2.0

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Stay tuned...