Mike,
I guess I never really did re-introduce myself. I've enjoyed seeing
some familiar names in my in-box. I suppose it was rude of me not to
say hello, but everyone seemed so engrossed in a whole new conversation!
So....
a) I finished and defended my dissertation. :-) I did indeed find my
group of concrete workers to exhibit the predicted accommodative norms
of an oral rhetorical culture (collectivist, holistic and physically
communicative).
b) I got a job. :-)))))! I am VERY happily teaching at the University
of Northern Iowa. I'm in the College of Business Administration, housed
in the Department of Management but responsible for a college-wide
program in communication development. I teach undergraduate courses in
Business Commmunication and Communication Management, as well as
communication topics in the MBA program. I also work on a variety of
"program" activities: programs for student organizations, faculty
development, guest lectures, curriculum development....whatever will
help the students develop the team, presentation, written, interpersonal
and electronic communication skills appropriate in business
environments.
c) I'm extending my research. Obviously, the workteam applications of
my research seem the most salient now. I'm looking, in particular, at
*the process by which groups accept and socialize new members as a means
of maintaining the functionality of their own rhetorical cultures
**the specific rhetorical norms of U.S. business culture, and in
particular,
***the contexts in which "oral" rhetorical norms are more effective in
the "public sphere" of business organizations (e.g. use of distributed
cognition in high-risk workplaces, holistic problem solving in ambiguous
situations).
Dale
Mike Cole wrote:
>
> So, Dale, what are you working on and worrying about these days? It is
> really interesting that your discontinuous experience with xmca should
> bring about a sharpened perception of change.
>
> Here we are struggling with the problem of too much money being thrown at
> educational problems too fast to enable intelligent usage. Its a really
> subtle social control mechanism that allows everyone to feel virtuous
> while nothing changes.
>
> I am personally trying to institutionalize afterschool use of the internet
> in one of the Fifth Dimensions in a Boys and Girls club as part of their
> "educational program." It relates to the issue of authenticity which
> we nodded toward a couple of weeks ago.... since we are dealing with
> AFTERschool, the best school-oriented practices won't survive, more play
> in needed. And more serious self-representation in the form of artifacts
> created "for them" (them being peers at a distance, the web, etc, whatever
> that is). We have some technical limitations, of course (its a Boys and
> Girl's Club founded on philanthropy, and hence always short of resources).
> But the really interesting issue is how, routinely, to create development-
> enhancing environments with the new tools at hand.... and how not to!
>
> Et vous?
> mike
-- Dale Cyphert, Ph.D. Business Communication Program Coordinator __________________________________________ College of Business Administration University of Northern Iowa 1227 W. 27th Street Cedar Falls, IA 50613 (319) 273-6150 dale.cyphert@uni.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 23 2000 - 09:20:33 PDT