Prospective Faculty
We welcome all prospective faculty and applicants, and appreciate your interest in exploring the uniqueness of the Department of Organizational Communication. We are very glad you are reading this page; of course, all of us have been prospective faculty at one point, and all have been curious about what the department dynamic is like, so this is for you to get a sense of who we are and why we like doing what we do in the Department of Organizational Communication.
Our Mission:
To develop student competence in the application and synthesis of those communication processes, theories and skills that enable individuals and groups to organize effectively in an increasingly complex and global society.
Our Program
Very broadly speaking, the Department of Organizational Communication assumes that an enhanced professional life is the primary application for the study of human communication processes. With that assumption, we join a handful of other communication programs and departments in the nation that have prioritized the site of organized work as in the most pressing need of our academic and consultative talent, and therefore explicitly feature that emphasis in their department or program title. Our unique departmental position within the College of Business and Public Affairs permits a refreshing and innovative interdisciplinary opportunity to enrich this focus.
We are not a conventional, generalized “communication
studies” department or program.
However, the range of topics covered, from public speaking to interpersonal
and team communication, organizational communication and
conflict resolution, are framed and taught as having application
to a broad array of organizational contexts, such as healthcare,
entertainment industry, non-profits and education.
We take seriously the study of human interaction and communication
processes in organized contexts. We don’t take it seriously just because "students want jobs" but because we recognize that balancing the dialectics that define the 21st century is only accomplished through strategic communication. At no other time in our disciplinary history has the nexus among communication, life and the collective accomplishment of goals through organized work been more acute – for both societal health and perhaps global economic sustainability. At no other time in disciplinary history has the study of human communication been more important for organizational development and organizational change. The threats and opportunities of globalization must be addressed through maximizing the individual's capacity to create the most viable systems of interdependence we call "organizations." The collective unity of any workplace, volunteer organization, community, or family hinges upon the mindful and strategic application of human communication. Therefore, we don't teach communication because it "feels good" or is "fun";
we teach it because the communicating/organizing process
defines who we are and these organized "contexts" are
the sites through which individuals improve the human condition.
Thus, while we are not a generalized program in communication,
we nevertheless appreciate and welcome the breadth of communication-based
perspectives that help
focus, complement and/or enhance our specific mission. In other words, if
you are a scholar of human communication who can devote
your arsenal of theoretical
and practical interests to making better organizations, you will find a warm
welcome here.
We take as absolutely foundational the dictum that organizations
are created and sustained through effective communication.
We take seriously the fact
that 4 of the top 5 most sought characteristics in college
graduates are communication
competencies, as well as the exponentially increasing professional and
practical research indicating that successful organizations
in the 21st century will
be those investing in human capital - cultivating the
abilities of all organizational
members for engaged interaction, responsible and responsive problem-solving,
prudent decision-making, wise leadership, and the collaborative construction
of meaningful and fulfilling workplaces. Thus, we have an obligation to
improve the human condition by improving the communication
competencies of every
student.
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Our Faculty
Faculty members in the Department of Organizational Communication are teachers of excellence, as well as researchers of national and international visibility, who have chosen to contribute a diverse set of communication inquiries to the development of a better life through better organizations. Please take
a look at some of our representative research, lines of inquiry and accomplishments.
We enjoy the many and varied opportunities we have
to bring specific research interests into the classroom,
and connect them to the myriad of emerging issues affecting
contemporary worklife. We take seriously our role as
researchers, scholars and teachers of communication
in the development of better organizations and organizational
members for the future. Please take a look at some
of the courses we’ve implemented in our graduate and undergraduate curricula.
We also enjoy our unique place in the College of Business
and Public Affairs – a more or less conventional B-school. The B-school professors in traditional management, marketing, accounting, economics areas have begun to talk about “communication is the lifeblood of any organization.” We like to watch their discomfort when we ask: “ Well then why is the chapter on communication always about Chapter 14 in management textbooks?” Our discussions are spirited, engaging and mutually valuable; we value our place here, and know that our place is valued as well.
Speaking of textbooks, and perhaps a viable indicator
of the collaborative skill of this faculty – junior and senior, tenure-track and instructor, adjunct and full-time – we
wrote and published our own public speaking textbook. It is used here for approximately
500 public speaking students per semester, as well as other schools in the area.
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Our Own Work and Life
While we take our mission seriously, we do so with an unusually amenable work-life balance. Murray, Kentucky has recently been named one of the Top 100 Communities for Families in the nation. . . . . Pella, one of the Fortune
50 Best Companies to Work For, is located here. Our award-winning primary and secondary schools are within a five minute drive from campus. Take a look at Murray, or Calloway County, KY and what it features, including some of the best housing prices and lowest crime rates in the country.
Some of us occasionally talk about what work and life
would be like in bigger city or at a bigger institution.
It doesn’t take us long to add up the advantages of
being here instead of somewhere else.
As colleagues, we are interested in and concerned
about each other, and we manage to make non-work departmental
events happy, celebrative
occasions. Yes, we like being here and doing what
we do.
Some of our newer courses:
- Organizational Learning and Dialogue
- Communicating with Customers
- Communication and Empowerment
- Communication in the Healthcare Environment
- Critical Organization Study
- Leadership Communication
- Communication and Organizational Democracy
- Interpersonal Communication at Work
- Team Communication and Leadership
- Organizational Communication Consulting
- Communication and Organizational Change
- Communication in Complex Systems
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Our Students
As you may already understand from our mission, program and faculty, we are interested in a better future comprised of better organizations, in turn comprised of more communicatively competent, socially responsible and critically aware members, managers and leaders. Those would be our students.
Our students are always a reflection of what we value.
- Ethical influence
- Communicative competence in public, team, and dyadic contexts
- Personal mastery – self-efficacy, creativity, critical thinking
- Diversity
- Connection and interdependence – a holistic understanding of persons and events
- Development of the whole person
- Learning in its generative sense: expanding the capacity to create the future we really want
- Innovative thinking
- Uncertainty and sensemaking
- Organization understood very broadly as a noun, and more broadly as a verb- organizing
- Substantive theoretical grounding in the discipline
Contact us today! |
