QEP Proposal: Culture, Communication, and Context: Preparing students to communicate effectively in a diverse world
October 2005
Aim: To enhance students' communication competence while simultaneously developing students' understanding of and ability to interact effectively with individuals with a wide range of perspectives on the world.
Background: Leadership in the 21st century requires a broad
understanding of our world, both within the boundaries of the
Communication scholars Myron
Lustig and Jolene Koester point out that such intercultural competence doesn't
happen by accident:
It occurs as a result of the
knowledge and perceptions that people have about one another, their motivations
to engage in meaningful interactions, and their ability to communicate in ways
that are regarded as appropriate and effective. To be interculturally
competent, therefore, one must have sufficient knowledge of the cultures,
contexts, relationships, goals, objectives, and messages that are used;
suitable motivations to engage in intercultural experiences; and the skills to
enact behaviors that are appropriate and effective. (AmongUS: Essays on Identity, Belonging, and Intercultural
Competence,
Data from surveys indicate that
our students have limited exposure to individuals whose backgrounds and beliefs
are unlike their own. The College needs to seek ways to expand their
understanding of different cultures if our graduates are to continue the
centuries-old tradition of assuming leadership positions beyond the gates of
the campus. This plan addresses integrating programs into a community where
some members are uncomfortable with difference and have come to the College to
seek a homogeneous environment.
The Hampden-Sydney College Long Range Plan states: "An excellent education includes a diversity of experiences and perspectives throughout and beyond the curriculum. Broadening our community will allow our students the opportunity to learn, to live, and to interact with diverse groups both within and without the classroom." The proposed "Culture, Communication, and Context" plan seeks to address this goal by increasing student contact with individuals and communities, both within the gates of the college and in the community at large, with whom they may be unfamiliar. At the same time, this plan presents ways to make sure that the College prepares the students through instruction and practice to communicate effectively with diverse audiences. As students work to develop their writing and speaking skills at the College, they need to be encouraged to consider the audiences they are addressing. With a wider variety of individuals on campus and more opportunities to interact with others outside the College gates, students will have more reason to be aware of the issue of audience; instruction and practice in classes will prepare them to be effective leaders when they graduate.
This proposal has other
benefits, including the general benefit of giving more of our students practice
and feedback in developing oral communication skills for particular contexts –
such contexts include interpersonal and public communication situations with
audience members whose perspectives differ from their own. Furthermore,
research shows that student learning in specific academic fields improves when
students are asked to address that information in various sorts of oral
communication activities, including individual and panel oral presentations,
student-led discussions, task groups, guided whole-class discussion,
interviewing, and interpersonal communication. Furthermore, businesses and
graduate schools report that they place a high value on applicants’
communication skills, both written and
oral; this proposal aims to help students develop their oral rhetoric skills to
the level of their writing skills.
Part 1.
Focus of the Plan
1) Has the institution provided a clear and concise description of the critical issues(s) to be addressed?
The core issue is the gap that exists between our goal of creating students who are prepared to be leaders in a world culture and the lack of opportunities (and desire for those opportunities) that exist for our students to communicate effectively with people whose backgrounds are different from their own. At issue are two related questions: How does culture influence communication? How does communication influence culture? We believe that there are several important reasons for people to study other cultures and the relationship between culture and communication. Several imperatives for such study, according to Communication scholars Judith N. Martin and Thomas K. Nakayama, include
a. The technological imperative, an examination of the effects of technology and increased human mobility on communication strategies.
b. The demographic imperative, including an
understanding of the
c. The economic imperative, an important concern in the global economy our students will enter after graduation
d. The peace imperative, concerned with
appropriate communication strategies for understanding cultural conflicts
world-wide and within communities in the
e. The ethical imperative, concerned with
the role of communication across cultures that vary in such dimensions as power
distance, collectivism vs. individualism,
sex roles, and long-term vs. short-term orientation. (Martin,
Judith N. and Thomas K. Nakayama. Intercultural Communication in Contexts.
2) Has the institution described the
relationship between the focus of the plan and student learning?
Yes, in two related areas: First, the plan seeks to create a learning environment that expands the type and frequency of meaningful opportunities for students to interact with differing cultures by offering educational opportunities that emphasize contact and immersion experiences with those of other cultures.
Second, research shows that students who are required to write and speak about issues learn that information in more depth, understand the context for those issues, and retain better what they have learned than they do if they are presented with that same information in classroom lectures. Students who are appropriately instructed about preparing those writing and speaking assignments, and who receive effective feedback not only complete those assignments effectively but also improve their speaking and writing skills so they are more likely to be successful with such assignments in the future, both in the classroom and in the “real world.”
Finally, this plan enhances the general educational goals of the College and provides support for existing goals and needs within departments and programs. For example, the goals of this plan address, among others, the curricular goals of the College (" to express ideas and solutions effectively in writing and speaking"); the goals of the Wilson Center for Leadership in the Public Interest ("to prepare students, alumni, and the people of Southside Virginia to be informed citizens and effective leaders"); the Military Leadership/National Security Studies Certificate (as Dr. David Marion notes,"the aim of the interdisciplinary program is to prepare students to think about military action and national security policy in the context of constitutional principles,inter- and intra-governmental relationships, social and cultural constraints, and competing views of ethical human behavior"); the Certificate in International Studies, and numerous disciplines whose goals call for an understanding and appreciation of diversity as well as competence in oral communication.
3) Has the institution provided relevant
and appropriate goals and objectives to improve student learning?
Goal:To both enhance students' communication competence while
simultaneously developing students' understanding of and ability to interact with
individuals with a wide range of perspectives on the world.
Objective One: Enhance students' intercultural communication skills, including interpersonal and public communication, with diverse populations in the United States and abroad by adding an faculty member with expertise in Intercultural Communication and by refocusing student oral and written assignments so that they develop their awareness of the importance of audience. Provide faculty development in communication across the curriculum to enhance the teaching of oral communication within various disciplines, thus bringing parity to the written and oral components of the Rhetoric Program.
As noted above, intercultural communication competence requires sufficient
knowledge of the cultures, contexts, relationships, goals, objectives, and
messages of the individual or audience to whom one writes or speaks and suitable motivation to engage in
experiences with persons unlike oneself. Many of these competencies are addressed
in our extant courses including Rhetoric 100, 101, 102, 210 and 310, as our
students learn how to formulate arguments, support those arguments with
reasoning and evidence, and deliver them to their target audience with language
that is inclusive and neutral. Additional sections of these courses (especially
Rhetoric 210 and 310) are needed to accomplish this goal; hiring a faculty
member in Rhetoric whose specialty is Intercultural Communication would allow
us to offer more sections of the existing courses and to give professional
advice and guidance to faculty members across the curriculum so that we work
together to help students develop strategies for speaking and writing to
diverse audiences.
We
also need to provide students with other experiences focused on communicating
across world cultures (as opposed to subcultures in the United States) in order
to accomplish this objective. Communication contexts and rhetorical situations
vary widely across cultures, of course, in areas such as goals for writing and
reading, speaking and listening, audience standpoint on issues, non-verbal
communication, appropriate language use, cultural norms, preferred modes of
organization and delivery, ethical concerns, and the nature of the speaking/writing
occasion. All Rhetoric courses would emphasize issues related to audience (even
beyond what they currently do); similarly, courses across the curriculum could
adjust assignments as appropriate to the discipline in order to help achieve
this goal.
An
additional faculty member, a person with expertise in intercultural
communication, could also provide workshops and one-to-one assistance for
faculty members who wish to incorporate oral communication activities in their
courses. It is not enough, we believe, for faculty members to simply assign an
oral presentation to their students without teaching students how to
successfully complete the assignment. Each discipline has particular
expectations for oral communication competency, competencies which are best developed
within specific courses in the discipline. Similarly, each discipline has its
own expectations for written expression as well; a written critique of a work
of art differs in many respects from a lab report or an historical analysis of
a particular event.
Objective Two: Provide students with greater opportunities for Study Abroad
Study abroad is an excellent way for students to be exposed directly to other cultures and ideas. The study abroad experience takes advantage of the type of learning that comes from immersion in another culture. These experiences need to be made available to students regardless of economic status. A poll of departmental needs yielded requests from both the Classics and Honors departments for travel opportunities that would enable students to interact academically outside the classroom and for enhanced funding to support these opportunities. The new intercultural communication faculty member could work with students planning to study abroad to familiarize them with various communication strategies that will enable them to be more adept at negotiating the challenges that come from immersion in a different culture.
Objective Three: Sponsor Amity
scholars to be part of the HSC community
"Amity scholars are native
speakers, between the ages of 20-30, who volunteer to work in the
Objective Four: Develop a “Visiting Writers in Residence” program
and bring to campus for periods of time up to a semester in length
international and minority writers and scholars in a variety of fields who can
present programs and meet with students informally
Short and long residencies by accomplished writers in the humanities, social
sciences, and natural sciences and mathematics would give students the
opportunity to interact with a diverse group of professionals and would also bring
persons to campus people who could enrich the offerings of most departments.
Candidates for this program would include novelists, speech writers, technical
writers, journalists, corporate executives, doctors, biographers, and
non-fiction writers; these writers/scholars should, however, represent
backgrounds and perspectives on the world that are not already familiar to the
majority of our students. Students will benefit by seeing how speaking and
writing apply to real-life situations and learn the benefits of being able to
communicate well with diverse audiences.
Objective Five: Provide students with a variety of school-supported
opportunities for interacting with differing cultures and communities outside
the college gates.
Fewer of our students indicate that they plan to participate in practicums, field experiences, or internships than do students from other liberal art colleges. We need to make a wider range of experiences available to our students and, when necessary, fund these experiences for students who do not have the financial resources to take advance of them. These experiences should go beyond attending lectures or events and focus on active involvement that either links classroom learning with experiences in the community or simply provides service (without an academic component) to the community.
Public service internships and
classes with a service-learning component offer students the opportunity to
link academic learning with practical experiences in the real world, often with
cultures unlike their own. the opportunity to participate with cultures unlike
their own. Examples of projects that have successfully accomplished this goal
are the student research project that Professor Vitale is leading at the
Piedmont Regional Jail and the Communicating Common Ground (CCG) projects that
brought Professor Deal’s oral rhetoric class into the classrooms of the local
elementary school to discuss the rhetorical and social constructions of
difference. Professor Fox and Professor Deal also completed a CCG project at
Piedmont Regional Jail that allowed students in a course on Social Documentary
to experience firsthand the role, practices, and ethical concerns of the
documentarian – something they had studied in the classroom. Communicating
Common Ground projects occur simultaneously across the
Service-oriented classes and/or projects could also involve courses in disciplines across campus, including the sciences with projects that focus on environmental testing and evaluation; the fine arts with projects that use the arts as a means to foster understanding among diverse cultures; modern language courses with projects that would link HSC students with non-native English speakers in Prince Edward county; literature courses with community service-learning projects focusing on authors from minority groups; history and political science courses with projects examining Prince Edward County's involvment in Brown vs. Board of Education, etc.
The College’s long range plan also supports service activities that are not related to the classroom, but are rather co-curricular:
We will support programs and other initiatives so that our students will learn that the capacity to live a moral life and to provide leadership and service are among the most important outcomes of higher education. . . . Pedagogy extends beyond the classroom to active engagement in
co- curricular student life. Promoting a sense of community within our rural academic village is essential if we are to succeed in our academic mission…The College expects and supports student, faculty, and staff participation in major service activities and will promote involvement in service activities beyond the gates of the campus.
4) Has the institution provided a
comprehensive and clear analysis of the crucial importance of the Plan for improving
the learning environment?
Yes, we believe that the College's
mission statement, Rhetoric Program Goals, Long-range Plan, and various
departmental and program goals all speak to the importance of this proposal's
goal. For example, as noted above, the
Hampden-Sydney College Long Range Plan that states: "An excellent
education includes a diversity of experiences and perspectives throughout and
beyond the curriculum. Broadening our community will allow our students the
opportunity to learn, to live, and to interact with diverse groups both within
and without the classroom." Additionally, the Hampden Sydney College
Intercultural Affairs Committee states: "It also reasons that to be a
viable citizen of the world and to function as good men and good citizens, one
must be exposed to diverse populations both inside and outside of the
classroom." Finally, the curricular goals of the College state that
students will learn "to express ideas and solutions effectively in writing
and speaking."
5) Has the institution identified the benefits to be derived from the QEP?
Please see questions 1-4 above.
Part 2.
Institutional Capability for the Initiation and Continuation of the Plan
1. Has the institution provided a time
line for implementing and completing the QEP?
2006-2007 Planning! (Hiring faculty members and minority graduates for recruitment, making arrangements for Amity Scholars)
2007-2008 Intercultural Communication faculty member on board
English as a Second Language faculty member on board
Minority recruiters on board
2 Amity Scholars on campus
Ongoing: faculty development workshops, study abroad, minority recruitment
2008-2009 Organize Symposia on Intercultural Communication and Study Abroad
2 Amity Scholars on campus
Ongoing: faculty development workshops, study abroad, minority recruitment
2009-2010 Organize Faculty Symposium on Service-Learning
2 Amity Scholars on campus
Ongoing: faculty development workshops, study abroad, minority recruitment
2010-2011 Implement Service-Learning components across campus
2 Amity Scholars on campus
Ongoing: faculty development workshops, study aboad, minority recruitment
Please note: Expanding student understanding of different cultures will not happen immediately. We are describing an organic process and not one that can be required of any student. It is our expectation that a student who spends four years on a campus with significantly increased opportunities for interaction with differing cultures will have exposure and interactions on a more frequent basis than they currently experience.
2. Has the institution assigned qualified individuals to administer and oversee its improvement?
The Chair of the Modern Language Program, the International Studies Coordinator, the Director of Intercultural Affairs, the Director of the Rhetoric Program, and professors teaching in the focus areas (oral rhetoric, English as a Second Language, Modern Language) would work together to formulate a plan to accomplish these goals.
Systems are already in place to administer the visits of the Amity scholars. The school already offers courses with projects that are part of the Communicating Common Ground Program. The Academic Dean and interested faculty members could oversee expanded opportunities for service learning. The Assistant Dean of Students could organize community service projects and the Dean of Admissions would seek to expand minority recruitment.
3. Has the institution provided evidence of sufficient financial and physical resources to implement, sustain, and complete the QEP?
The Dean of the Faculty will arrange for the office space necessary to accommodate the new oral rhetoric faculty member and the 2 Amity Scholars per year. It may be that if a Modern Language House or houses are established, the Amity Scholars would live and possibly have office space therein.
Please see atttached budget in Appendix A for an overview of projected expenses for the Plan.
4. Has the institution identified
relevant internal and external measures to evaluate the Plan?
Oral Rhetoric: Internally, we need to assess how often faculty members assign oral communication activities in courses as well as the instruction/assessment they provide to their students about how to accomplish the goals of the assignment. We then need to begin the process of developing a 6-point scale (or multiple 6-point scales) to help the faculty assess students’ speaking assignments. In constructing such a grading rubric (or rubrics) we can draw on rubrics already in place at other institutions. Eventually, this branch of the Rhetoric Program would be evaluated when the program as a whole comes up for its regular external evaluation; in the meantime, the Rhetoric staff, the Assessment Committee, and the Dean of the Faculty would be charged with assessing any progress we make with enhancing our oral rhetoric program.
Cultural Awareness: Internally, we will continue to use Focus Groups of the Intercultural Affairs Committee to monitor this program. Assessment procedures for Service-Learning are widely available and are already employed on campus, so we will build on what we do already. Externally, we will use data from NSSE to monitor our student’s interaction with those whose religious beliefs, political opinions, economic, social, racial, or ethnic backgrounds or personal values vary from their own.
5. Has the institution identified an internal system for evaluating the QEP and monitoring its progress?
No, we have not, but could assign this chore to the Assessment Committee along with help from the Dean’s Office and Institutional Research. With our timeline in place, assessing our progress should be relatively straightforward, at least in terms of meeting those goals.
6. Has the institution described how
the results of the evaluation of the QEP will
be used to improve student learning?
If successful, the programs
outlined in the QEP will lead to our students having a greater awareness of, appreciation for, and ability to
effectively communicate with people from
diverse cultures within the
Part 3.
Broad Based Involvement of the Community
1. Has the institution described the
methods used for the development of the QEP?
Please see the Dean of the Faculty's explanation on the HSC website for information.
2. Has the institution demonstrated
that all aspects of its community—faculty, staff, students, board members, and
administrators—were involved in the development of the QEP?
We believe that we have sufficient faculty members on the planning committee, and have opened the discussion to all faculty members during a regular faculty meeting and at a called Committee of the Whole meeting. We currently have three administrators on the committee. We will have trustee participation when we present this topic to the board at several Board of Trustee meetings. Additionally, we will seek input from the student members of the Student Affairs Committee and other student leaders.This proposal is based on our feeling that there was mixed support for the original proposals presented by the QEPC. Feeling that the most support addressed the original #2 and #3 plans, we offer this hybrid proposal which we hope combines the strengths of those plans into one workable plan.
Conclusions
We have argued that more experiences for our students with people whose demographics and perspectives differ from their own will enhance the educational experience of our students and better prepare them to be leaders in our diverse world, both at home and abroad. We have also argued that well-developed communication skills are essential for effective leadership and that audience-awareness and a range of strategies for appealing to a range of different audiences is essential to effective communication. This “hybrid” proposal focuses our college community on these issues and identifies a number of ways that we can achieve these educational goals.
This proposal does require significant amounts of funding; however, if it is approved, the potential educational pay-off for students would be truly significant: students would gain in their ability to interact effectively with diverse individuals in order to become leaders in the modern world. This proposal is doable in five years and also would truly work to improve student learning at the College.
Appendix A : Costs Associated With This Proposal:
1. Intercultural Communication Tenure-Track Faculty Member (Ongoing cost)
Salary $45,000
Basic benefits $11,500
Moving expenses $ 1,500
Travel allowance $ 1,000
Library allowance $ 5,000
Total $64,
000
2. English as a Second Language Faculty Member (Ongoing cost)
Salary $38,000
Basic benefits $ 9,500
Moving expenses $ 1,500
Travel allowance $ 1,000
Library allowance $ 5,000
Total $55,000
3. 2 searches (One-time cost):
Total $
4,000
4. Amity Scholars, per scholar (Ongoing cost)
Salary $ 3,500 per year
Room and Board $12,000 per year
Total $
15,500 for one scholar ($31,000 for two per year)
5. Symposia (One-time cost)
Intercultural Communication $10,000
Service-Learning $10,000
Study Abroad $10,000
Total $30,000
6. Faculty Development Workshops in Oral Rhetoric (Ongoing costs)
Two six-hour-long faculty workshops, each with 15 participants
Stipends, @ $75.00 per participant $2,250
Food ($12 per person) $ 510
Materials (videos, photocopies) $ 500
Total $3,260
7.
“Visiting Writers in Residence
Program”
[Will need an endowment?]
We have not included funding for Internships, Study Abroad costs for students, and Service-Learning initiatives as our long range plan states that "[b]y 2008, the College will have an endowment of at least $2 million to underwrite the expenses for students to engage in internships related to their studies, and another endowment of at least $2 million to underwrite study abroad and other educational experiences beyond the campus that widen their perspectives."