Touro Communication Club Notes #62
Tourocommunicationclub.blogspot.com
This Week!
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 –
Theatre Workshop III – Improvisation Technique
We continue to explore the basics of acting – breathing, sense memory, emotional recall as foundations for intensifying our notions of characterization. No doubt, this will be another frustrating hors d’oeuvre in the smorgasbord of valuable life skills of actor training.
BREAKING NEWS! (At least for us)
Richard Green received the following email on Wednesday:
To the Touro Communication Club,
My name is Adam Oldman and I am president of the Human Communication Organization at Shippensburg University in [south central] Pennsylvania. We are a new club trying to get off the ground and when I was searching for information online, your blog came up in my search results. You appear to be very well put together with a lot of great material and interest!
I was curious if you would be willing to help out a gro up of fellow communicators by sending me a copy of you club constitution? We’re working on framing one of our own to be recognized by the university, and I’m looking for a model of sorts. Also I’m looking for programming ideas, and your blog alone is full of great material!
I do not know if this email is still functional for you, but if you get this, I would appreciate anything you could send my way. Thank you again so much!
/s/ Adam Oldham
President, Human Communication Organization (HCO)
Shippensburg University
UPDATE: We passed around Adam’s email during our discussion last week about writing President Obama. Hal wrote him a long response on Friday, saying that we didn’t have a constitution but that we meet weekly to chew the Communication fat.
ALSO: If you are interested in statistics, go to the very end of the blog to a link for endless stats on our blog. As of this writing, we’ve had 191 total hits (or people who opened our blog). From the U.S. 178 hits; Pakistan 3, Germany 3, and one each from Colombia, Canada, South Africa, Philippines, Turkey, Slovenia, Israel and Vietnam. A map identifies the approximate location of the various hits worldwide.
ALSO: Only one person, Susan, has left a comment – positive – in the comment section on December 21, 2008.
Dear Communicators:
With Obama stimulus bill passing both the House and Senate this week and the president due to sign it on Monday, there certainly was a lot of communication issues to=2 0chew on. But I want to comment on another communication issue for which had two examples this week: “Changing Your Mind.”
Brett Favre changed his mind and retired for the 2nd time. Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) changed his mind and withdrew from the Secretary of the Interior position in President Obama’s cabinet.
I suppose it’s not very earth-shaking whether a sports figure retires or not and then changes his mind to play again. So many have done it before Favre. The fans may be disappointed; management may be inconvenienced and Favre’s wife may be saying, Amigo! He’s going to be around!”
But Gregg’s change of mind is another story. Obama has tried to include Republicans in his cabinet – two remain. In his news conference, Gregg explained that he not realized how deep the gulf was between the President’s agenda and his own principles. The Republican Senator’s explanation indicated he was somewhat caught up in the aura of the romance of being in a Presidential Cabinet and did not take off his rose colored glasses fast enough. Certainly there were other considerations: the potential loss of a Republican Senate seat and the announced move of the Census control to the White House from the Interior secretary’s list of responsibilities.
Those details are particular to the individual situation. The action of changing one’s mind is universal to all communication situations. We have all found ourselves in situations where we have had doubts about a decision and have “changed our mind.” We change our minds in all situations: personally: dropping a course, breaking off a relationship, getting a divorce; professionally: changing jobs, getting fired; and nationally: America went into Iraq, now we want to get out.
What’s the Communication Message? Mind-changing often indicates that the person doesn’t know what he/she is doing. Mind-changing creates anger and disillusionment in those around the person who suddenly behaves unexpectedly. Mind-changing conveys uncertainty of behavior leading to reduced trust. People avoid and/or don’t do business with people who change their minds.
If we are to understand Socrates’ dictum, “Know Thyself,” we notice that some people don’t know themselves. In the political arena, belief systems and/or tactical advantage are considerations of mind-changing.
Like so many topics that have a Communication component, mind-changing needs much more exploration. And then there’s the opposite: someone who never changes his/her mind. But that’s a horse of a different color.
UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
“Handling Conflict”
This topic came out of our lively conversation on Gender Communication. Conflict seems to be a frequent occurrence in everyone’s life. We’ll talk about when conflict occurs, how to mediate conflict and, most importantly, how to anticipate and prevent conflict. Obviously20some conflicts are unavoidable – and healthy, but we’ll try to focus on those that we can address productively.
Wednesday, March 4. 2009 –
“Writing President Obama II”
“Writing President Obama II”
Much will have transpired in Washington since our first discussion, reported below. More issues will surface, but the process of arriving at agreement remains the same. Since we are focusing on a real document that we will eventually send to the President, we are automatically engaged in the fundamental process of democracy – finding agreement amidst disagreement.
What happened on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 – “The Club Writes a Letter to President Obama”
Our group of regulars included Carlisle Yearwood, Richard Green, Egypt Allen, James Millner, Lorinda Moore, Meggy Lindsay, Drani Gabu, Anna Indelicato and Hal Wicke
Hal wrote on the board two goals of the discussion:
1) How are we going to organize the discussion?
2) What topics are we going to include in the letter?
It was quickly clear that the group wasn’t interested in deciding on any organizational plan, despite Hal’s futile attempts to channel the discussion. Each person seemed to have an issue which dominated his/her thinking. If one were to transcribed the session, the comments were disjointed, some responding to the previous statement, others introducing new topics.
Hal gave up and asked the group for a list of objectives of the letter to President Obama. After some discussion, we arrived at one objective;
To give the point of view of the students and faculty of the Touro Communication Club.
Hal tried to make it clear that we were not representing anyone other than the people in the room at the time of the discussion.
Then the discussion focused on developing other objectives. The group continued to disagree on the wording of the objective. Several ideas were floated regarding the impact of President Obama’s election on the country, but no one liked the wording.
Egypt was writing furiously during the discussion. She quoted Martin Luther King’s statement, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” She continued, “How will the [battling] you do with Congress place your initiatives front and center. What can we do as a collective populace to assist you in [making] a brighter tomorrow in addition to rebuilding the [character] of the U.S.A. …Planning is harder than constructing….As we re-address your campaign promises….”
The discussion ground to a halt and Hal switched to brainstorming the topics we would include in the letter
| Domestic policy | Foreign policy |
| Education K-12 | Torture |
| Taxes | Iran |
| Mortgage relief | Iraq – bring the soldiers home |
| Medical insurance | |
| Jobs | |
| Energy | |
| Immigration | |
| Drug enforcement | |
| VA funding | |
| Global warming | |
The group was visibly tired from the intense 90 minute exchange that this summary is not able to reflect adequately. We would continue drafting the Obama letter at a future date.
Hal closed with the Lorinda question – “What did you learn from today’s discussion?”
- “How to be tolerant.”
- “Communication is a process.”
- “Patience is NOT a virtue.”
- “My own ideas are incomplete unless changed by others.”
- “I had early reservations about this topic, but we had some potent discussions.”
- “Planning is harder than constructing.”
- “Learning to compromise.”
- “Compromise is a copout.”
Let’s not forget last week’s IDEA: Carlisle Yearwood suggested we develop a 3x4 index card with basic Touro information on it. We’ll talk more about this in the future.
As always, these sessions are open for everyone to attend. Bring a friend and join the excitement. See you next time.
Hal Wicke
Hal Wicke
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