Using the following books; Books Arnett, R. C., & Arneson, P. (1999). Dialogic civility in a cynical age: Community, hope, and interpersonal relationships. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Fritz, J. M. H. (2013). Professional civility: Communicative virtue at work. New York: Peter Lang. Fritz, J. M. H., & Omdahl, B. L. (Eds.) (2006). Problematic relationships in the workplace. New York: Peter Lang. Omdahl, B. L., & Fritz, J. M. H. (2012). Problematic relationships in the workplace: Volume 2. New York: Peter Lang. Answer the numbered weekly reading questions listed below.
Reading Questions: Week 2
Conceptualizing professional civility and incivility
Reading:
Fritz, Preface and Introduction
Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 11 (Arnett: Professional civility)
Arnett & Arneson, Ch. 1–2 (Introduction; Voices of cynicism and hope); Ch. 3 (Historicality and presence)
Omdahl & Fritz, Preface, Ch. 1 (Fritz: A review of concepts . . .), Ch. 5 (Davenport Sypher & Gill: The relative predictability. . . )
1. Based on Fritz: Introduction and Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 11 (Arnett: Professional civility):
Describe and explain the key elements or components of professional civility.
2. Drawing from all of these readings (Fritz, Fritz & Omdahl/Arnett, and Arnett & Arneson) and integrating them, answer this question: Why is professional civility needed in today’s historical moment? (Be sure to include these concepts in your answer: cynicism, limits, the historical moment, public and private spheres/realms—as well as any others you see fit to include.)
3. Arnett & Arneson give a number of examples in the first pages of Ch. 3 of situations in which persons, businesses, and/or instructors met or failed to meet the historical moment. Using their principles and examples as guidelines, generate another example from what you’ve read or experienced that illustrates meeting or failing to meet the historical moment. It can come from any time period or context from ancient times to personal, present experience. Employ as many concepts from this chapter as you can to analyze this example. For instance, what were the questions that emerged from the “historical moment” of your example?
Reading Questions: Week 3
Essentializing: Temptation and danger
Reading:
Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 1 & 2 (Duck, Foley, & Kirkpatrick: Uncovering the complex roles; Fritz: Typology of troublesome others)
Omdahl & Fritz, Ch. 9 & 10 (Millhous: Contemplating an upward spiral; Collins, Gill, & Mease: Explaining tensions in workplace relationships)
Chapter on incivility/civility (on Canvas): Highlight three to five concepts/themes/ideas that stood out for you in this chapter and any questions you might ask based on this material.
1. Integrate the notion of “limits” (see last week’s material) with what you read in Ch. 1 of Fritz & Omdahl (Duck, Foley, & Kirkpatrick: Uncovering the complex roles . . .). (Hint: think of organizational contexts and roles as limits.)
2. Bring Ch. 1 of Fritz & Omdahl (Duck, Foley, & Kirkpatrick) into conversation with Omdahl & Fritz, Ch. 9 (Millhous: Contemplating an upward spiral). What points of contact can you identify? How do these readings inform one another?
3. Now bring Ch. 10 of Omdahl & Fritz (Collins, Gill, & Mease: Explaining tensions in workplace relationships) into the conversation. Offer several points of contact for this chapter in relation to the other two and their “meeting.”
Reading Questions: Week 4
The loss of common sense and the search for a common center
Reading:
Fritz, Ch. 1 (Virtue ethics and the professions); Ch. 2 (The tradition of profession as practice)
Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 3 & 4 (Liu & Buzzanell: Workplace pregnancy; Sias: Workplace relationship deterioration)
Omdahl & Fritz, Ch. 7 (Fay: Out of sight, out of . . . the loop?), Ch. 8 (Arnett: The bureaucrat as problematic other)
Arnett & Arneson, Ch. 4 (Common ground; Interpersonal narrative)
Chapter on virtue ethics (on Canvas): Hhighlight three to five concepts/themes/ideas that stood out for you in this chapter and any questions you might ask based on this material.
1. Why is virtue ethics an appropriate/helpful approach for professional ethics? (See particularly Fritz Ch. 1, but you may also draw from the chapter on virtue ethics on Canvas if that material is useful.)
2. Offer a summary of the development of the idea of “profession”/”professional” as identified in Fritz, Ch. 2.
3. Considering the history of the professions and the idea of profession as “practice,” including the goods protected and promoted by the tradition of profession(s) as practice, how might the context of telecommuting be understood to fit (or not) within the larger narrative or story of the professions?
4. How do the Fritz & Omdahl readings and Omdahl & Fritz Ch. 8 (Arnett: The bureaucrat as problematic other) speak to the notion of a “common center” (or lack thereof) as articulated in the Arnett & Arneson chapter? Aim to locate three points of interconnection across the readings, devoting about a paragraph to each point of interconnection.
Reading Questions: Week 5
Hope and disappointment in organizational relationships
Reading:
Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 6 & 7 (Omdahl & Fritz: Stress, burnout . . . , Fritz & Omdahl: Reduced job satisfaction . . . )
Arnett & Arneson, Ch. 5 (Carl Rogers) & 6 (Maslow); review Ch. 2 (Voices of cynicism and hope)
Omdahl & Fritz, Ch. 3 & 4 (Keashly: Hostile work relationships; Kinney: Workplace bullying); Ch. 12 (Hess & Sneed: Communication strategies to restore working relations)
Chapter on communication ethics and bullying (on Canvas): Highlight three to five concepts/themes/ideas that stood out for you in this chapters and any questions you might ask based on this material. [NOTE: The bullying chapter has tracked changes in it based on the two editors’ comments; it’s clean in the book in which it appears!]
For this week’s second day, bring to class questions (unanswered) that you generate, as follows:
1. One question derived from each of the chapters for this week related to the content of the chapter AND
2. a question that involves connections across at least one assigned chapter in each book AND
3. one question that pulls all the readings together (and if you can, bring in the additional reading for this week).
For 1, you can ask questions similar to our questions of the past weeks that ask for identification or reflection related to the content of the given chapter, or you can ask an implication question or a question of clarification related to the content of the chapter.
In class, the class as a whole will sketch out answers to these questions.
Reading Questions: Week 6
Horizons of the public and private
Reading:
Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 5 (Hess, Omdahl, & Fritz: Turning points) & 10 (Hess: Distancing from problematic coworkers); review Ch. 11 (Arnett: Professional civility)
Arnett & Arneson, Ch. 7 (Buber)
Fritz, Ch. 9 (Protecting and promoting the good of persons)
Article: Work/life relationships and communication ethics: An exploratory examination (on Canvas): Highlight three to five concepts/themes/ideas that stood out for you in this chapter and any questions you might ask based on this material. How do the ideas in this article related to our readings thus far and this week?
1. How does “distancing” in relationships with disliked others (or in relationships that have deteriorated) (see the Hess reading in F&O) permit “attending to what emerges between persons” (A&A, p. 144; first full paragraph) (“the between”) in ways that are constructive and healthy for an organization (perhaps the notion of a “public” “between” through a change in focus of attention, for instance)? How might such distancing protect and promote persons and/in work relationships (as discussed in Fritz, Ch. 9)? To answer this question, work with ideas from the A&A chapter on Buber (you may include the ones I suggested here, if you like, in addition to others you locate), the Hess chapter, the Sias chapter in F&O that you’ve already read, Fritz Ch. 9, and material from Ch. 1-4 in A & A. Aim for a textured, integrative response.
2. How do turning points (both positive and negative) point to the various ideas in the A & A Buber chapter? Locate three points of connection and explain them. Hint: One good one might be “focus of attention.”
Reading Questions: Week 7
Experience, exclusion, inclusion, and participation
Reading:
Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 8 (Kramer & Tan: Emotion management in dealing with . . .) & 9 (Kinney: Should I stay or . . . )
Omdahl & Fritz, Ch. 2 (Omdahl: The role of emotion in problematic relationships in the workplace)
Arnett & Arneson, Ch. 8 & 9 (Gilligan and Freire)
Omdahl & Fritz, Ch. 6 (Sias: Exclusive or exclusory); Ch. 13 (Fritz: Protecting and promoting workplace relationships)
Chapter on communication ethics and bullying (on Canvas): Highlight three to five concepts/themes/ideas that stood out for you in this chapters and any questions you might ask based on this material. [NOTE: The bullying chapter has tracked changes in it based on the two editors’ comments; it’s clean in the book in which it appears!]
1. Select three of the major ideas/points that stand out most for you in each of the Arnett & Arneson chapters. Why do they stand out for you?
2. What would the Sias chapter (Exclusive or exclusory) look like through the lens of Arnett & Arneson’s treatment of Gilligan?
3. Consider the Omdahl chapter on the role of emotion in problematic relationships in the workplace. How would experiences of exclusion and ostracism (the Sias chapter) affect emotional experience, given what you can gather from the Fritz & Omdahl chapter on emotion (Kramer & Tan) and the Omdahl & Fritz chapter on emotion (Omdahl) ?
4. How might emotion management help protect and promote workplace relationships? (For this question, bring points from the Omdahl chapter into connection with Fritz: Protecting and promoting workplace relationships.)
5. Consider the Freire chapter from Arnett & Arneson and the Kinney chapter from Fritz & Omdahl. Each chapter addresses issues of power and participation. How might the concepts/themes of roles and limits (from any of the earlier material) be fruitfully employed to compare and contrast Freire’s understanding of participation with that of the participants in the Kinney study?
Reading Questions: Week 8
Ethical meaning in professional/public and personal/private life
Reading:
Arnett & Arneson, Ch. 10 & 11 (Bok & Frankl)
Fritz, Ch. 3 (The communicative virtue of civility), Ch. 4 (Professional civility), Ch. 6 (Protecting and promoting productivity)
Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 11 (Hammoud & Buzzanell: “The most vulnerable [and] most resilient people”)
Viktor Frankl is addressed in this chapter through a number of issues. Here are just a few points that emerge:
“ . . . the importance of meaning as necessary background to meet the foreground challenges of everyday existence” (p. 208) “Narratives that frame our background experience provide an interpretive screen for . . . meaning.” “. . . the meaning of experience . . . is guided by background” (p. 209)
“A narrative background permits one to move from technician to craftsman. The technician needs to follow a given set of rules. The craftsman, however, has a background of knowledge that permits [that person] to make necessary alterations in accordance with the demands of the job” (p. 212)
“. . . meaning is given birth by the attitude one takes into an action and event” (p. 212)
“. . . meaning is not always visible to us, although meaning is always present . . . for ‘meaning’ to make a difference in a life . . . a person must uncover the meaning—[the person] must listen” (p. 213)
. . . “it is not the routine, but the crisis, that calls us to uncover a sense of meaning for life . .” (p. 214). If one cannot cope with disruption of the routine, only stability can provide a foundation for happiness, and today’s world is not defined by stability. “.. . many people continue to look for meaning in stability, a sense of place; such meaning is not possible in a workplace that values rapid change. People seek security in the meaning of their routine, simply because other meaning structures are not visible” (p. 214).
“. . . a mentor takes every suffering and mistake as an opportunity to assist the other to grow. The mentor does not protect against suffering, but assists in understanding what the suffering means and how one might find increased insight and wisdom from its occurrence.” This task is to “reframe the meaning of suffering—to find meaning that goes undetected in everyday looking” (p. 219)
“Our final freedom is” the stance we take against the inevitable (p. 223), and choosing meaning is absolutely critical to a life: “the quality of life is not enhanced or lessened by the data of life, but by what” those data mean to us (p. 226). We need a “why” of meaning for the “how” of doing. That “why” often rests in a call or task that reaches beyond the self (p. 228).
1. Consider these quotes (and/or any others that you would locate or choose as a focus of attention). What connections might be made to the Fritz chapter on professional civility?
2. What points of contact may be located between this Frankl material and the Fritz chapter on productivity? How does productivity provide a sense of meaning within a “narrative background”?
3. How might Bok’s material on lying and secrecy apply to the communicative virtue of civility (Fritz, Ch. 3)?
4. Explain how the Hammoud and Buzzanell chapter serves as an illustration of the Frankl material.
5. Consider the Frankl material again. Think of some feature-length motion pictures you have seen. For me, Rudy, October Sky, and Lord of the Rings come to mind. Offer a mini-analysis that applies the Frankl material to what you can recall of a feature length film—or, if you prefer, a book/novel.
Reading Questions: Week 10
Care and covenant in ethical professional life
Reading:
Arnett & Arneson Ch. 12 & 13 (Noddings and Bellah)
Fritz, Ch. 7 (Protecting and promoting the good of place); Ch. 9 (Conclusion: Protecting and promoting professions)
Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 12 (Metts, Cupach, & Lippert: Forgiveness in the workplace)
Omdahl & Fritz, Ch. 14 (Waldron & Kloeber: Communicating forgiveness in work relationships)
Chapter: Honesty as ethical communicative practice (on Canvas): Highlight three to five concepts/themes/ideas that stood out for you in this chapter and any questions you might ask based on this material.
1. Bring the work of Noddings (Arnett & Arneson, Ch. 12) into conversation with Fritz, Ch. 7 (Protecting and promoting the good of place).
2. The work of Bellah et al. is grounded in the work of Alasdair MacIntyre’s work After Virtue (p. 265-265, A & A). On p. 265, we see a discussion of MacIntyre’s three character types: Rich Aesthete, Manager, and Therapist. The quote from MacIntyre gives the general sense of what a character is (p. 265). Working with this minimalist description of a “character” as described/highlighted by MacIntyre in that quote, come up with one or more additional “characters” that you can make an argument for today, more than 20 years later.
3. Compare and contrast the Metts, Cupach, & Lippert material on forgiveness with the Waldron & Kloeber chapter.
4. Consider the conclusion of the Fritz book. Consider these questions: How is the situation of the professions in this historical moment similar to a broken covenant in the terms of the Arnett & Arneson chapter on Bellah? What do the professions “owe” society and vice versa? Bring this chapter into conversation with the Arnett and Arneson Bellah chapter. Find as many points of connection as you can–consider whether it is possible for the professions to become responsible stewards of their resources/positions/gifts in relation to the larger communities of which they are a part.
Reading Question: Week 11
Moving toward professional and organizational health
Moving toward professional and organizational health
Reading:
Fritz, Ch. 5 (A pragmatic case)
Fritz & Omdahl, Ch. 13 (Omdahl: Towards effective work relationships)
Omdahl & Fritz, Ch. 15 (Omdahl: Resilience, civility, positive communication, and forgiveness in the academy)
Arnett & Arneson, Ch. 14 (The interpersonal praxis of dialogic civility); review Ch. 10 (The community of dialogue)
Chapter on organization as Other (on Canvas): Highlight three to five concepts/themes/ideas that stood out for you in this chapter and connections to our readings thus far.
Offer one integrative question that ties this week’s readings together, addressing at least two other “segments” of material from previous readings as well. Answer that question.
