This material resides on an Indiana State University server and is maintained by Will Barratt.
Please forward any problems and comments to him.
Higher education continues to struggle to achieve a sense of community. Rue (Personal communication, March 30, 1987) captured the importance of community when she quoted from Woodrow Wilson's Phi Beta Kappa address given at Harvard in 1909:
''. . . that we now deliberately set ourselves to make a home for the spirit of learning: that we recognize our college as not only a body of studies but a mode of association . . . It must become a community of scholars and pupils . . . a free community but a very real one in which democracy may work its reasonable triumphs of accommodation, its vital process of union. . ."
Rue concludes:
"Most current members of the academic realm continue to yearn for such a community spirit yet are disillusioned when they find today's campuses characterized more by isolation and alienation than by a sense of community"Campus personnel have all shared in this yearning and disillusionment .
What is Community?
Howe (1964) a community psychiatrist states:
''. . . like patients, communities need to be rather thoroughly understood if constructive change in their ways of functioning are to be systematically brought about." (pp. 17)
Howe goes on to suggest ways to look at the concept of community.
Communities can be seen as territorial entities with certain geographical
limitations often defined by law, or a community may be viewed as a functional
entity where the community is based on the functions performed. A local campus
community may be both geographical and functional. However she suggests
community is more than this!
A community may be seen from a point of view of ''mutual interdependence." Community is a system that has interdependent components which function together to maintain itself, to grow, to divide tasks of labor, to set and protect boundaries and to perform other systemic tasks. Howe suggests the concept of "common destiny" to capture this sense of community. She states:
''Destiny is a word that seems well suited for use in a definition of community, for it combines connotations of a fate that befalls all people. . .with connotations of a direction in which they are moving, a destination they seek.''
Hahn goes on:
"In so far, then, as people share a sense of common destiny, to that degree they constitute a community. And, in so far as this sense is lacking, to this extent the concept of community would be held not to apply."
Rue (Personal communication, March, 1987) captures the element of
destiny when she suggests that community consists of an affective dimension, a
sense of relatedness and belonging; a functional dimension relating to the shared
purpose of the community; a structural dimension which relates to the internal
workings; and a normative dimension which shapes the life of the community
through its culture.
Development of Community
If community is a sense of unity, a sense of belonging, a sense of common
destiny, can it be intentionally developed? The activities that attempt to do so are
referred to under the concept of community development. Again, many
definitions exist, but most have the common themes of sharing methods to reach
shared goals. But can a sense of community be deliberately designed?
Frequently, the national evening news highlights a community which has been hit by a natural disaster, for example, an earthquake or flood. What typically follows this type of natural disaster is termed a "therapeutic community", "social utopia" or a "post-disaster utopia" (Cuthbertson and Nigg, 1987). This after disaster community is described by the foregoing authors:
". . .community provides the victims of natural disasters with important demonstrations of physical and emotional support and creates within the stricken community an ambience of solidarity and unity of purpose essential for beginning the process of disaster recovery. Feelings of loneliness are replaced with camaraderie; feelings of despair over losses are shared and supplanted with communal hope for a return to normalcy."
Can we mobilize a ''utopian" community feeling on campus? Could other types of disasters or "hard times'' foster similar feelings? What about legislative attacks on the institution? What about budget short falls and other financial disasters that hit the campus? The environmental literature suggests not to count on ''non-natural" disasters to create this utopian sense of community. Again Cuthbertson and Nigg (1987) look at the community processes after crises that were man made, one created by asbestos and another by a pesticide situation. They summarized:
"The emotional climate that emerged was one of anger, frustration. resentment, bitterness, and anxiety. Feelings of helplessness and inability to control the environment developed within victims.... creating a resistance to aiding or supporting the members of other victim groups. Defensive communications proliferated polarizing the groups and deepening community conflict."
The above scenario has similarities to what happens on campus after a
budget failure at the legislature. Administrators are blamed for the event due their
lack of competency. Administrators blame faculty for their failure to project the
best image. And students scream why should they have to make up the short fall
in increased tuition and fees. From the research as well as common experience,
community building based on man-made campus disasters hold little promise.
Macro and Micro Designs
Can we build toward community? Two approaches can serve as
illustrations. One is at the macro level where the attempt is to impact a large
segment of the community. The other is at the micro level where community is
sought in small groups.
The macro level includes events like athletics, homecomings, and special
campus-wide activities. It is often difficult to build lasting community on these
events, since they in fact may be built on less than desirable values (corruption,
sexism, racism, and alcohol abuse). These events seldom have social redeeming
value and rarely any educational value. An alternative macro level approach was
used at Colorado State tJniversity through the implementation of "theme''
programming.
In brief, "theme" programming attempts to bring the entire campus
community together around a programming theme. A community group chooses
the theme and then all programming units and academic departments are
encouraged to program toward the theme. Several themes were used, hut the most
comprehensive theme was "the future.'' All student affairs programming units plus
about 70% of the colleges provided a program on the theme of "the future'' during
the period of a semester. For example, the College of Agriculture directed their
annual Symposium to the topic of ''the future of agriculture and the world hunger
problem." At the same time student affairs programs, speaker series. films, ctc.,
were being focused on other topics relating to the future.
A ''Ropes course'' provides an example of community development at the
micro level. Ropes courses consist of a series of designed elements both high and
low (off the ground) installed between trees or telephone poles using ropes and
cables. Participants go through the elements with the guidance of certified
instructors. The instructors not only provide safety, hut help to facilitate an
educational experience designed to build a sense of community through group
problem solving and interpersonal communications. The course builds trust,
confidence and commitment .
Colorado State University reports during the first year of operating their
ropes course nearly 50 student groups, 26 faculty/administrative groups and 40
outside community groups participated in the experience. Nearly 1,250 persons
engaged in this opportunity. Perhaps not only small communities will be built by
this method, but these small communities can join together out of the common
experience of havig made it through the "ropes''.
Role of Participation
Other illustrations are certainly possible, but to deliberately build
community ethically means that all who are going to be impacted by the
community should participate in the design for community. It is through
participation that we find "common destiny''.
REFERENCES:
Rue, P. (1987). Personal Communication..
Cuthbertson, B. & Nigg, J. (1987). Technological disaster and the nontherapeutic community. Environment and behavior, 19(4), 444-462.
Howe, L (1964). The concept of community. In Leopold Bellak, (Ed.). Handhook of community psychiatry and community mental health, pp 16- 46. Ncw York: Grune & Stratton.
The readers of this newsletter actively use terms like "campus ecology"
and "environment" to describe the conditions and situations in which members of
the university community find themselves. However, we are rarely precise when
we use these terms. We rarely ask the question "What exactly do we mean when
we use this term?". Like "student development," 'environment' is a term in danger
of being used to describe everything.
In an effort to describe with more precision what is meant by
"environment" the following model of people in context was developed. It lists
the component elements of a situation, setting or environment, and emphasizes
the interactions between these elements (row and column headings) of a setting
and the interactions (squares within the figure) within a setting. Describing the
elements provides a static description of what is "out there." Adding the
interaction component provides a dynamic and multidimensional view of the
situation.
ELEMENTS WITHIN AN ENVIRONMENT AND
THE INTERACTION BETWEEN THOSE ELEMENTS
(Copyright Will Barratt 1983, 1988)
The Environmental Matrix
| People | Organizational Structures |
Things | Outside Influences | |
| People | PxP | |||
| Organizational Structures |
OSxP | OSxOS | ||
| Things | TxP | TxOS | TxT | |
| Outside Influences |
OIxP | OIxOS | OSxT | OSxOI |
Using this model, Lewin's interactionist expression B = f(PxE) can be
recast as B = f(Px[P,OS,T,OI]), and we get the additional benefit of focusing on
the definite elements within the environment. For practical applications, this
model leads us in an organized way to look at people within a specific context.
As an example, consider a case of excessive damage in a specific
residence hall. To deal with the problem using this model, we would not
concentrate solely on the people causing the damage. While it may be the case
that all the campus' sociopaths are in one hall, it is more likely that the cause
involves the residents' interactions with the environmental elements within the
hall. We would naturally want to learn something about the people in the hall, but
also we should concentrate on the organizational structures (rules and
regulations), things (furnishings, building layout, lighting, building placement on
campus, etc.) and outside influences (social concerns, the state of the economy,
time of the semester, etc.). Further, we need to look at patterns of interaction
between people, between people and the rules, between people and the physical
setting, and between people and socio / economic / academic conditions .
The beauty of the ecological perspective is that it widens our horizons and
our scope of action. If one were to use only a personalistic approach to residence
hall damage, the focus would be on adjusting people to a system that induces
acting-out behavior. Using the ecological perspective, we can identify the
influences (environmental elements and interactions) that promote such behavior
and eliminate them.
Answering the specific questions raised in the first paragraph, by
environment we can mean any of the following: The characteristics of the people,
of the university organization, of the physical setting, of the socio /political
/academic setting, of the interpersonal interactions, of the interactions between
people and the physical campus, or of the interactions between the people and the
socio/political/academic setting. Further, we may want to refer to the
characteristics of the relationships between the university organization and the
physical setting or one of the other interactions suggested by the model.
It is axiomatic that we tend to find answers to the questions that we ask. If
we ask personalistically oriented questions, we get personalistically oriented
answers. If we ask environmentally oriented questions, we get environmentally
oriented answers. However, if we are ambiguous in forming our questions, not
specifying what we mean by environment, or what we mean by student
development, then we get ambiguous answers. This model is proposed in order to
remove some of the ambiguity in asking environmentally oriented questions.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Dr Will Barratt teaches in the Department of Counseling and College Student Personnel at Indiana State University, Terre Haute, lN.
Quotes on Ecology
"Confusion between leadership and authority has a deadly effect on large
organizations. All over the country, in corporations and government agencies,
there are millions of executives who imagine that their place in the organization
chart has given them a body of followers And of course it hasn't. It has given
them subordinates. Whether the subordinates become followers depends on
whether the executives act like leaders.
All that we know about the interaction between leaders and constituent or
followers tells us that communication and influence flow in both directions . .
leaders shape and are shaped . Machiavelli, the ultimate realist, advised the
prince, 'You will always need favor of the inhabitants'... " (Pages 5-6)
From: Gardner, J (1988) Leadership: An overview. Washington, DC: Independent Sector.
Banning, J ( 1979). Consultation for environmental change: An administrator's
view. In Hamilton, K., & Meade, C. (Eds) Consulting on campus. New directions
for Student Services Series, No. 5. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Block, P. (1981) Flawless consulting San Diego: University Associates, Inc
Caplan, G. (1964). Principles of preventive psychiatry. New York: Basic Books.
Cooley, W. (1983). Improving the performance of an educational system.
Educational Researcher, 2, 4-12.
Cowen, E (1985) Two little magic words. Professional Psychology: Research and
Practice, 16, 181-190.
Egan, G. (1985). Change agent skills in helping and human service settings.
Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
Gallessich, J. (1980). Consultation. In Delworth, U.,& Hanson, G. (Eds). (1980). Student Services: A handbook for the profession. San Francisco: JosseyBass.
Gallessich, June (1986). The profession and practice of consultation. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Gilliland, B., & James, R. (1988). Crisis intervention strategies. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
Kadushin, A (1977). Consultation in social work. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Kirby, J. (1985). Consultation: Practice and practitioner. Muncie, IN: Accelerated
Development, Inc.
Kratochwill, T. & Fran Someren, K. (1985) Barriers to treatment success in
behavioral consultation: Current limitations and future directions. J. of School
Psychology, 23, 225-239.
Lippitt, G., & I.ippitt, R. (1978). The consulting process in action. La Jolla, CA: University Assoc. Inc.
Merrill, W., Oetting. E., & Hurst, J. (1974). Dimensions of counselor functioning. Personnel and Guidance Journal, 52, 354-359.
Morrill, W. (1980). Program development. In Delworth, U.., & Hanson, G. (Eds).
(1980). Student Services: A handbook for the profession. San Francisco: Jossey
Bass.
O'Conner, A., & Lubin, B. (1984). Ecological approaches to clinical and
community psychology. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Parsons, R., & Meyers, J. (1984). Developing consultation skills. San Franeisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Plog, S. & Ahmed, P (1977). (Ed ). Principles and techniques of mental health
consultation. New York: Plenum Book Company.
Randolph, D (1985). Micro consulting: Basic psychological consultation skills for
helping professionals. Johnson City, TN: Institute of Social Science and Arts, Inc.
Rappaport, J. (1978). Community psychology: Values, research, and action. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Ritter, D. (1982). (Ed.). Consultation, education and prevention in community
mental health. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publisher.
Sarason, S. (1974). The psychological sense of community. San Franciseo:
Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Sheetman, F. (1979). Problems in communicating psychological understanding:
Why won't they listen to me?! American Psychologist, 34, 781-790.
Steel, F. (1975). Consulting for organizational change. Amherst. MA: Unisersity
of Mass Press
Steele, F.I. (1973). Physical settings and organizational development. Reading,
MA: Addison-Weseley.
Tyler, F. Pargament, K., & Gatz, M. (1983). The resource collaborator role: A model for interactions involving psychologist. American Psychologist, 38, 388-398.
This material resides on an Indiana State University server and is maintained by
Will Barratt.
Please forward any problems and comments to him.