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Each year, the Schwartz Communication Institute at Baruch College hosts the Symposium on Communication and Communication-Intensive Instruction which brings together about 100 educators and business people to talk about communication. This year’s Symposium, entitled “What is ‘Effective’?: Assessing Communication in Education and Business,” saw lots of discussion on the way we evaluate communication in academic and business contexts. During the morning roundtables, participants identified salient challenges or problems related to teaching and learning effective communication. Here’s what they came up with:

TABLE 1
The differences in the communication in business and industry v. the communication in the academy is that, in business, one has to be able to think on one’s feet and address an audience who wants to know: “What’s in it for me?” In the academy, students often write or speak to and for a professor and their message is: “This is what I
know.”

Making that transition often means thinking outside the box: but do students understand what defines the box? How can we teach students the kind of flexibility needed to communication effectively in business?

TABLE 2
To make communication more effective, we need to build a pre-assessment tool into the process. As you communicate ask yourself: “How do I find out if this will be effective? Diagnose yourself as you communicate. Is the core message is coming through?

TABLE 3
Learning is a life-long activity and universities do not turn out finished products. How can business and academia create an ongoing partnership to continue education as students move from the classroom into the workplace?

TABLE 4
The challenge is communicating more effectively about what effective communication is.

Two main positions keep coming up in answer to the question, What constitutes effective communication?

“It depends on the context.”
“Everybody should know—we know it when we see it.”

We want to define it. Articulate it. Deal with the variance in standards.

TABLE 5
What does “effective communication” mean and how do we as educators cultivate it?

To make effective communicators—people who are going to be hirable and desirable—we have to cultivate the whole person – to transform the students in fundamental ways: maturity, reliability, skills, knowledge, and creativity.

TABLE 6
Audience is the central concern. We are interested in the various audiences to whom effective communicators have to communicate. Regardless of genre, how does feedback—both overt and covert—effect the communication? How does evaluation enter into the planning process? How can students learn to balance fulfilling of expectations and creative thinking? How can we make sure students have contact with those who can demonstrate effective communication?

TABLE 7
Effective Communication is about reconfiguring the model of what communication is. It’s really about forming relationships. It’s about taking into account all the factors. — How can we foster this idea as opposed to an academic, linear, individualistic model of communication?

TABLE 8
What is the standard of evaluation? If we’re talking about a population that speaks 100 languages, and many more cultures, do we have a standard of evaluation that is appropriate for a diverse population?

To be continued . . .