In My Tribe: Communication Commentary

Yeah, yeah. That's the name of an album, but I'll bet you don't remember the Communication Commentary part. That's because it wasn't there.

In my tribe, which today I'm defining as Communication at Texas Wesleyan, I have learned something this week. Take a deep breath. Listen.

Another crazy week in academia has me wondering just why is it that people get so tense around this time of year? I know the answer, but if you'd like to let me know what your issues are, I'd be happy to listen. However, for the rest of the semester I'm going to do what I learned: Take a deep breath and listen.

The reason I've learned this now in particular is because it is so tense this time of year. I feel pressure; my students feel pressure; everyone on campus feels pressure, and it's rising to a level of explosion, which is why I'm going to take a deep breath and listen.

I learned this lesson several years ago when I received a flame from a student. I flamed right back and felt really bad about it later. The student felt even worse. After that, I decided that any e-mail from anyone that sounded like a flame from the subject line, read like a flame from the first sentence and had lots of exclamation points needed to be thrown in the trash. It served me no purpose, and it served the student no purpose. So that's what I've done. Easy fix for e-mails, but in person flames....that's a bit different. Which is why I've decided to take a deep breath and and listen. While I may not be able to delete the person in front of me flaming, at least I can work to lower my blood pressure and avoid snide comebacks that are full of defensiveness and venom.

So everyone, let me encourage you to take a deep breath and listen. The flame you put out may be your own.