People
Information
About Greenlee
Search the News Archive:
|
|
Bugeja plugs human communication, connectionStory and Photo By Lori Runkle
“Is it possible for an administrator at Iowa State University not to check email for two weeks?” Greenlee School Director Michael Bugeja posed this question at a Dec. 1 meeting of the Professional and Scientific Council, a group representing ISU's non-tenure track administrators and scientists. Bugeja's lecture highlighted his new book, “Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age.” Bugeja went on to explain this wild notion. “I suffered the same symptoms as nicotine withdrawal” because I decided to forego checking my email while I was on a two-week vacation with my family at Lake Okoboji this summer. “It took four days to forget about email. Then, it was wonderful, [but my] anxiety increased as my vacation came to an end.” Bugeja used this example to demonstrate the increasing influence technology wields on the lives of American university administrators, faculty and students. His book warns that too much technology can lead to social isolation. “Kids can hop out of bed and play with somebody who is not really there, leave the public arena … and become isolated in their homes and in their rooms,” he said. The danger of this social isolation can be prevented if students are trained to “critically think about how technology is consuming human relationships,” Bugeja said. The effects of technology on American university campuses like Iowa State are far-reaching and profound, he said. If students, administrators and faculty don’t realize how technology impacts their daily lives, technological advances will shape and control them instead of the other way around. The changing ways work is done and the increasing amount of money spent for technology are things Bugeja encourages the university community to consider. Bugeja believes the money American higher education has invested in technology since 1995 is part of the reason for the disappearance of 2,000 full-time tenured faculty positions. That statistic was cited in a May 26 American Association of University Professors report, which can be found at http://www.aaup.org/research/FacStatTrends.htm. Many ISU administrators sit behind a computer screen for a large part of their workdays and when this happens, staff risk becoming disconnected from the students they serve, Bugeja said. In addition, students can also avoid talking to other human beings face-to-face by sending instant messages, Facebook messages, email messages or text messages on their cellular phones, he said. It is crucial for administrators and students not to lose their sense of interpersonal intelligence, so they must know when to use technology appropriately and when not to use it inappropriately. Bugeja encouraged everyone to carefully match the form of communication with the situtation, selecting among email messages, memos, personal visits and other forms. Dan Rice, an LAS academic adviser, said after the lecture, “When you have a conversation with someone, you can see their facial signals, [hear] their tone of voice and watch their body language. And in a conversation, someone can stop you” to clear up a misunderstanding or clarify a confusing point. “You can’t do that in an email,” he said. Bugeja challenged both university faculty members, administrators and students to emphasize interpersonal intelligence and human communication with colleagues and friends to create an educational environment where people and human relations come first.
Last updated: Dec. 5, 2005 |
Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication,
Hamilton Hall, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011-0001
Greenlee School Student Services 515-294-0303 or e-mail greenlee@iastate.edu
Greenlee School Graduate Program and Administrative Services 515-294-4342
Copyright © 2005, Iowa State University of Science and Technology. All rights reserved.