Thomas F. Hawk

Please Don't give Up On Me: When Faculty Fail To Care:

Students in an evening MBA program were given the opportunity to respond to the following four questions: (a) Have you ever had the feeling that a faculty member or instructor had “given up” on you and your learning in a course? (b) What did the faculty member or instructor do or not do to give you that feeling? (d) What did you do as a result of that feeling, perception? and (d) What are ways that a faculty member or instructor can communicate to you that he or she has not given up on his or her commitment to you and your learning in a course? The authors examine the student responses in the context of an ethic of care, pedagogical caring, and pedagogical respect. They conclude with some specific recommendations for improving faculty pedagogical caring.

An Ethic of Care: A Relational Ethic for the Relational Characteristics of Organizations

In this chapter, I review the evolution of an ethic of care over the last 30 years as a comprehensive ethical framework. It is a relational ethic that recognizes we are all embedded in webs of overlapping and dynamic concrete relationships throughout our personal and public lives, and expects concrete actions to enhance the well-being of those in the relationship. I then review the mainstream business and management journals, texts, and handbooks where it is rare, except in business ethics journals, to find any coverage of an ethic of care. However, the fundamental relationality of an ethic of care offers a highly congruent ethical basis for connecting with the significantly relational characteristic of organizations and societies in such areas as relational leadership, group dynamics, stakeholder theory, and social policy. I then conclude by exploring four issues that, in my mind, have been, to one degree or another, effectively addressed within an ethic of care as a comprehensive ethical framework for the business and organizational context. They are: (1) the issue of autonomy within relationality; (2) the relationship between rationality and whole person, practical reasoning; (3) the scope of an ethic of care across the falsely dichotomized private and public domains; and (4) the issue of care, markets, and bureaucracy.

Learner's perceptions of care and respect offered by instructors

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the content and magnitude of care and respect issues in instructional settings, and offer some recommendations on how trainers and instructors may behave in ways to reveal to learners that caring attitudes and behavior are present in the learning environment.Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken in this work is to provide an overview of issues and concerns regarding pedagogical care and respect; present the results of some recent research; and to offer some approaches, tools, and concepts for practitioners to consider using in their training situations.Findings – There are many different types of instructor behavior, or lack of behavior, that learners attribute to an uncaring attitude on the part of the instructor. Learner responses to the perceived lack of care are varied and usually negative. The perceptions influence performance of learners in ways that many instructors are likely not aware. Analysis of the available research provides sugg...

Getting to Know Your Students and an Educational Ethic of Care

In the 10 years since Hawk and Lyons published, “Please Don’t Give Up on Me: When Faculty Fail to Care” in Journal of Management Education, much has changed about the nature of pedagogical caring, relational learning, and the instructor–student relationship per se. The landscape of expectations for the type and depth of relationships faculty will have with students has shifted toward a blurring of relational boundaries and roles. Chory and Offstein’s article in the first Journal of Management Education issue of 2017, “‘Your Professor Will Know You as a Person’: Evaluating and Rethinking the Relational Boundaries Between Faculty and Students” draws on Hawk and Lyons and critically examines the advisability of extending an ethic of care to situations outside the classroom setting. In this essay, I engage with Chory and Offstein’s work and the three rejoinders that accompanied it in Journal of Management Education, Volume 41, Issue 1, and share specific ways in which faculty can “get to know their students” that directly benefits student learning.

Being “Physically Present While Cognitively Truant” On the Likely Impact of Digital Technologies on Learning

WARNING! Reading the Cavanaugh, Giapponi, and Golden essay and the three Rejoinders, whether you do so in print or digitally, will require you to use your deep reading and deep thinking skills to understand the content, process the logic of their arguments, and develop your own evaluation and critiques, while challenging your assumptions on teaching and learning. The other three articles in this issue offer novel and insightful ways to improve your grading scheme, bring effective online discussion to your face-to-face courses, and change the ways you help your students perform better in teams. In our lead article, “Digital Technology and Student Cognitive Development: Neuroscience in the University Classroom,” Cavanaugh, Giapponi, and Golden offer a provocative essay intended to spark widespread conversations within the academy and among all educators. They discuss the impact of the extended formal and informal use from ages as young as 4 to 5 years of digital flat screen technology, such as smartphones and laptops, on how the brain becomes wired and the learning that develops. They report that emerging neuroscience research over the past three decades has shown that different parts of the brain show differing degrees of development, depending on digital flat screen use as compared with those who have grown up reading books and writing longhand. They indicate that research shows that the digital technology users have enhanced competencies in iconic representation,

Parallel Organization: Policy Formulation, Learning, and Interdivision Integration

A parallel organization improves problem solving and decision making by liberating creative, rigorous inquiry blocked or unavailable in the formal organization. This article reports a study of a parallel organization unusual for its structure, size, and duration. Its outputs significantly affected a wide range of organizational policies in manufacturing, strategic planning, and human resources. Its structure, staffing, and process improved organizational practices, relationships, learning, and communication. The case provides a valuable extension and contrast to other cases and enlightens views of theory and practice.

An Integrated Course Design Model for Beginning Faculty

It is rare that faculty members begin their first full-time teaching position with an integrated and consciously constructed practical model for course design, teaching, and learning. The purpose of this article is to offer new faculty members a starting point for constructing an integrated model of the course design and teaching and learning processes. The model begins with the instructor’s choice of course learning goals, objectives, and outcomes and progresses through the translation of those learning goals and objectives into articulated evaluation and feedback rubrics, the choice of specific learning activities and materials reflected in a learner-centered syllabus, the conduct of the in-class activities, and the choices of learning assessments. These elements are highly interactive and iterative, as well as contextualized with respect to such issues as course location in a program, class size, student learning development and diversity, and individual faculty differences. We provide resources and usable examples for new faculty.

Parallel Organization: Practice and Issues

Parallel organization is a system-wide strategic change intervention valuable and relevant to organizational challenges today and in the future. A parallel organization finds and solves problems ignored, overlooked or suppressed by the formal operating organization. Parallel organization process induces norms for wide-ranging inquiry: e.g., openness; questioning of goals, methods, and evaluation criteria; contribution based on knowledge rather than level of authority, constructive analysis of dissent, and a consensual decision process. Parallel organization structure uses flat, cross-unit, cross-functional networks with membership synthesizing subject expertise, representation of affected parties, and authority to act. Many OD scholar-practitioners have argued that participative, democratic structures should (or will) replace directive, hierarchical structures, inferring that a parallel structure will be unnecessary. This symposium is designed to discuss and examine Parallel Organization (PO) practices an...

Formulating policy with a parallel organization: how a CEO integrated independent divisions

Purpose – Division managers in multi‐division, production organizations often focus primarily on their divisions interests and goals and as a result may not be well motivated or equipped to formulate optimal, company‐wide policies. In this case study, a new CEO decided to deal with ambiguous, company‐wide policy issues such as pricing, product portfolios, market position, and communication across independent divisions, by installing a parallel organization composed entirely of line managers from different divisions and functions. This paper aims to examine the parallel organization concept and how it was applied, installed and operated to greatly benefit the firm.Design/methodology/approach – The case describes the operation and outputs of the parallel organization based on data gathered from interviews of managers and detailed analysis of proposed issues and policies formulated over a five‐year period.Findings – The firms performance improved significantly as the parallel organization generated policie...