Farewell to the Embarrassment – The 112th Congress

Farewell to the 112th Congress. Leaving Washington with their heads hung low, they are considered to be the worst Congress in US history since record keeping began; passing only 219 bills, 40 of which pertain to the renaming of post offices and other public buildings, 6 dealt with commemorative coins and more than 30 bills for the repealing of the Affordable Care Act. Compared to the 110th and 111th Congress, who passed 383 and 460 bills respectfully; the 112th Congress is the least productive and the most polarized Congress in US history, who spent the least amount of time passing meaningful bills and more time disappointing the American people.

In the nation’s current economic turmoil, Congress’ job is to pass as many meaningful bills as possible to aid in fixing the problem. However, the 112th Congress role was ‘do-nothing’, while turning a deaf ear to the cries of the American people, the 112th Congress worked to block bills such as the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and cut programs that are beneficial. Instead, the 112th Congress worked hard on preventing tax increases for the very wealthy and filibustered or blocked any bills introduced by the Obama Administration.

It is evident that the 112th Congress is active player in the sluggish recovery of the US economy because of its inability to comprise or work together with the Obama Administration. In spring 2011, the 112th Congress came closer to a near government shutdown, which for the first time in US history resulted in the Standard and Poor’s downgrade of the US credit rating and almost breeching the debt ceiling, which could have led to a possible global catastrophe and resulted in setbacks to the nation’s recovery. Due to the reckless governance of the 112th Congress, the American people gave them an approval rating of 10%, according to the latest Gallup poll.

Closing out 2012 with high levels of unproductiveness, the 112th Congress welcomed 2013 with a looming fiscal cliff over their heads. Within the final minutes before almost going over the fiscal cliff, which could have lead to another global economic and financial crisis, the hopelessly divided Congress was able to come together to pass a partial fiscal-cliff fix; yet again speaking to Congress’ inability to work together, rise above partisanship and personal gain.

The 112th Congress is an embarrassment and has brought great dishonor to our nation’s Capitol. They were broken and unproductive causing the American people to lose confidence in the nation’s leaders. However, with the 113th Congress about to be sworn into office, there is yet again hope for the American people. The upcoming Congress should note that being polarized is not the solution, but putting aside party affiliations and personal gain in order to work together for the recovery and prosperity of the nation, which should be the ultimate goal. This is what the American people are hoping and praying for and not another embarrassment.

Images courtesy of http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/03/us-usa-congress-idUSBRE90203V20130103 and http://www.wilsoncenter.org/program/congress-project.

The Public Administrator Challenge: The Agency and Power

It is the time of year for winter graduation at many higher education institutions; a transition from student to alumni. It is also a time for graduates to begin employment, continue with a current position, and become agency leaders. Agency leaders have challenges when looking at the public sector; challenges to personal and professional values as public administration is practiced in society. The talents of graduates academically prepared for public service will face dilemmas integrating into existing public agency structures, and ensuring accountability.

Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The public administrator is an independent thinker having researched to complete academic requirements and looked at the past to gain experience. The experience gained in academia provides a strong foundation of knowledge and ability to see through the posturing, flavor of the month, new and improved, and changes portrayed by various entities in the public or private sector. The current public administrators are prepared to practice the art of leading, being competent, and upholding policy and process to ensure public trust. Through professional competencies, critical thinking, and plain common sense the damage of group-think will yield to increased confidence in our public agencies.

Garth Morgan wrote Images of an Organization, a 520 page text recommended as essential reading for all in the profession of public administration. The highlights are Morgan’s description of eight metaphors for organizations. Although the text was written some time ago, the metaphors stand the test of time. The metaphors provided by Morgan include the organization a machine; an organism; a brain; a culture; a political system; an instrument of oppression; change and flux; and psychic prison. It is easy to look at any public or private entity and observe the application of Morgan’s writing each day in practice throughout the world. The challenge to the public administrator is to move the organization to serve the public and realize:

• Almost all organizations are in one of the 8 metaphors describe by Morgan

• A leadership style is dominate in everyone; an organization has dominate framework – both the leader and organization does not significantly change with time

• The organization cannot change because it has a history and culture. Culture does not change in an organization, only policy, processes, and rules change — creating an illusion of change.

• Organizations have a lifecycle and eventually it expands or consolidates. All agencies seem to continue after creation in some form.

Accepting a position as a leader in a public agency (or a private agency) you will have certain power. Always remember the powers are all given to you by others. The five basic levels of power are legitimate, coercive, and reward, given to you based upon your position, and expert and reverent power is given to you by others or how others view you. Think about these levels and how you view power. Power is and can be taken away if misused. There is substantial abuse of power evidenced daily in news articles of corruption, unethical conduct, coercion, and cronyism. If power is viewed as a responsibility, research supports more inclusion of others, better service to others, and a long term successful leader.

Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline related “Today’s problems are yesterday’s solutions.”

Consider your future where your talents are used, where you can contribute, where you can learn and grow. Each person devoted to public administration has a foundation through academic preparation of professional competencies, critical thinking and problem solving, communication, and research. Public administration is no different than many other professions; it is a practice. A good leader is defined by each individual differently and the leader needs to decide how he or she will lead and how to be led. Every person has to be accountable to someone. Your decision on the organization you associate can be a worthy endeavor or waste of time. To progress a public agency each leader needs to decide to stand up, do the right thing, be ethical, and by all means accept responsibility.

_____________________________________________________________

Dr. Wayne Brock is a consultant, researcher, author, speaker, and presenter of collaboration and collaborative leadership He is the founder of The Interdisciplinary Collaborative Leadership Institute and can be reached at wbrock@icli.com.

Images courtesy of: http://www.sbx-osu.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=41_53&osCsid=fdf92f1554e952877291788201f86ad2 and http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2011/08/1_management_is.shtml.

Motivating our Public Servants

Here in Washington, DC almost every conversation has related, in some way, to the fiscal cliff. The country and the world are watching Congress and the President to see if our elected leaders can act like grown-ups and come to a compromise.

As we watch the back-and-forth of this diatribe, ASPA remains concerned about the impact on our public servants. Dedicated, hardworking employees at the federal and even the state level have become the targets of relentless attacks by our elected officials and others.  I guess it’s no surprise that a recent government wide employee survey found that employee satisfaction is falling in 66 of 77 categories.  The Federal Times who reported on the results of the survey noted:

“The results are especially emphatic because of a record-breaking 687,687 employees responded – for a response rate of 46 percent, more than double the number of any previous survey.”

And this news report is not the first to highlight the declining morale of public servants across the country. Recently, GovExecutive took a twist to this growing trend and reminded government employees and nonprofit workers WHY they chose their field. In a commentary written by Deputy Administrator at the Social Security Administration, Reginald Wells reminds:

“Without proper attention to our employees’ morale, we will be hard-pressed to weather the turbulence successfully. 

From my perspective, it all begins at the top. Leadership must set the tone by communicating service expectations and offering transparency about the nature of problems affecting the agency and its workforce.”

With a focus on leadership and their role in ensuring a highly motivated and productive workforce, ASPA has been diligent with our promotion of our Memos to National Leaders. This has been a groundbreaking effort by ASPA and the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) to highlight key challenges that face our country and to gather a group of experts to give recommendations.

Within the Memos, experts focused on ways that the President and Congress can tackle management issues. And a central theme of each memo is that our national leaders must involve the public servants whose every day job is to implement and administer policies.  It is the ‘street level’ bureaucrats who ensure that services are delivered, people are served and goods are received.  At every launch of a memo, we had an audience filled with public servants at the federal and state level who was interested in the intricacies of our recommendations. Why? Because they too want to know how they can do their job better.

As national organizations focused on good governance, employee professionalism and effective management, the Memos to National Leaders project is a rare moment when ASPA and NAPA have gone very public with their expertise. As Paul Posner, chair of the Memos Steering Committee noted at a an event this summer that revealed the first of the nine Memos, ASPA and NAPA have always been at the forefront of offering their expertise on management and administration. However, this has usually been done behind closed doors. This year, we wanted to go public because the challenges that confront the country deserve an open-door conversation.

We have garnered attention for the Memos and within the offices of those who can make a change, the conversations are taking place. But it will take time. We know this. But we want to keep the conversation going. And we will.

Read our memos and let us know what you think.  Email ASPA at memostoleaders@aspanet.org with your thoughts and comments.

Strengthening the Federal Budget Process

Rationalizing the Inter-governmental Process

Administrative Leadership

Strengthening the Federal Workforce

Reorganization of Government

Information Technology and Transparency

Managing Big Initiatives

Next Steps in Improving Performance

Managing Large Task Public-Private Partnerships

What is the Real Definition of “Middle-Class?”

For the past four years and especially during the last presidential election, both President Obama and his running mate, Governor Romney, spoke about rebuilding the middle-class. In speaking on their respective plans to rebuild the middle-class, they each gave their definition. However, the numbers used by both Obama and Romney to define the middle-class may be too far-fetched from reality.

According to the President and his running mate, the definition adopted to define the middle-class is households with an income of $200,000 to $250,000 as the cut-off limit. This was noted on at least two occasions. During the election campaign President Obama proposed to the keep the Bush tax cuts for middle-class household earning less than $250,000, while in an ABC interview Governor Romney defined the middle-class as households where the “middle income is $200,000 to $250,000 and less.”

Clearly, neither campaign had bothered to completely read U.S Census Bureau’s annual report, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011.” It seems that the candidates only paid attention to the number of people without health insurance and the number of people living below the poverty threshold. However, there are many interesting parts to this report, such as the level and distribution of income in 2011, which basically gives the numbers that goes to the heart of the debate on the “middle-class” and the “rich.”

What is the real definition of the middle-class? Is there a definition that is without any fuzzy labels or loose political speeches that has ballooned to give the illusion that it pertains to just about everyone? Politically speaking, numbers define the middle-class; however, there is no real world definition outside the political realm. So, how do our political leaders come up with the concept of $250,000 being the appropriate cut-off for the middle-class and where does it originate?

According to the U.S. Census report, Selected Income Percentile (Table A-2), the 2011 household median income is $50,054. The household income of $101,582, according to the table, is the top 20 percent (or 80^th percentile limit), $143,611 is in the top 10 percent (or 90^th percentile), and $186,000 is in the top 5 percent (or 95^th percentile). The table does not include household income within the range of $200,000-$250,000, but it can be inferred from the table that such household income would fall somewhere between the top 3 or 2 percent of all household income, which can be considered to be within the 97^th or 98^th percentile. Furthermore, according to the report the two lowest quartile has a household income of $20,262 or less ($12,000 being 90 percent or 10^th percentile and $20,262 being 20^th percentile, which is 80 percent of all household income).

Based on the empirical evidence from the U.S. Census Bureau, it is problematic and tricky to understand how our political leaders or anyone can conjure up $250,000 as being middle-income. The only logical reasoning can be that our political leaders love to use words, phrases and definition that are skewed to paint an image for the American people to believe. Therefore, the misleading use and definition of the middle class can only seek to hide the current inequality of the American class structure and income.

Based on our political leaders’ definition of the middle-class, it is clear that their minds are clouded with mental pictures of only the rich. However, in the real world where the median income is $50,054 and less than 10 percent of the U.S. population makes more than $150,000, making between $200,000-$250,000 would automatically put you at the top of the pyramid. Thus, this definition of the middle-class has proven to be dishonest and absurd, which only goes to show the American people how isolated and disconnected our political leaders are from the people and reality.

Image courtesy of http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/which-candidate-has-the-best-middle-class-jobs-plan/263870/.

State Supreme Court Judges for Sale

The majority of Americans think that corporate contributions only apply to presidential, senate or congressional elections.  However, one of the biggest upsets concerning corporate contributions involves an election that rarely receives attention — the election for judgeships.

Since the 1990s, corporations have tightened their grip on the electoral process of judges for state supreme courts. According to an August 2012 report by the Center for American Progress, money fueled by corporate interests and lobbyists has exploded in the last two decades. The report further stated that in 1990 candidates for state supreme courts only raised around $3 million, but by the mid-1990s, campaigns were raking in more than five times that amount. The 2000 race saw state Supreme Court candidates raise more than $45 million. Furthermore, since corporate finances have such an influence on the electoral process, it even drew the attention of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has now become a powerful player in the process, where in the years 2001 to 2003, the judicial candidates that were preferred by the Chamber won 21 out of 24 elections.

Such numbers have grown even bigger over the years; however, the exact stats maybe incomplete because judicial campaigns are not heavily regulated, which makes it very difficult in identifying the source of contributions. Even though these contributions have heavily influenced the judiciary election, which came about before the 2010 decision of Citizens United, the decision of not limiting individual and corporate contributions made the matter even worse. As a result, a great sadness and shame has come over our judicial system.

The US judicial system is a place where the American people seek justice; however, it is currently interpreting the laws to satisfy the concerns of or to benefit that of its big corporate contributors, which now leaves individuals without money to receive an unfair or bias hearing in state courts. According to a recent poll by the Center for American Progress, 89% of respondents “believe the influence of campaign contributions on judges’ ruling is a problem.”

Upon taking office, a judge’s oath according to 28 USC § 453 is to “administer justice without respect to persons, and to equal rights to the poor and to the rich, and that they will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all duties as required under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.” Therefore, there should be a sense of equality for everyone under the eyes of the law; however, this principle and oath is becoming more futile by every passing judicial election. 

This explosion of money in the judicial election has led to many Americans’ distrust of the system. However, this is one problem that has a straightforward solution. A solution where each state should adopt the ‘Missouri Plan’, a nonpartisan selection of judges in which the appropriate commission reviews the applications of lawyers who wish to become judges. Then the top three finalists are submitted to the governor who will conduct interviews and make the final decision. A simple fix, yet far from the U.S. reality, which is now governed by big corporations.

It has always been the belief of the American people that corporations and special interest groups should not be allowed to shape laws for their personal gain; however, such belief has become a moot point. Being that approximately 95% of cases in America are heard in state courts, and the judicial philosophy of ‘everyone is equal under the eyes of the law’ is no longer because state courts have now come under siege by corporate money, and this has brought about a great amount of doubt in the minds of the American people regarding their chances of getting a fair trial.

In the words of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote upon her retirement, “When you enter one of these courtrooms, the last thing you want to worry about is whether the judge is more accountable to a campaign contributor or an ideological group than to the law.” Therefore it is clear, we should be worried.

Images courtesy of http://judiciallearningcenter.org/state-courts-vs-federal-courts/and http://www.riverside.courts.ca.gov/tempjudgeinfo.shtml.

Meaningful Work

Walking down the hallway of a very large for-profit business, I overheard two senior managers discussing what they perceived as the plight of the cleaning crew. “I could NEVER clean out someone else’s trash can.” “Can you imagine having to CLEAN all the bathrooms in this place? You couldn’t pay me enough!” Although I assume the speakers did not intend to be rude, they were.

As the daughter of a hardworking, intelligent, savvy woman who made her living cooking, cleaning and serving, I was suitably taken aback. I was also very grateful that the cleaning crew wasn’t around to hear the comments. As a manager and a teacher of our future leaders, I was saddened that managers at the top of the hierarchy, charged with leading people at all levels of the firm, would express such a simplistic and disrespectful view of work.

In 1976, J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham developed the job characteristics model (JCM) to advance our understanding of job satisfaction and motivation. JCM tells us that there are five characteristics that are fundamental to all jobs:

• Task identity (the degree to which we complete a “whole” piece of work),
• Autonomy (the level of independence we have to make decisions and get the job done),
• Task significance (the impact the work has on others or the work of others),
• Skill variety (the number of different tasks required),
• Feedback (comments and information we receive about our performance).

These characteristics determine how important we believe our jobs to be and how responsible we feel.

There are concrete steps managers can take to factor in motivational theories like JCM. For example, providing opportunities for all of your employees to interact and get to know each other helps them to experience the impact their work has on colleagues and clients. Making sure that each person can see a project or some component of their job from start to finish increases how responsible he or she feels to get it done. And of course, the opportunity to have variety in our tasks and receive regular feedback about our performance also contributes to our sense of ownership and pride in our work.

It is our duty as managers to design jobs that are motivating, and to create satisfying work environments. This requires more than ensuring adequate salaries and benefits. When our employees find their work meaningful, feel responsible for it, and have information about the results, they enjoy their jobs, and are inspired to do their very best. However, it must start with knowing that we, their supervisors, value them and see meaning in all of the work that is conducted in our place of business.

The Impact of Technology on the Federal Government: What’s in it for me?

By Daniel Eisen

I should learn not to promise what I will talk about in subsequent posts. It always happens that as I research for each post I find something that derails the conversation in some way. In my last post, I promised that I would ‘geek-out’ and discuss some emerging technologies for supporting and strengthening federal agency operations and services.

As I began my research things quickly changed. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by a never-ending array of technological innovations we see and hear about each and every day; I know I did just trying to get a handle on all of these new technologies. I began to wonder why we need all of this technology and what it means to me as a citizen consumer of federal programs and services. And, then I remembered some articles I came across a few years ago on the topic of ‘Technological Determinism’.

Never heard of this term? Neither did I. So, I want to share some of them with you. Many of these articles discuss how technology has changed the way we live, technology as an important change agent, technology as a driving force of history and many other engaging conversations. Hang in with me for a few moments and then I will share a few thoughts on what this means for federal IT.

bananapeelproject.org

The discussion over technological determinism divides, mainly, into two schools of thought. First, that of the hard determinists who contend the power to effect social change is credited to technology or its products; technology is reified and depicted as taking on a life of its own (Smith and Marx 1994).  Hard determinists might, “ascribe to machines a power they do not have (Heilbroner 1994), or believe in the dream of progress through technology, or believe that once a technology finds itself into society, it takes on a life (Williams 2000) of its own moving with an unstoppable force.

Our second school of thought, soft determinism, considers the history of technology as the history of human actions looking at technology by learning about those who were there, and their circumstances (Heilbroner 1967; Heilbroner 1994; Smith and Marx 1994). Soft determinists would say, since humans develop technology we do have choices in its development and application in society. Other discussions on technological determinism blend these soft and hard categories.

Many of these articles also contained interesting historical examples. For example, the impact of technologies such as how navigation

cast.uark.edu

technology aided in the colonization of the new world (Smith and Marx 1994), how radio and television changed social behavior (Heilbroner 1967) and how the automobile created suburbia (Smith and Marx 1994). Also, discussed were technologies such as, Flexible Manufacturing Technology, where computers were now integrating” functional areas of marketing, design, manufacturing materials handling, inventory control and quality control into a continuous round-the clock, sometimes unattended operations (Nemetz and Fry 1988).

Today, the Internet, smart phones, tablets, cloud computing among others have raised this discussion to new heights. Yet, I find it comforting that no matter which direction the discussion on technological determinism finds itself moving in, it seems that the relationship between technology and society is not all one way. If you would like to read any of the above articles, send me a request in the comments section. I’ll shoot it right over.

Where does this leave us? What about all of these new technologies? I think the real meaning in how we think about federal IT is remembering that when a federal agency chooses to update, upgrade or bring in a completely new technology, ultimately, it is about strengthening operations and services that serve our citizens. So, what does federal IT mean to me? It means many things from improving my ability to e-file taxes to having technologies that provides the federal government with the capability and readiness to save lives during a natural disaster. Yes, it’s complicated but I am amazed and in awe at how far we have come in such a short period of time. How about you?

Eisen out…

Public Administration and Marketing

By Sarah Blanchard

Yes, These Words Belong in the Same Sentence

marketingsystemblueprints.com

If you work in a public sector organization and are thinking that you may need some marketing skills don’t feel depraved. Marketing is not a profit-driving force aimed at manipulating the populace.  For the purposes of our work as public administrators, marketing is no more than having an industry recognized set of tools for conducting stakeholder outreach, disseminating public information, and ensuring the efficient and effective distribution of public benefits.

The type of marketing skills I’m referencing are not those related to campaigning and public relations for political candidates, but rather those needed by federal, state, and local officials aiming to better serve the public good.

Public administrators should not be faulted for lacking important marketing skills when the agencies that employ them are not recruiting professionals with these skills and when the discipline of marketing does  not immediately connect with public sector professionals to demonstrate the applicability of these skills to their work.

There are several challenges to integrating marketing principles into public sector professions. One is speed. Historically, governments do not operate in a particularly time-sensitive environment and often do not have the freedom to act quickly within bureaucratic systems.

Another challenging aspect of public sector outreach is the desire of political leaders to apply ‘spin’ to otherwise a-political marketing messages. This not only dilutes the value of otherwise informative messages for the public, but also diminishes the motivation of administrators to even pursue outreach.

Additionally, the public is a vast and infinitely diverse target market. Developing marketing and outreach approaches for individual target segments may seem daunting, but that’s part of the skill set needed by public administrators. Training in marketing can yield capabilities for identifying who your primary stakeholder types are, where to “find them”, and how to develop pathways for interacting with them that lead to desired outcomes.

Lastly, justifying the costs of marketing activities in government is challenging, though no more or less so than in the private sector. The important thing to do is to track outcomes through whatever measures are most meaningful to key decision-makers.

Successful marketing in the public sector does not, of course, result in increased profits, but it offers us the ability to:

• Expand engagement with the communities we serve;
• Increase support for and participation in important government initiatives;
• Build partnerships that leverage resources and boost economic development; and
• Demonstrate the effective use of taxpayer dollars.

Even with these projected benefits, marketing skills are still undervalued by government employers; but public administrators looking to expand their impact in our profession should seek opportunities to flex their marketing skills and continue bring our government into the 21^st century (let’s not pretend that we’re fully there yet!)

Management Lessons from the Haul Road

In my experience, students are engaged and learn more easily when they are able to discuss case studies and explore real examples of the art and science of management. Although students seem to enjoy examining cases from my work as an administrator, illustrations of sound—and often unsound—management practice can be found in many interesting places.

One of my current sources of case material is the television show “Ice Road Truckers” (IRT), which airs on the History Channel. Filmed in the arctic regions of Alaska and Canada, IRT depicts extraordinary men and women driving trucks that carry fuel, food, equipment and buildings over frozen lake and ocean water, snow and ice packed hills, and slick curves seemingly too narrow to pass. A glimpse into this raw environment enables us to observe supervisory, disciplinary and administrative decisions made under extreme conditions.

One IRT case chronicled the journey of a new employee. He’d made his way to Alaska for the opportunity to earn substantial money for his family. He also wanted to prove he had the skill needed to master the dangerous terrain. Although he was an experienced driver in the southern States, he was a rookie on the haul road. Unfortunately, he ran into trouble from the moment he arrived and was fired just weeks before the ice road season ended. If his reaction was genuine, we can conclude his termination came as a surprise to him. Issues discussed in case analysis included:

• The impact of organizational culture in employee engagement.
• The role of orientation and training in job retention.
• The effect of discipline versus plans of corrective action on employee morale and productivity.

Developing cases from pop culture, the movies, television shows and music our students recognize fosters interest. It also facilitates active learning and creates an innovative and enjoyable classroom environment.

Technology in the Classroom: Use and Misuse

By: Robyn-Jay Bage

Cell phones have taken over the world. No? They seem to have taken over college campuses, and isn’t that where revolution often begins?

I am not anti-technology. In fact I am a gadget addict and have been from the days of the Betamax. technology, however convenient and useful, can be abused. I am afraid the era of cell phone misuse is upon us. We text while driving. We engage customers with cell phones in our hands. We sit at tables breaking bread with our friends and loved ones while updating our social networking pages. We record concerts on our smartphones instead of being present and enjoying the experience. 

As an educator, I am dismayed at the number of students who sit in class and use their phones to text, answer email, watch videos and update their social networking pages. No matter the activity—lecture, large group discussion, or small group work— and no matter how creative and engaging it may be, these handheld devises command interest and attention. For example, a 2010 study at the University of New Hampshire, (“Cell phone use and concentration during class”) determined that more than 50% of students use their phones in class. Tragically, these students report knowing that cell phone use limits both their concentration and their learning, yet they continue to talk, text and tweet in the classroom. Another study, “Cellular phone use in class: implications for teaching and learning: a pilot study” (Burns, 2010), indicated that more than 80% of students find cell phone use in the classroom distracting; 100% of faculty shared this view. It is often recommended that teachers incorporate technology in classroom as a way to enrich the curriculum and engage students on their own turf. I found an interesting blog in the New York Times’ Learning Network in 2010: Going Mobile: Debating and Using Cellphones in School – NYTimes.com. The authors include a number of options for using cell phones to enhance critical thinking skills. It is true that students become engrossed in learning when it is rooted in the familiar territory of cyberspace. It doesn’t follow, however, that employing technology for legitimate coursework eliminates unauthorized and disruptive use.

Academic institutions have attempted to address the issue of cell phones in the classroom through firm policies and swift penalties, with seemingly little success.  One potential explanation may be that despite the data, students are unaware that their phone use has a negative impact on others. The solution may be to increase their awareness, and make it personally meaningful:

• At the start of the semester, reiterate the institution’s cell phone policy. You may be surprised at the number of students who tell you they didn’t know the school had one.
• Start a conversation by asking the class why they think the policy is in place. If you are adventurous, ask them if they agree or disagree with the policy and why.
• The most powerful voices in the classroom are often the voices of peers. Students who are distracted by their colleagues’ phones use will be your strongest champions. Give them the floor, and support their opinions with data (such as the above findings).
• Offer students your understanding of the importance of being connected to family and work for emergencies. Ask them to let you know if they are expecting an important call or text, one that would require an immediate response and give them permission to step out of the classroom to respond.
• Remind students why classroom etiquette is important. Explain that distracting their colleagues and disrupting the teaching and learning environment is impolite. You can paint a graphic picture (and stimulate further debate) by asking how they would react if you, the instructor, began texting someone while teaching them. I usually end this discussion by promising my students to never treat them rudely or disrespectfully, and to always offer them my very best efforts. I then ask them to promise me the same. If the conversation has been successful, each and every student makes this commitment. 

Of course, cell phones are not the only technology with the potential for misuse. More students are renting e-books instead of buying textbooks, and are bringing laptops and tablets to class. Students have innumerable fun and interesting ways to avoid learning. As a professor, I work hard to create a climate of engagement and mutual respect so that students have what they need to be successful. It is up to them to take advantage of the opportunity to learn.

Do you agree? Are cell phones allowed in your classroom or workplace? How do you manage misuse?