Forming/Storming/Norming/Performing & The Culture of Admissions compared to Office of Student Life

I teach a leadership course in the Education with two colleagues titled Introduction to Leadership (ED 173). We incorporate theory with experiential activity. The students participate in a group project and are required to write a final paper reflecting on the theory they are introduced to in relation to their experiences with their group. One lecture I present is on group development and I focus on Tuckman's theory of Group Development. I think because of the simplicity of the theory and the ease of applying the components this theory tends to be one of the more popular students refer to in their papers. I plan to replace one of the readings for ED 173 with the one we were required to read. In addition to that reading, the article about managing groups is meaningful to the work we do in ED 173 and although I think we already do a good job with setting up the groups for class and incorporate many of the concepts the article suggests, there are some additional things I read about that I plan to use as well - specifically the What to Do Before Putting Groups Together.

Edward H. Schein introduces culture as customs, rights, values, norms, behaviors, patterns, rituals, and traditions of an organization. The fully understand the idea of the culture of organizations I thought about the differences of the culture in the works places I am most familiar with - Office of Admissions where I spent 17 years and the Office of Student Life where I am in the middle of my third year.

I have thought about the differences between the two office  an interesting exercise to practice the idea of organizational culture. This is what I discovered:

Admissions - larger staff, several levels of authority, communication top down, 8 - 5 norm, more isolated from campus as a whole, focus on perspective students, and more resistance to change

Office of Student Life - suite of offices with different focuses, not always knowing what office neighbor working on, more integrated into campus, work closely with enrolled students, deals with change regularly, and work schedules vary.