Is listening extinct?

Today has been one of the more frustrating days of my life. And yet, I believe that it may be one of my more profound days professionally.

(NOTE: This post will be random at best and I'm willing to bet that there are two, maybe three people that will get it if they read it the entire way through. No feelings will be hurt if this is not your cup of tea.)

First off, I will start saying that the frustrating part of my day and the profound part of my day have nothing to do with each other. Have you ever just had a day where little annoying things kept happening one after another? That day that, if only one or two annoying things happened, it wouldn't ruin your day, but the fact that they just coming really wrecked it? Its like the straw(s) that broke the camel's back. So... as a result, none of those things are of notable importance and will not be mentioned.

I had the unique pleasure of attending a webinar today titled "Teaching Troubled Students: Campus Policy and Threat Assessment." When I went into it, I didn't really know what to expect, but I was still excited about it because, A) I'm a professional development dork, and B) this a big concern, especially in housing. The presenter was Gary Pavela, who has astounding credentials to be presenting this program.

Anyway, the third slide of this presentation said, "Good teaching, good mentoring, respectful listening, and treating students with respect as active participants in the learning process are the best campus "security measures" we can devise." The next slide said only this, "Only way to prevent violence... Get into their heads and hearts."

For some reason, this really struck me. Listening has been on my mind a lot lately. In the past few months, I've become more and more aware of the lack of listening among student affairs professionals. It started with a very simple misunderstanding. When it was passed to me, it just turns out, the people weren't being listened to.

Then, I observed a conflict in progress. I could tell immediately that there was a lack of listening. I was able to step in and solve the problem by simply listening.

This made me reflect on angry parent phone calls. Thus far this year, I have been forwarded my fair share of angry parent phone calls. Thus far this year, there is not one problem I wasn't able to handle calmly and promptly. Upon further reflection, I realized that all I was doing that was different from those who had handled them prior, was listen to them.

After all of this, I keep seeing "call for programs" for several upcoming conferences. And I'm thinking to myself, I should do a program on listening. But then, who in their right mind goes to a conference and attends a listening program. I'm going to have to be extremely creative with the title to get people there. But at the same time, I feel obligated. One of my talents is I am a good listener and I see its importance. For so many student affairs professionals to "know" that listening is important, few demonstrate this through action.

Which brings me back to today. The very beginning of the seminar on preventing school violence, listening is named one of the most important preventative measures.

So, in essence, not only am I going to start developing a program for "listening", but I believe that when I begin work on my doctorate degree, my dissertation will be about listening in some form or fashion. I'm very passionate about it and I believe the lack of it creates most of our unnecessary burdens as professionals and the increase of its use could be a powerful recruitment and retention tool for universities... not to mention, the development of our students as positively contributing members of society.

So, if anyone comes across any literature that would be of use to me, please send it my way. This is growing to be a passion of mine.

And I leave you with some wonderful listening quotes...

“To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.” Igor Stravinsky

“Listening is the only way to entertain some folks.” Kin Hubbard

“The first duty of love is to listen.” Paul Tillich