Internship Experience at The Dr. Oz Show by Elle Rose

     My name is Elle Rose, I’m a senior English major at FCRH, and I just spent the last semester working as a production intern at the Dr. Oz Show!
     I found the Dr. Oz Show internship program through Fordham’s Career Link service, and applied in April to be an intern for the Fall semester. We had our first orientation session in early August, and I met the 13 other interns I’d be working with for the next four months.
     Working as a production intern meant that you could work in one of several departments on any given day. Every week the interns would work in their assigned departments: field, office, booking, studio, audience, post-production, or producing. The show would tape two episodes three days out of the week. If you were scheduled to work on a ‘taping day’ — then you’d most likely be placed in the studio working in either the studio, audience, or producing departments. On a non-taping day, you’d be in the office, working with either the field, office, or booking departments.
     Taping days meant early call times. All staff had to be at the studio, or office (depending on where you were scheduled), by 7 AM. There were a variety of daily tasks the interns would work together on finishing up before we all went off to work with our own departments — like distributing dressing room assignments, printing out show rundowns, and setting up dressing rooms for show guests.
     While our morning tasks were communal, each intern had a different set of tasks to work on within their specific department. Working with studio meant that you got to be a part of all studio rehearsals — usually standing in for the guests scheduled to be on the show, for blocking purposes. Working with audience meant a lot of time up on your feet, helping out with audience load-in and load-out and answering various questions from audience members, and guiding them through the maze-like studio to their seats. Working with producing meant preparing script cards for all guests on the show, and making sure that all appropriate release forms were signed by both guests, and audience members that were featured on the show.
     Thankfully, not all of our days were as early as taping days. On non-taping days, everyone reported to the office by 9 AM. All the interns were expected to help with restocking the pantry, and making sure coffees, plates, napkins, and silverware were properly stocked in the office kitchen. Field interns often had to transcribe videos, and some even got to go on out-of- office field shoots. Booking interns had a variety of tasks — including researching contact information for possible guests for the show, researching recently released health and wellness books, and preparing informational spreadsheets on upcoming guests. Office interns usually helped out with any department that didn’t have a pre-assigned intern — which typically included researching stock photos and clips, putting together spreadsheets, and sometimes sitting in at reception.
     Before working with the Dr. Oz show, I thought I had a clear idea of what I wanted to do post- graduation — but having the opportunity to work with so many different departments allowed me to expand my interests and skill set! I now have a greater understanding of just how much goes into making a television production, and a clearer picture of what it is I’d like to do when I graduate from Fordham in May!

Internship Experience at Rebecca Taylor by Nicole Cruz

Ever walk out of an interview feeling defeated? That’s how I felt after I interviewed for the Buying Intern position at Rebecca Taylor, a luxury women’s clothing brand.

I had done my homework on the company and read up on the candidate requirements for the role days in advance. I felt confident and thought I would blow my interviewer away. But once I sat down and my interviewer started to ask me questions, things started to go south—or at least I thought so. She began asking me questions about retail math and Excel formulas that I had no understanding of. It became clear to me that I wasn’t exactly qualified for the position.

Much to my surprise, I got an email a few days later from HR offering me the internship.

My time with Rebecca Taylor has taught me so much about the fashion industry. I have learned the huge role that buying plays and how closely it is related to marketing and sales. In addition to the technical knowledge I have gained, I have also discovered a lot about myself as a professional. I learned that whenever I have a challenging project or am unsure of something, my time at Fordham has provided me with an answer. What do I mean by this? I mean that my Fordham education has taught me valuable life lessons that are applicable to any workplace. I have learned how to collaborate with others, how to analyze a situation or document, how to quickly learn new systems and skills, and how to come up with innovative solutions to problems that arise. All of these things I’ve learned at Fordham helped me to be a stand out intern, even though my technical experience was lacking at first. My supervisor has even asked me to stay on for the Spring semester!

By relying on the knowledge I’ve gained at Fordham, I was able to prove myself to my supervisor and show her that I can handle anything. I hope that all Fordham students can take my experience and apply it to their own lives. Never be scared to apply to a job where you’re lacking in technical qualifications. Rely on your experiences from Fordham and spin them in a way that will set you apart in an interview setting. A Fordham education will always give you a leg up in the working world, especially in NYC! Thanks to the chance my supervisor took bringing me on, I have been able to grow as a professional and I hope that you will all be given the same chance.

Information about Rebecca Taylor and other positions like this can be found here.

Bernie's Blog Week 14: Fordham Futures: Heroic Career Journeys Part I

"A billion hours ago, Homo Sapiens emerged
A billion minutes ago, Christianity began
A billion seconds ago, the IBM personal computer was released
A billion Google searches ago...was this morning."
Hal Varian, Google's Chief Economist
December 20, 2013
      Heroic journeys in the 21st century occur within a Google context - where Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google's mission looks to create an environment of purpose, freedom, and creativity that provides opportunities for heroic unguarded exploration and discovery. Laszlo Bock, who leads Google's people function, (which includes all areas related to the attraction, development, and retention of over 50,000 'Googlers' worldwide) states, in his groundbreaking inquiry into the philosophy of work: " Work Rules: Insights From Inside Google reminds the reader that: "Google's bursts of creation and accomplishment are a direct result of articulating their mission as something to keep reaching for, just beyond the frontiers of what they can imagine". This is an epic heroic challenge issued to all its employees from one of the premier organizations of your generation. The folks at Google understand that the most talented people on the planet seek a career aspiration that is also inspiring.
      'Googlers', as they call themselves, believe that they can never achieve their mission because there will always be more information to organize and more ways to make it useful. Google's mission is distinctive in its simplicity and what it doesn't talk about. There's no mention of profit or market. No mention of customers or users. No mention why this is their mission, or to what end they pursue these goals. Instead it's taken to be self-evident that organizing information and making it accessible and useful is a good thing.
      Everyone wants to work for Google, everyone wants Google to be part of their heroic career quest. Each year, Google receives more than 2 million employment applications, of which, they select several thousand each year. Google focuses on creating an environment where talented hard-working people are rewarded for their contributions to a mission that makes Google and the world a better place.
      During times of massive social and economic transformation, (when a billion Google searches occur before noon) the call for heroic action is constant. The heroes of the 21st century are individuals who can 'crystallize the chaos' as they craft their unique career stories. In the classic context, heroes become queens and kings; they utilize the power of their own inner resources; chase holy grails; or slay imposing dragons as they move from their subjective heroic perspective to a 'big picture' perspective that expands their spirits and their horizons within a rich communal dance of connectivity.
      No one has ever spoken more eloquently, or more effectively, about our communal connectivity than renowned mythologist and philosopher Joseph Campbell. He believed that the hero's journey, as told through global myth and metaphor, tell the story that we all make from the dependency of childhood to the autonomy of adulthood. Professor Campbell argued that there were just a few archetypical stories that serve as the foundations that underpin our global myths. Heroes are called to adventure, face a series of trials, become wiser, and then find some mastery or peace. As humans, we live through narrative , viewing history through a lens of stories that we tell ourselves. No wonder that we find common threads in the tapestries of one another's lives.
      Professor Campbell believed that we all have the potential to live out the hero's journey, and all you need to do is to take the first step and enter the unknown of self-awareness and self-knowledge. No mythologist or visionary of the 20th century embraced and celebrated the heroic journey more than Professor Campbell. He used metaphor and mythology as a way of making sense in a senseless world, where myths and stories serve as narrative patterns that clarify and give significance to our experience. Joseph Campbell understood that the imagery of mythology is symbolic of the spiritual powers within us. Myths do not come from a concept system; they come from a life system; they come out of a deeper center. According to Professor Campbell, "The myth does not point to a fact, the myth points beyond facts to something that informs the fact."
      Students always question: "How is it possible that the deeds of figures from stories told hundreds and thousands of years ago, in cultures distinct and distant, have some relevance in my life today ? I remind them that there are dragons to be slain and treasures to be gained in every life. Campbell identifies the motif of the hero's adventure as a map, an outline to follow, where each career traveler fills in the details and circumstances of their experiences.
      Professor Campbell challenges each of us to imagine an inspiring future of hope and promise, and to work to shape our futures, rather than passively waiting and watching our futures happen around us. I encourage you to aim high and focus on something greater than yourselves, while at the same time, attending to the specific details of your experience. In other words, cherish the importance and power of attending to the moment at hand, while always keeping the 'big picture' in perspective.
      History will show that in the long run, one of the most influential books of the 20th century may turn out to be Joseph Campbell's THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES. The text and the ideas inside have had a major impact on writing and story-telling, and most dramatically movie-making. Filmmakers like John Boorman, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Coppola owe their successes in part to the ageless patterns that Campbell identifies in his work. He found that world myths were all basically the same story - retold endlessly in infinite variations. Campbell discovered that all story-telling, consciously or not, follows the ancient patterns of myth. All stories, from the crudest jokes to the highest form of literature, can be understood in terms of the hero myth.
      The theme of the hero is universal, occurring in every culture and in every time. It is as infinitely varied as the human race itself; and yet it's basic form remains the same. These are career journeys that possess an incredibly active set of elements and situations that come together through endless repetition from the deepest reaches of the mind of man.
      Professor Campbell's thinking runs parallel to Swiss psychologist Carl Jung's discovery of a shared human 'collective unconscious' which manifests itself in the constantly repeating characters that appear in the dreams of people and myths of all cultures. Characters that appeared as what Jung called 'archetypes'. Jung suggested that these archetypes serve as reflective aspects of the human mind, and that as we form our personalities we divide ourselves into these characters as we play out the drama of our lives.
      The repeating characters of Professor Campbell's hero myth such as the young hero, the wise old woman or man, the shape-shifting man or woman, and the shadowy antagonist are identical to the archetypes of the human mind as revealed in our dreams. Such stories serve as models of the workings of the human mind, true maps of our psyches. They are always psychologically valid and realistic even when they portray fantastic, impossible, unreal events.
      Stories built around the hero myth have an appeal that can be felt by everyone because they spring from the universal concerns of Jung's collective unconscious. These timeless stories deal with what appear to be child-like universal questions: Who am I ? Where did I come from ? Where will I go when I die ? What is good and what is evil ? What must I do about it ? What will tomorrow be like ? Is there anybody else out there ?
      Professor Campbell has created a mythological and metaphoric landscape and roadmap that has guided my work for the past three decades; as I searched for ways to bring Joseph Campbell's mind and wisdom into my career therapy sessions. As you focus on the heroic nature of your career journey, from the world of education to the world of work, you need to discover that your own heroic path begins with and is vested in your self-awareness and inner transformation. In other words, you need to continually tap into your abilities to reflect and learn from your experiences within an experiential context that enables you to receive, discover, and create new truths for yourself.
      The essence of all mythology is found in the theme of the visionary quest, the seeker follows her dream as she travels the journey of transformation. You live in a dramatic time of personal, professional, and societal transformation. You are actively engaged in moving from a self-identity, largely determined by your parents, extended family, teachers, coaches, and advisors, to a world where you are responsible to discover and actualize the value of your own independent experience, and how that independence contributes to the communal good.

"The heroic quest is about saying 'yes' to yourself and in so, becoming more fully alive and more effective in the world...The quest is replete with dangers and pitfalls, but it offers great rewards: the capacity to be successful in the world, knowledge of the mysteries of the human soul, and the opportunity to find and express your unique gifts in the world."
--Carol S. Pearson, Awakening the Heroes Within

      Professor Campbell and Carol Pearson bring to life this universal human story, told in virtually every culture, of a young person who leaves the security to venture into the world. Along the journey, the hero encounters challenges, discovers the meaning of the journey and returns home transformed. In the THE HERO with A THOUSAND FACES, Professor Campbell outlines the twelve stages of the heroic journey as it appears within the myths and legends of a wide range of world cultures, more about these stages in the next blog. Metaphoric stages that can provide you with a vivid and creative expanded awareness of the ever-present challenges you face in your quest to be the best you can be. Check next week's blog as the heroic journey is described.
      Every story-teller bends the myth to her or his own purpose. That's why the hero has a thousand faces:

The Stages of the Hero's Journey

• Ordinary World
• Call to Adventure
• Refusal of the Call
• Meeting with The Mentor
• Crossing the Threshold
• Tests, Allies, and Enemies
• Approach to the Inmost Cave
• The Ordeal
• The Reward
• The Road Back
• Resurrection
• Return with The Elixir

THE HEROIC CAREER JOURNEY CONTINUES IN BLOG 15.......

Bernie's Blog Week 13: Fordham Futures: Critical Thinking

December 18th 2006, Time magazine printed a special issue titled " How to Build a Student for the 21st Century". Time editors declared that to be effective in the 21st century students must think their way through abstract problems, be able to work in teams, recognize good information from bad, be multilingual, and globally sensitive.
In addition students must...
- be critical thinkers
- be problem solvers
- be innovators
- be effective communicators
- be self-directed learners
- be information and media literate
- be globally aware
- be civically engaged
- be financial and economically literate.

      Critical thinking dates back to the days of Socrates [470-399 BC]. The Socratic method focuses on asking the student thought provoking questions. Through questions and answers the teacher guides the student through a critical thinking experience. A process that allows you to examine your beliefs for the purpose of enhancing your understanding and problem-solving abilities.
      A skilled Socratic teacher guides the student's thought process through proper questioning, assisting you in critically evaluating and restructuring your beliefs and knowledge, as you build your confidence and your curiosity. Two elements essential to becoming a critical thinker. Critical thinking can only happen for you if you are motivated and challenged to engage in higher-level thought.
      Critical thinking has its genesis in a rational, logical, and philosophical cognitive thought process that can be taught and studied. Metaphysics and epistemology are the two branches of philosophy that inform and inspire the critical thinking involved in your internal and external career conversations.
      Career metaphysics will assist you in understanding the big pictures that connect your own creative career exploration with the connectivity of a highly complex and competitive world of work. You need to remember that all 'career metaphysicists' share two foundational psychological predispositions: first, a passion for unity, and second, a belief in the hidden harmony of the universe. Career epistemology serves as your unique perspective as you look to discover "...how you know what you know", an invaluable awareness in an economy where you will be thinking for a living.
      Critical thinking is driven by your desire for knowledge acquisition and action. You observe, experience, reflect, reason, and communicate a process that actively and skillfully conceptualizes, applies, analyzes, synthesizes, and evaluates information and knowledge. Critical thinking is the art of cognitively bringing together the content and context; the theory and the practice; and the action and the reflection.
      Critical thinking needs to be experiential and surrounded by feedback in a quest for understanding how things work and how systems can be improved. A critical thinker takes the time and effort to learn from your experiences. Reflection is an important tool in your critical thinker's cognitive repertoire. Some of the benefits of critical thinking include the promotion of creativity, the better expression of ideas, an enhanced ability in self-reflection, and the cultivation of flexible intellectual skills that you can apply to different areas of your life.
      Professor Peter Facione of the American Philosophical Association led a research group of forty-six experts, from the fields of humanities, physical sciences, social sciences, and education, in determining core critical thinking skills. The experts concluded that there were six core critical thinking skills:

• Inference: To identify and secure elements needed to draw reasonable conclusions; to form conjectures and hypotheses; to consider relevant information; as well as, the consequences flowing from data, statements, principles, evidence, judgments, beliefs, opinions, concepts, descriptions, questions, or other forms of representation.
• Explanation: To state the results of one's reasoning, to justify that reasoning in terms of the evidence, conceptual, methodological, criteria, and contextual considerations upon which one's results were based, and to present one's reasoning in the form of cogent arguments.
• Evaluation: To assess the creditability of statements or other representations which are accounts or descriptions of a person's perspective, experience, situational judgment, belief, or opinion, and to assess the logical strength of the actual or intended inferential relationships among statements, descriptions, questions, or other forms of representation.
• Self-Regulation: Self-consciously to monitor one's cognitive activities, the elements used in those activities, and the results facilitated, particularly by applying skills in analysis and evaluation to one's own inferential judgments, with a view toward questioning, validating, or correcting either one's reasoning or one's results.
• Interpretation: To comprehend and express the meaning or significance of a wide variety of experiences, situations, data, events, judgments, connections, beliefs, rules, procedures, or criteria.
• Analysis: To identify the intended and actual inferential relationships among statements, questions, concepts, descriptions, or other forms of representation intended to express belief, judgment, experiences, reasons, information, or opinions.

      Critical thinking is not an isolated goal unrelated to other important goals in education. Rather it is a seminal goal which when done well facilitates a wide spectrum of possibilities and opportunities. It is best conceived as a cognitive epicenter around which all other educational questions and answers gather.
      As you learn to think more critically you become more proficient at historical, scientific, and mathematical thinking. You will develop skills, abilities, and values crucial to success in everyday life. As you realize and actualize your critical thinking, you will begin to understand that your career is created by your own choices. Also, you will discover that your career will emerge from a personal restless curiosity that focuses on the interplay and the integration of your experience within the context of the world of work.

Bernie's Blog Week 12: Fordham Futures: Listening

     From the Latin, ob audine to listen means to reach out. Therefore, to listen is a response to some outer stimulation to your senses which integrates this new information within the parameters of your inner world. You need to listen in order to be aware of your experience. Listening is very rarely taught in your classes, you sometimes take it for granted as an ability that develops in a unique personal fashion. There is nothing natural about listening, it is an ability that needs to be nurtured and exercised. How you listen to the world around you is as original as your fingerprints.
      During the first ten years of your life you were engaged in a continuous dance between your inner world and the outer world that surrounds your experience. Your senses connect you everything you encounter. As adults, you later learn the skills of centering and focusing, however, as a child you extend and reach out into the world around you with a rhythmic process of experimentation. Consequently, you need to develop the art of being able to observe your abilities to respond to tone, rhythm, movement, music, and language.
      As you enhance your listening abilities you expand the boundaries of your abilities to expand your learning potential. Attentive, effective, and profound listening skills will truly empower your lifelong learning abilities. Your journey from listening to lifelong learning begins with the attainment and development of attentive listening skills and the creation of inner speech and inner listening. Every aspect of your life offers you with the opportunity to listen and learn in an endless journey of discovery and celebration.
      As you listen you are responding, and the first voice you hear is your own inner speech. Inner speech is an internal process through which you hear yourself think and listen, which enables you to use language to regulate your behavior, your reasoning, and your high level cognitive thought process. As your inner voice emerges, it gains strength and clarity building a bridge between your inner and outer worlds. Action, reflection, and reasoning become lifelong experiences of living and learning.
      You need to develop a continuous intention toward your attention. You need to have confidence in your concentration and concentration in your confidence. You need to empower your attentive listening, or risk the possibility that knowledge will become only logical facts.
      Albert Einstein believed, "Knowledge is experience; everything else is just information." Einstein was not a good student in school. At age fifteen, he left school with poor grades in history, english, and geography. For Einstein, the most important classroom was the world in which he lived. There he explored, listened, and experienced his discovery of new connections and paradigms. Einstein lived by three simple rules of work: "Out of clutter, find simplicity." "From discord, find harmony." And, "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
      You listen more attentively when you feel that topical information creates meaning. Attentive listening naturally effects changes within your mind-body relationship. You listen with more attention when you feel that a change will be effected and that you are in some way responsible for the change.
      The intention and focus you hold in learning determines whether you are listening or merely hearing. When you listen only with the intention of being able to replay information for a test you may only hear and register the words. When you listen with the intention of effecting curiosity and discovery, or utilizing information in a creative process, you listen with insight, empowerment, and engagement. The more senses you use the deeper the listening the greater the learning.
      Inner listening plays a critical role in your creative understanding of preparation, illumination, and actualization of your experience. Your experience of inner listening regularly provides you with a sense of joy and accomplishment. Your personal discoveries inspire a contagious appreciation of learning that leads to more learning.
Attentive inner listening can be practiced in any aspect of learning and living: math problems, poetry, painting, music, historical events, and athletic experiences. All these activities can be engaged and listened to with your senses, your mind, your body, and your emotions.
      Attentive listening plays a critical role in preparing for and participating in information gathering, networking, and employment interviews. Listening to yourself and others enables, empowers, and informs your ability to fill the space that exists between performance and the description of performance. Prior to your interview, you need to specifically prepare yourself to be able to describe how your skills and abilities potentially fill the needs of a particular employer. Your assignment as an interviewee is to develop an active interview dialogue that builds an equality of communication between both interviewer and interviewee.
      In order to effectively prepare for your interview experiences you need to listen, first to your self, then to others, and finally to the world in which you live and work. However, before you can learn to listen you need to know what gets in the way of your listening. In order to understand what gets in the way of your listening, you need to pay attention to your senses. Your senses are constantly taking in information, twenty-four seven, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. As you manage this constant flow of information, and in an effort to keep yourself sane, you delete, distort, and generalize this information in order to make sense of your world.
      Failure to effectively manage this mountain of sensory effects you life on many cognitive, emotional, psychological, spiritual, and physical levels. For the past three decades, I have been utilizing and adapting the work of Matthew McKay, Martha Davis, and Patrick Fanning in teaching Fordham students about 'Blocks to Listening' as described in their text: Messages: The Communications Book.

Blocks to Listening:

1. Comparing - makes it hard to listen because you're always trying to assess who is smarter, more competent, more emotionally healthy - you or the other. While someone is talking, you think to yourself: 'Could I do it that well? You can't let much in because you're too busy seeing if you measure up.
2. Mind Reading - the mind reader doesn't pay much attention to what people say. Your trying to figure out what the other person is really thinking and feeling. The mind reader pays less attention to words than to intonations and subtle cues in an effort to see the truth. If you are a mind reader you probably make assumptions about how people react to you. These notions are born of intuition, hunches, and vague misgivings, and have little to do with what the person actually says to you.
3. Rehearsing - you don't have time to listen when your rehearsing what to say. Your whole attention is on the preparation and crafting of your next comment. You may look interested, and your mind is going a mile a minute because you have a story to tell, or a point to make.
4. Filtering - when you filter, you listen to some things and not others. You filter your listening to see if somebody's angry, or unhappy, or if you are in danger. Once assured that the communication contains none of those things, you let your mind wander. Another way people filter is simply to avoid hearing certain things - particularly anything threatening, negative, critical, or unpleasant. It's as if the words were never said, you simply have no memory of them.
5. Judging - if you prejudge someone, you don't pay much attention to what they are saying. You've already written them off, as negative labels have enormous power. A basic rule of listening is that judgments should only be made after you have heard and evaluated the content of the message.
6. Dreaming - you find yourself only half-listening, and something the person says suddenly triggers a chain of private associations. You are more prone to dreaming when you feel bored or anxious. Everybody dreams, and sometimes it takes great focus to stay tuned in. And if you dream a lot with certain people, it may indicate a lack of commitment to knowing and appreciating them. At the very least, it's a message that you don't value what they have to say very much.
7. Identifying - is all about you taking everything a person tells you and you refer and relate it back to your experience. Everything you hear reminds you of something that you've experienced before. Consequently, you launch into your story before they finish theirs. In this block, you are so busy with the stories of your life that there's no time to really hear or get to connect with the other person.
8. Advising - you view yourself as a great problem-solver always ready to help with insight and suggestions. Consequently, you believe that you don't have to hear more than a few sentences before you begin to search for the correct advice. However, while you are thinking about possible responses you may miss what's most important. You can miss the feelings and emotions associated with the stated problem or situation, thereby, ignoring the speaker because you wouldn't listen and just be there for the other.
9. Sparring - this block is all about arguing and debating with other people. The other person never feels heard because you are so quick to disagree. Actually, a lot of your focus is on finding things to disagree with. You take strong stands and are very clear about your beliefs and preferences. The way to avoid sparring is to repeat back and acknowledge what you've heard. Look for one thing you might agree with.
10. Being Right - means you will go to any lengths [twist the facts, start shouting, making excuses or accusations] to avoid being wrong. You can't listen to criticism, you can't be corrected, and you refuse to take suggestions to change. Your convictions are unshakable. And since you won't acknowledge that your mistakes are mistakes, you continue to make them.
11. Derailing - this listening block is realized by suddenly changing the subject. You derail the train of conversation when you get bored or uncomfortable with a topic. Humor is another way of derailing by joking it off. This means that you continually respond to whatever is said with a joke in order to avoid what you perceive as anxiety by seriously listening to the other person.
12. Placating - "Right...Right...Absolutely ... I know...Of course you are...Incredible...Yes...Really?" You want to be nice, pleasant, and supportive. You want people to like you. So you agree with everything. You may half-listen, just enough to get the drift, and you're not really involved. You are placating rather than paying attention and examining what's being said.

Bernie's Blog Week 11: Fordham Futures: Qualitative Interviewing

"In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech."
Stephen King 2000
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

     In 1991, after six years of creating, developing, and implementing an undergraduate interview training program, I began to realize that the deck was stacked against interviewees, as they participated in an adversarial process called interviewing, where the conversation was controlled by the interviewer, with no or little interest in assisting the applicant through the process. Rather than viewing the interview as a selection process, interviewers' primary focus,during the interview, is to evaluate, investigate, assess, and eventually eliminate the applicant from the pool of candidates. In other words, they want you to believe that you are participating in a selection process, while, at the same time, working hard to find ways to eliminate applicants.
      When asked if they enjoy their work, the research overwhelming shows that most Americans respond in the negative, depending on the survey, anywhere from 70 to 85%, state that they do not enjoy their work, and this number is currently expanding as more individuals realize that they are underemployed. Maybe, an interview process vested in evaluation, assessment, and elimination plays a roll in America's unhappiness at work, an interview style that is too quick to eliminate candidates too early in the process. In response to these adversarial mindsets and attitudes, I expanded the interview training menu and created a Qualitative Interview approach to these critical conversations. For the past twenty-five years, I have counseled and instructed Fordham students about interviews and interviewing using this model.
      Qualitative Interviewing looks to revolutionize the interview process and turn what has forever been a process of elimination into a selection process centered on creating a positive collaborative conversation that focuses on the candidate's strengths, possibilities, and opportunities. The interview, whether it be for employment or networking, is the most overlooked and misunderstood business communication within the world of work. If interviews are viewed and assessed, by both the candidate and the employer, as the most critical part of the selection process then why are interviews filled with evaluative and investigative rhetoric designed to eliminate candidates.
      Let's be candid, no one involved in an employment interview really wants to be there. Not the interviewees, who like most of us, are always more comfortable at displaying and performing our skills, then we are at describing our experience to others. Not the interviewers, who would much rather observe candidates working as interns, or watching videos of their performances, then asking questions about their past experiences. It is this inability to perform during an interview that causes much of the anxiety for individuals on both sides of the conversation.
      Most interviewees fail to get the job because of a breakdown in communication, either, the candidate lacks the preparation and expertise to tell their story, or the interviewer is not engaging or creative enough to select the best candidate. Interviewees should not expect the interviewer to help them tell their story. You would hope that interviewers were more interested in assisting interviewees tell their story during interviews. However, this lack of assistance needs to serve as motivation for interviewees to develop and deliver well thought out interview presentations that tell their whole story. You need to acquire a mastery of the interview if you are to effectively and persuasively tell your story.
      Consequently, the dominant psychology of the interview is vested and centered in employers viewing themselves as experts in personnel selection. Employers adopt this narrow misperception mainly because they have had more interviewing experience and more time within their organization. Most interviewees want to believe that the psychology that underlies and pervades the interview is all about selection, when in reality, it is all about evaluation, judgment, and elimination.
      Individuals assume that if they present their qualifications in a reasoned and polite manner, and if they manage to impress the interviewer, with their experience and accomplishments, they will get the job. The applicant who best understands the psychology of the interview, and prepares the best interview presentation has the best chance to close the deal.
       If you are to turn the psychology of interviewing in your favor, you need to take the offensive. Instead of approaching the interview with the attitude that you are asking for something, you need to assume the interview posture of having something valuable to market. In other words, you seek to meet the interviewer on equal psychological footing, continually, utilizing your awareness, preparation, and presentation in understanding and articulating the importance of interview practice and preparation.
      The wise interviewee knows that self-esteem is crucial in all elements of performance and presentation, and she or he knows that unless they hold themselves in high esteem others will not. Many applicants approach the interview with a defensive attitude. They sense that the employer has the upper hand resulting in a defensive attitude on their part, a defensive attitude that generally results in 'overcompensating' - bringing a know-it-all attitude to the interview; taking a 'desperate position', that you will take the job at any price; and finally, an 'obsequious approach', where you are too anxious to please.
      The primary goal and mission of Qualitative Interviewing is for all participants, both interviewers and interviewees, to play an active role in the creation of a collaborative, qualitative, interview conversation. Interviewees are trained to come to the interview prepared to deliver a presentation that engages and informs the interviewer. Not a memorized script, but rather a memorized outline that leads to a positive and progressive dialogue that flows into a conversation that evolves into an equality of communication between interviewer and interviewee. Interviewees need to create visual images in the interviewer's mind's eye that clearly reflects their actual experience.
      Qualitative interviewing is inspired, humanized, and informed by the vision of family therapist Virginia Satir's HVPM. Virginia's model identifies the path of your interview journey, as seen by both the interviewer and interviewee. Satir's model begins as a social human connection that quickly evolves into the 'creative crucible of chaos' that serves as a qualitative incubator needed for effective integration. From contact to chaos to integration, Professor Satir lights a clear path of working assumptions that surround all involved in the interview with a qualitative cocoon of cooperation and collaboration:

     Making Contact: All interview participants need to establish trust and enlist hope as ways of creating a qualitative communication environment that inspires all involved to take risks. In order to make effective contact during the initial stages of the interview the interviewer needs to display direction, knowledge, and comfort. Interviewers need to create a safe climate in which interviewees need not worry about the consequences of their descriptions, expressions, and revelations in an atmosphere that is free of intimidation and rich with trust.
      Self-awareness, on both sides of the interview, is the key ingredient needed to connect. Awareness of self, as well as, awareness of their interaction and interconnectedness during the interview, works as the qualitative fluid that lubricates the collaboration between interviewer and interviewee. Developing mutual respect and understanding is facilitated by an expression of hopeful expectations throughout the interview, rather than a search for problems and negativity. There is nothing to loss, and everything to gain by being inspired by a restless search for the positive. Qualitative interviewing wants to move from an interview experience filled with implicit ideas and understandings to a more explicit understanding of ideas and feelings, merging two perspectives into a focused view of the interview equation.
     Chaos: Qualitative interviewing is designed to directly address the general confusion and disorder associated with the interview process. During most interviews, interviewees are unable to perform the skills and abilities that they need to describe as part of telling their story. Interviewees need to create a visual presentation of their past, present, and future performances for the interviewer.
      Qualitative interviews involve mutual dependency and vulnerability in order to succeed. Because interviewees are unable to rely on displaying their skills and abilities they need to access their descriptive abilities to tell their stories. Only actors applying for a role or part in a production enjoy the luxury of performing during an interview as they display their acting expertise for the interviewer.
      Qualitative interviewing challenges the interviewer to do the unspeakable, which is to assist the interviewee during the interviewer. Qualitative interviewers need to only ask questions that are designed and directed at discovering what makes each candidate unique and special and a perfect fit for the opportunity, adopting a cooperative [rather than a evaluative or dismissive] interview posture and approach.
      When chaos occurs in an interview it is characterized by a feeling of paralysis and hopelessness that restricts the interviewee's ability to move backward and forward within and throughout the interview. Qualitative interviewing looks to develop a therapeutic alliance between interviewer and interviewee, a healing approach that brings out the best in both individuals. Interviewers need to be more interested in gathering as much positive information as possible.
      When qualitative interviewing works best both the interviewer and interviewee are actively engaged in the present, merging the past and the future, a qualitative dialogue designed to assist all interview participants. Empathy and patience need to be always present in an effort to find another connection, another channel, or another bridge that facilitates the creation of a qualitative employment conversation. During this period of chaos, flexibility and the ability to adapt serve as the most powerful tools available to the qualitative interviewer, as she or he utilizes a wide array of methods and modalities in order to assist in the creation of an atmosphere and environment vested in collaboration and cooperation.

     Integration: Interview integration evolves and occurs as a search for quality continues throughout the interview. In order for interview integration to expand both the interviewer and interviewee need to develop an atmosphere of trust, mutual understanding, and the willingness to take risks. The art of qualitative interviewing is in maintaining a balance between the direction that the interview is moving and any new issues that emerge throughout the interview. Qualitative interviewing is designed to weave a fabric of connectivity and communication that brings together ideas, concepts, interests, and values.
Qualitative interviewing is fueled by a relentless pursuit of the positive. Always looking for ways to hire individuals, rather than looking for ways to eliminate candidates, as expressed in the following principles:

• Qualitative Interviewing looks to foster an atmosphere of empathy and recognition through the creation of a positive dialogue; rather than measuring individuals on what they say or don't say.
• Qualitative interviewing transforms the interview from an evaluative process into a process of exploration and discovery, searching and seeking quality everywhere, a restless curiosity.
• Qualitative interviewing seeks to create quality conversations filled with 'wonder', 'freedom', and 'commitment'.
• Qualitative interviewing requires interviewers to take a positive leadership role in the interview, encouraged to alter their contextual control, while constantly looking for ways to enhance the interviewee's interview content in a progressive direction.
• Qualitative interviewing assumes that all interviewees possess the skills and abilities needed to fill a potential employer's needs.
• Qualitative interviewing needs to serve as a constant search for the unique treasures that are within each of us. Relevant similarities that lead to effective connectivity need to be discovered throughout the interview experience.
• Qualitative interviewing needs to be less about 'Why?' And more about 'What?', 'How?', 'When?', and with 'Whom?'.
• Qualitative interviewing challenges interviewers to seek a positive and fearless exchange of ideas, questions, and solutions.

      Qualitative Interviewing is a call for cooperation and balance within the interview process, it's all about creating an environment and atmosphere of equality between interviewee and interviewer. Both participants building a communications bridge in the co-creation of a positive qualitative interview conversation. Qualitative interviewing is fueled by a positive mindset that relentlessly pursues faith, hope and optimism in the creation of an atmosphere and environment of respect, receptivity, and recognition among all interview participants.
Qualitative interviewing looks to create connections and expand horizons through a communication process centered in cooperation, collaboration, and consideration. This approach is most effective when the interview relationship and environment are fully integrated into a diagnostic journey of discovering and creating connections.
      Qualitative interviews are focused on growth, change, and transformation, as both interviewers and interviewees recognize that they possess the necessary resources needed to succeed in a qualitative interviewing environment. In other words, both participants need to be able to identify their interviewing resources, discover how to access their resources, and learn how to utilize their resources in an effort to connect the applicant with the right opportunity.
      Qualitative interviewing needs to be holistic and integrative with a focus on the twenty-first century realities that all interviewees are performers. At this stage in your life, when you are assigned a task, after completion, you evaluate the experience first, then someone else [teacher, parent, employer] evaluates the performance, and then you move on to your next assignment. Usually, you don't spend anytime speaking about your past performances, there is never enough time, and quite frankly, no one is interested.
      We live in a society where performance rules. Where action speaks louder than words. Think about someone you know, (or someone you used to know) who did nothing but talk about themselves nonstop. Also, as a society, we are much more interested in performance than describing performance, especially, if we are interested in improving our performance.
As interviewees, you need to create a visual, auditory, and performance based description of your past experiences. As you describe this cognitive images to the interviewer they begin to serve as descriptive foundations that articulate, support, and structure your interview presentations. For each interview, you need to create a unique individual presentation, formed within your own set of explanatory, evocative, and illustrative parameters.
Your actions and your activities are the most specific and direct form of communication at your disposal. Consequently, you suffer from severe performance limitations that exist in all performance descriptions. Being unable to perform specifically restricts your interview presentation, and at the same time your performance descriptions need to be as specific as possible.
      Specific details facilitate the creation of a visual picture in the interviewer's mind's eye. Through specific descriptions you bring your past experiences into the 'here and now' of the interview. You need to describe your experience to a potential employer in the form of a specific comprehensive qualitative interview presentation. Specific and detailed preparation are the keys to great interviews. You need to develop a clear idea of the type of position you are seeking and be able to indicate your suitability for the opportunity. You need to identify, clarify, and describe your interests, values, skills, and abilities. Being able to articulate your message successfully is typically the difference between excellent and poor interview presentations. When you are asked to describe your experiences you need to avoid generalizations and personal discounts, you need not bring any negativity into the interview experience. You need to be prepared specifically, and specifically prepared to succeed in the art of interviewing.
      Most of the time, your performances occur in a specific direct fashion, while descriptions of your performances are sometimes vague and general. In order for successful interviewing to occur you need to be descriptively precise.

Bernie's Blog Week 10: Fordham Futures: Interviewing 1

     "The first step on stage is an unusual feeling. I"m not sure I can connect it to other people's lives outside of perhaps taking a driver's test. You really want that license. The feeling in your gut means you're sober - and that's good. It also means that something is at stake, something that matters. You're taking a risk, which is the essence of all live performance. It's not an entirely comfortable feeling, but it's a necessary one. It happens every time, and it tends to stop the minute I put my hands on any instrument. Part of that risk is, part of what I'm searching for from the moment I put my foot on stage, until I walk off, is the invisible thread of energy and inspiration or soul of whatever you want to call it that is going to take me to that place where a song can explode to life. That thread is between me and the audience every night. Always. I've got to grab it out of the air and physicalize it into something they can hear."
     In this 2005 Esquire Magazine interview, Bruce Springsteen outlines the emotional context, and the specific emotions he experiences prior to taking the stage. His descriptions provides us with a perfect emotional metaphor for what every interviewee experiences prior to telling their story in theirs interview.
     His driver's license analogy is spot on, as he connects each of us to a shared human experience that fills our "gut" with the importance of the moment where "...something is at stake". However, where I would respectfully disagree with Mr. Springsteen is in my belief that such anxiety and uncertainty is more widely apparent in all our lives, and exists for everyone who has ever participated in an interview that meant something to them.
     Certainly, Mr. Springsteen's experience differs in that he is about to perform to literally thousands of audience members who hold high expectations of what his performance should be. And at the same time he is able to channel his emotions once "...the minute I put my hands on any instrument", easing his anxiety and managing his uncertainty.
     The question all interviewees need to ask themselves is how do they ease their anxiety and manage their uncertainty ? The simple answer is that interviewees need be aware, prepared, and ready to present. In other words, you ease your anxiety and manage your uncertainty through your specific understanding and awareness of your career plan, your career preparation, and the power and promise of your interview presentation.
     Mr. Springsteen's search for "...the invisible thread of energy and inspiration or soul." that connects him to his audience and is always out there each time he performs takes him to a higher level of performance and "...to that place where a song can explode to life." This inspirational thread exists and is available to all interviewers and interviewees in all interviews where "...something is at stake".
     Unlike Mr. Springsteen, you are unable to display your values, interests, skills and abilities through your performance in an interview; rather, your interview presentation becomes a description of your previous and future performances. There in lies the trauma, the terror, and the frustration of all interviewees, their inability to perform during the interview. This performance frustration is also shared by interviewers, who would much rather watch perspective candidates perform, than rather listen to their performance descriptions. It's not a coincidence that a high percentage of students who participate in internships are offered full time employment, employers get to view their performance and are able to make better informed and more effective employment decisions.
     A big part of our mission in Career Services is to help Fordham students tell their stories, filling the space that exists between their performances and a description of their performances. Interviews are the venues where these stories are told; whether they are employment interviews, informational interviews, or networking interviews, it's all about the story. No where is the need for interview planning and preparation more evident than in the most popular interview question.
     "Could you tell me a little bit about yourself ?". It is the best question if you have done your homework and are fully prepared for the interview, and it is the worst question if you are not prepared. You know you are prepared when you have confidence in your concentration; and concentration in your confidence as you approach the interview.
     When I have interview follow-up conversations with Fordham students, one consist theme that most of them share is that they do a great job researching and preparing for the organization that they are interviewing with, and only spend a minimum about of time preparing and practicing their personal presentation. All of our counselors in Career Services are not surprised by this shortfall in interview preparation , because we understand the dynamics that exist between performance and the description of performance. Consequently, we have designed and developed our interview training programs and experiences to focus on the importance of specifically detailing your 'unique story' for the interview.
     As interviewees, you need to create a visual, auditory, and performance based description of your past and future experiences. As you describe these cognitive images to the interviewer they need to serve as descriptive foundations that articulate, support, and structure your interview presentations. For each interview, you need to create a unique presentation that is formed within your own set of explanatory, evocative, and illustrative parameters. In other words, the context of your interview presentation may only slightly vary from interview to interview, and at the same time, the content of your interview presentation will dynamically change from interview to interview.
     Specific preparation for your interview presentation is the key to great interviews. You need to develop a clear understanding of the opportunity you are interested in and be able to articulate and indicate how you are a perfect fit for the job. You need to identify, clarify, and describe your values, interests, skills and abilities. Being able to articulate your message successfully is often the difference between good and bad interview presentations. You need to be prepared specifically and specifically prepared to succeed in the art of interviewing.
     Remember, you are a performer and given a task to complete, at this stage of your life, you evaluate your performance first, someone else evaluates it [teacher, boss, or peer] and you move on to your next performance. During your interview, it is imperative that you describe your past and future performances in as specific a fashion as possible, avoiding generalizations and personal discounts.
     In other words, your performances occur in real time and are specific and direct, when you describe your performance you are one step removed from the experience. Consequently, your performance descriptions can sometimes be both vague and too general, being descriptively specific in describing your performance is exactly what great 'interviewing' is all about. In order for successful interviewing to occur you need to be as specific as possible in describing your experience with an ever-present attention to detail.
     Control of the interview is equally divided, with the interviewers in total control of the context, while, interviewees are in total control of the content. Interviewers set the time and location, and facilitate the flow of the context through the questions they ask. Essentially, the interviewee has 'total control' of the content, you are free to say whatever you wish, how you respond to an interviewer's questions is your choice.
     Since you are unable to display you skills and abilities during the interview you need to prepare specific detailed descriptions of your experiences. If one of your skills is that you are 'organized' it is impossible to display your organizational skills during the interview. I guess that if the interviewer's office was a bit messy you could offer to organize it more effectively right there during the interview. However, I feel rapport would immediately fly out the window, if you took such an action. It is however possible for you to specifically describe how you organize, and what you have specifically organized. You need to craft a vivid picture of your experience for the interviewer. It is essential that you know what you want to tell the interviewer.
     Your career awareness, career preparation, and career presentation serve as the foundation for all successful interviews. You need to develop clear sensory channels of communication that engage and empower your ideas, details, and descriptions. Breakthroughs occur in interviews when the interviewer concludes that what she or he is hearing is a blend of the candidate's excellent performance descriptions about their experiences and accomplishments, that, also, identifies and articulates the interviewee's personal qualities and capabilities that they will bring to the company.
     The best applicant often fails to get the job because of a breakdown in interview communication. Either, the interviewee lacks the preparation and expertise needed to tell her or his story properly, or, the interviewer fails to either listen or ask the proper questions. Interviewees should not expect any assistance from the interviewer in telling their stories. You need to acquire the ability to master the interview, in other words, you need to become 'one' with the interview in order to effectively and persuasively tell your story.
     Employers approach the interview viewing themselves as experts in personnel selection. Nothing could be further from the truth, most interviewees want to believe that the psychology that underlies and pervades the interview is all about selection. When in reality, it is all about evaluation and elimination. The interviewee who best understands this elimination mentality, and at the same time prepares a great interview presentation has the best shot of closing the deal.
     If you are to turn the psychology of the interview in your favor, you must take the offensive. Instead of approaching the interview with an attitude that you are asking for something, you need to assume the posture and a vocabulary that you are there because you have something valuable to offer.
The employment selection process in the world of work, surprisingly, is one of the most poorly planned and ineffectively executed processes within the business cycle. One would think that the selection process would be carefully planned and deliberate process, and often, it is not. The interviewer has the added pressure of marketing the opportunity to the interviewee as part of his or her's interview presentation. When you begin to realize that there are equal pressures on you and the interviewer, and when adopt the mindset that the employer will have to sell you on the opportunity, the scales start to tilt in your favor. The interviewer knows that good applicants are relaxed, they possess self-command, and they are confident.
     The psychology involved here, is that you are reversing one of the interviewer's tenets - putting the applicant at ease. You are reducing the pressure on the interviewer by projecting the very qualities she or he is looking for. The interview balance normalizes when you avoid pressure on yourself and at the same time mitigate the pressure on the employer.
     When you take the offensive, the employer gladly presents the contextual upper hand to you. She wants you to lead the interview and to ask the appropriate questions. The interviewer wants you to succeed in your interview once you have established interview credibility. For when she finds the applicant who appears qualified and who effectively handles the interview, she is elated. The interviewer will offer you the opportunity you have been waiting for - the chance to sell yourself, and he or she is anxious to buy.

Bernie's Blog Week 9: Fordham Futures: Multiple Intelligences

     Within the knowledge, idea, and concept economic realities of the 21st century world of work, where you will think for a living you need to continually validate your beliefs about how you think and learn effectively. You need to recognize that many of the talents you possess qualify as intelligent behaviors. Your intelligences are realized by responding successfully to new situations and your capacity to learn from your past experiences. Intelligence relies on the context, the tasks and the demands that you experience in your life, and not an IQ score, a college degree, or a prestigious reputation.
     In 1979, Harvard professor Howard Gardner was commissioned by a Dutch philanthropic group, Bernard Van Leer Foundation, to investigate human potential. This opportunity served as the genesis for Professor Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, beautifully presented in his 1983 publication of Frames of Mind, ringing in the birth of multiple intelligence theory, and he added the last two in Intelligence Reframed in 1999. Professor Gardner's multiple intelligences theory challenged traditional beliefs in the fields of education and cognitive science. Adhering to a traditional definition, intelligence is a uniform cognitive capacity people are born with. This capacity can be easily measured by short-answer tests.
     Howard Gardner believes that our concept of intelligences is far too limiting, he defines intelligence as the ability to find and solve problems and create products of value in one's own culture. He continually expands what it means to be smart. And he believes that humans possess not one, but nine distinct forms of intelligence, and he further believes that there may be many more forms of intelligence yet to be identified.
     Professor Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences differs from most other human potential approaches in that it is supported by current research in neuropsychology, psychological testing, and child development, as well as, cross-cultural studies and biographical accounts of exceptional scientists, musicians, and other skilled individuals Gardner's model of nine intelligences provides each individual with a grounded and dynamic structure needed to design a unique full-spectrum learning environment.
     Professor Gardner believed that each individual possesses all nine intelligences, and that she or he strongly identifies with one or two of the intelligences. Each person has a unique way of emphasizing certain intelligences over others, and they need to appreciate their individual distinctions and differences as they tailor these unique approaches to each constellation of their learning abilities and learning needs.
     Multiple intelligences can be nurtured and strengthened, or ignored and weakened. Intelligences are located in different parts of the brain, and they can either work independently or in harmony. Intelligences always interact with one another, and they can be taught, grow, and change. Intelligences can be learned anytime throughout your lifetime, and there are very few people who develop only one intelligence, while their other intelligences trail behind. These individuals are the savants of the world. The majority of us live as individuals somewhere between being a self-actualized human being and an aspiring savant. We excel in a few intelligences, some intelligences that seem average, and other intelligences that we have difficulty with. Multiple intelligence theory celebrates and brings together a wide spectrum of human abilities into a ninefold system designed to bring the best out of each one of us.

The Nine Intelligences:

1. Visual/Spatial - individuals learn best visually and organize things spatially.
2. Verbal/Linguistic - individuals that demonstrate strength in the language arts, speaking, writing, reading and listening.
3. Mathematical/Logical - individuals who display an aptitude for numbers, reasoning, and problem-solving.
4. Bodily/Kinesthetic - individuals who experience learning best through activity, games, movement, hands-on tasks, and building.
5. Musical/Rhythmic - individuals who learn through songs, patterns, rhythms, instruments and musical expression.
6. Intrapersonal - individuals who are especially in touch with their feelings, values, and ideas.
7. Interpersonal - individuals who are people oriented and outgoing, and are effective learning in groups or with a partner.
8. Naturalist - individuals who love the outdoors, animals, and field trips. More than this though, these individuals love to pick-up on subtle differences in meanings.
9. Existential - individuals who learn in the context of where humanity stands in the 'big picture' of existence. They ask 'Why are we here?' and 'What is our role in the world?'

     In 2006, Professor Gardner shifts his conversation from a descriptive dialogue to a prescriptive conversation in his Five Minds For The Future. He engages his audience with a prescription for the future that details the kind of minds that you will need if you are to thrive in the world of work of the future. Professor Gardner reminds us that it is not ossicle for parts of the world to thrive while others remain desperately poor.
     Humans differ from other species in that we possess a history that has generated hundreds of of cultures and subcultures, consequently, Gardner draws equally on history, anthropology, and humanistic disciplines. With these Mindsets of the future people will be equipped to deal with what is expected and what is unexpected. Without these Mindsets individuals will be at the mercy of forces that can't be understood or controlled.
     The five minds are a disciplined mind, a synthesizing mind, a creating mind, a respectful mind, and an ethical mind:

1. Disciplined Mind - Employing the ways of thinking associated with major scholarly disciplines [history, math, science, etc.] and major professions [law, medicine, management, finance, etc., as well as crafts and trades]; capable of applying oneself diligently, improving steadily, and continuing beyond formal education as a lifetime learner.
2. Synthesizing Mind - Selecting crucial information from the copious amounts available; arraying that information in ways that make sense to self and others. Recognizing new information/skills that are important and then incorporating them into one's knowledge base and professional repertoire.
3. Creating Mind - Going beyond existing knowledge and syntheses to pose new questions, offer new solutions, fashion works that stretch existing genres or configure new ones; creation built on one or more established disciplines required to make judgments of quality and acceptability. Thinking outside the box, putting forth recommendations for new practices and products, explicating them, seeking endorsement and enactment, formulating and pursuing new visions.
4. Respectful Mind - Responding sympathetically and constructively to differences among individuals and among groups; seeking to understand and work with those who are different; extending beyond tolerance and political correctness. Working effectively with peers, supervisors, employees, irrespective of their backgrounds and status; developing the capacity for forgiveness.
5. Ethical Mind - Abstracting crucial features of one's role at work and one's role as a citizen and acting consistently with those conceptualizations; striving toward good work and good citizenship. Knowing the core values of one's profession and seeking to maintain them and pass them on, even at times of rapid and unpredictable change; with maturity, adopting the role of the trustee, who assumes stewardship of a domain and is willing to speak out even at personal cost; recognizing one's responsibilities as a citizen of one's community, region, nation, and world, and acting on those responsibilities.

Bernie's Blog Week 8: Fordham Futures: Career Epistemology

     It has been said that there are only two certainties in life, death and taxes. I would add a third. "That all twenty-first century Fordham graduates will be thinking for a living their entire lives." I believe this to be a non-negotiable proclamation. Only politicians seeking votes are actively promising the return of manufacturing jobs, there will be no manufacturing Renaissance in America. Robots and 3D printers will play a big part in how we make things moving forward, and the application and coordination of these computers will certainly involve thinking for a living.
     You are living in a time of chaotic and dramatic intergenerational demographic shifts. Not since the industrial revolution, when young people left their family farms to pursue manufacturing opportunities in urban centers across America, has our national economy experienced such uncertainty and ambiguity.
     Since the end of World War II, our economy has been evolving and revolving toward this idea, concept, knowledge economy that we find ourselves in today. From 1945 through 1975, the United States' economy operated as the most successful 'manufacturing monolith' in the history of the human experience. In 1945, we were the only industrial nation left on the planet, both our allies and enemies were decimated by the war. Ironically in 1975, it is the Japanese and German car industries, with smaller and more efficient cars, that begins the end of our global manufacturing dominance.
     Also in 1975, the microchip begins to enter the mainstream marketplace initiating what would become a full-blown 'knowledge economy'. A knowledge economy that has been growing for the last forty years, and with the arrival of algorithms, analytics, and 'big data' has developed into an idea and concept economy.
     Jeffrey Selingo in his 2016, There Is Life After College emphasizes that in our current and future liberal arts techno driven economies every job will be a tech job.
" Indeed the last decade has seen the rise of the 'digital humanities', a combination of classic humanities disciplines and computing. This has opened up new jobs and careers...in data visualization, digital mapping, and curating online collections. The same is true in journalism, where reporters who can manipulate massive databases to discover stories and illustrate anecdotes with solid statistics...Call it the new liberal arts, where digital awareness is just as important as rhetoric, writing, and critical thinking."
     Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which determines, 'How do we know what we know ?'. Epistemology is the study of the origin, processes, and validity of knowledge, beginning with questions of what we know and how we come to know what we think we know.
     My first introduction to epistemology came in 1977, through the work of anthropologist Gregory Bateson's text: Steps To An Ecology of Mind. Gregory Bateson, arguably one of the finest social scientists of the 20th century, devoted his life's work to the development of a global epistemology, which would identify an integrated account of the capabilities of all living things to assimilate, organize, and communicate information. To form his theory, Professor Bateson relied on a wide range of intellectual fields, from anthropology to electronics, from psychology to mechanics, and from biology to philosophy.
     Gregory Bateson was a synthetic thinker of the highest degree, possessed with the ability to detect and analyze pattern independent of substance. He was able to locate and extract patterns existing and operating within a wide range of systems. Professor Bateson provides you with an excellent example of how to identify and track patterns and ideas within the systems you encounter in your academic experiences as you navigate your careers through the highly competitive realities of the 21st century.
     Jesuit education and Bateson's theory begin with noticing a difference. The difference stimulates and provokes our minds to activity, and the energy for this activity comes from our physiology. Your next step is to recognize that these differences begin to generate differences between the differences in the form of communication. Communication loops fueled by recognizing the differences that stimulate your internal awarenesses and connections, as well as, direct interaction with the world of work as you develop your own career epistemology.
     Professor Bateson believed that his integration of concepts elicited from one branch of research would assist in expanding possibilities where solutions and ideas are derived from other branches of knowledge. Through this multi-layered integration, evolutionary change can be viewed as an individual learning experience that integrates objective viewpoints into a subjective perspective from which we are able to operate across different logical categories in search of more relevant patterns of knowledge.
     Effective individual career epistemology development embraces integration and continually searches for patterns that identify what you know and how you know it. Through this integration you discover that your career is part of the interconnected and interactive context of the world of work. As you search for the parts of your experience that help you form your individual career epistemology you need to examine your multiple levels of knowing, how you know what you know. You need to search for the primary differences and distinctions that define your experience. Once you have established and identified these 'distinctive differences' you can place yourself in a position to organize the patterns of your experience which will help pave the way to identifying and understanding your career epistemology.
     In order to respond to this continuous evolutionary integration you need to develop an adaptive design. Where form and function collapse into an essential unity at both the microscopic or macroscopic level, where you place your experience in the larger context of the world of work. You need a flexible and adaptive design that assists you in describing how you think, and how you act. Flexibility is essential to this design if you are to manage the interactions between the parts of the mind that are triggered by your discovery of the differences around you. It is these differences that are the essence of your experience.
     You are surrounded by the need for flexibility in the interconnected quantum realities of the 21st century. And if you are to swim in this quantum soup you need to find flexibility in as many places as possible. As a counselor, teacher, and student for the past forty years, I have seen flexibility and collaboration fuel an interdisciplinary evolution of the social and physical sciences into a comprehensive celebration of the liberal arts, this transforming learning and teaching into the most interconnected of experiences.
     "The challenging part is coming up with structures that have the element of looseness to them, which means they can expand in any direction, go anywhere from anywhere - or come from anywhere - but also, have enough form that we can lock into something". These words of guitar guru Jerry Garcia, as he describes what it is like to make music with his bandmates, mirrors the words of leadership guru Margaret Wheatley as she outlines her parameters of structure. " How do we create structures that move with change, that are flexible and adaptive, even boundaryless, that enable rather than constrain ? How do we simplify things without losing both control and differentiation."
     Ms. Wheatley and Mr. Garcia share an affinity for the creation of community through communication. And though their disciplines differ, their sense and understanding of the promise and power of flexibility in the creation and development of structures remains refreshingly similar. This flexibility enhances your awareness, your understanding, and your ability to discover your unique career epistemology, or in other words, how you know what you know.

Bernie's Blog Week 7: Fordham Futures: A Question of Values

     During the first six weeks of your freshman year on campus, either as a commuter or resident student, you were [are] involved in making more independent decisions than in the previous eighteen years of your life before your arrival to Fordham. Decisions that assist you in discovering the value of your independent existence, and how that independence contributes to the communal good.
      The value and values expressed in your academic, emotional, social, co-curricular, physical, and safety decisions could not be more eloquently expressed than by the words of University President Emeritus, Joseph A. O'Hare S.J. when commenting on the 9/11 tragedy: "We can learn...from the horrors of September 11th important lessons about the fragility of life and the resilience of the human spirit. We can recognize more vividly that each day is a gift full of promise, but we can never take the gift for granted. We can learn again that we must live in our particular moment of history and not retreat into wishful thinking about another time and another place. In other words, we must continue to grow in wisdom and learning about our world and our selves."
      You face the challenge of learning and working in a society and culture in turmoil and you live in a time of great transition. In such times, value conflict is ever-present and complex, and you will need to call upon your creative resources and forces, in both a prescriptive and descriptive manner, to assist in a societal resolution of this value-centric crisis. Your needs, goals, beliefs, attitudes, interests, or preferences are terms that are frequently confused with values. Values represent much more, as they are either explicit or implicit learned concepts of what you desire.
      You attend this great University during a time of great economic upheaval, as well as, during period of dramatic inter-generational transformation. At this critical time, you need to devote more time and intellectual capital in an attempt to define, organize,categorize, and study the personal value choices that you face each day. The study of values might once have been a matter of individual concerns in search of a just and honorable life. Now it is a collective human endeavor that calls each of us to search and seek a valued rich communal response.
      As human beings, you inform, expand, and synthesize your thoughts within a wide-range of cognitive perspectives as you engage in value and ethical decisions and judgments. Professor Hunter Lewis' "A Question of Values: Six Ways We Make Personal Choices" describes six profoundly different cognitive lenses through which you view the world. They are our ways of knowing and believing as you create a framework of complex and diverse human values. Professor Lewis provides you with an excellent vehicle for self-observation as you enhance and expand your self-awareness and self-understanding:

1. Authority - Taking someone else's word, having faith in an external authority. This is actually the most common way that we form our beliefs, and not merely as children, even as adults when we rely on 'experts' of all kinds.
2. Deductive Logic - Subjecting beliefs to a variety of consistency tests that underlie deductive reasoning. Deductive logic is first of all a way of thinking, believing, and knowing; second, a way of the thinking, believing, and knowing about values; third, a dominant value in itself, one that precedes and colors all the other value judgments that we make.
3. Sense Experience - Gaining direct knowledge through our five senses. When we speak of sense experience, we are referring to something narrower and more specific: the knowledge that we get directly by seeing,hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.
4. Emotion - Feeling that something is right. Although we do not usually associate feeling with thinking or judging, we actually think or judge through our emotions all the time. Value systems based on emotion are actually more constant than changing, more alike than unlike. In particular, they all share three features, corresponding to three basic emotional needs. First, they all focus on a particular group of people. Second, they all propound a particular way of life, or a particular way of organizing society. Third, they all require an emotional stimulus.
5. Intuition - Unconscious thinking that is not emotional. Hence most creative discoveries are intuitively derived, and only later dressed up by logic, observation, or some other conscious event.
6. Science - A synthetic technique that relies on sense experience to collect observable facts; intuition to develop a testable hypothesis about the facts, logic to develop the test, and sense experience again to complete the test.

      Each type of value system stands separate and apart, however, the various types of value systems blend and interact with one another. Everyday, you combine ways of thinking, and resulting value systems, without any contextual structure. You are,without exception, multidimensional in your personal beliefs and values. Everyone is influenced by some degree of authority, logic, sense experience, emotion, intuition, and science as you form and shape your value systems. If you think just logically or intuitively or emotionally you will working from a narrow focus. As you become aware of the variety of different cognitive lenses available to you it opens your possibilities that some decisions are emotional, logical, and intuitive. As you find value in creating your unique career narrative, remember to enhance, expand, and integrate.