cmst 201 manager paper

Running Head: COMMUNICATION WITHIN UNIVERSITY

Communication Within the University of Tennessee

Law School with Dean Blaze

Patricia Hill

Intro to Communications Studies 201

Dr. Haas

March 2, 2015

Contact Information: Dean Blaze 865-974-2521

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COMMUNICATION WITHIN UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Dean Doug A. Blaze has been the Dean of the University of Tennessee Law School since

2008. In our interview, Dean Blaze confirmed that communication is an important aspect

of all organizations and certainly is important in his position as Dean. He continually

focused upon the ability to communicate through public speaking and writing as being

critical to his and his employees’ success within the Law School. He focused upon

examples of their success and the role that communication contributed to that success

including oral communication. Throughout the interview, he covered many topics we

have also covered in class. These topics include person perception, verbal messages, and

listening. Person perception takes place when a potential faculty member is interviewed

for a job or a potential student for admission. Verbal messages and listening also occur

during interviews but also throughout the person’s time working or studying there. My

interview with Dean Blaze went very smoothly. He answered my questions very

precisely and accurately.

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Communication Within the University of Tennessee

Law School with Dean Blaze

Professor Doug A. Blaze was appointed Dean of the University of Tennessee Law

School in Knoxville, TN in 2008. He joined the University of Tennessee faculty as the

Director of Clinical Programs in 1993. Prior to his time in Tennessee, he developed and

achieved success in many different programs. While Dean Blaze was a law faculty

member at Arizona State University, he helped produce a community-based legal service

clinic. He later joined many different bar committees including the Knoxville Bar

Association Access to Justice Initiative. Along with being active in many different

organizations, he was a co-author of The Law of Negligence in Arizona that has been

published in many law reviews. Dean Blaze has received awards including the Thomas

Jefferson Prize and the B. Riney Green Award.

Interview with Dean Blaze

Throughout the interview conducted with Dean Blaze, I found that he focused on

public speaking skills and writing skills as critical in communicating to his faculty as well

as students and alumni. Over the years, he has worked to develop his public speaking

skills and writing skills. Dean Blaze described his responsibilities as very closely related

to a CEO of a company. He works to ensure that the teaching curriculum is working

properly, the faculty is doing their jobs correctly, and that the building is running

smoothly. In order to be successful as a professor or a student at this Law School, you

must be willing to put the hard work in, have the intelligence, and have the ability to

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communicate. Blaze said that the main cause of someone being unsuccessful was the

inability to communicate and relate. A person can put in the hard work and have the

intelligence but if they are unable to communicate to others, they will more than likely be

unsuccessful.

Dean Blaze motivates his faculty in various ways. The number one way he

motivates them is to create a team atmosphere. He creates this atmosphere by relating to

his faculty members. They are all there to accomplish the same goals that are to educate

the students and to advance the University in the best ways possible. By doing this, he

shows his faculty that he cares about them as well as their school. He also motivates by

communicating to faculty members to relay information about the current events or

changes within the organization. Dean Blaze has faculty members that provide

challenges in regard to effectively motivating them to be more successful in their job

performance. He has developed different motivational techniques that focus on

communication. Blaze will first outline their job expectations to ensure common ground.

From here, he will then start trying to find new approaches. In the past, he said that

recognizing the professors or faculty who have experienced outstanding success in their

position has motivated the hard motivators. Dean Blaze stated that honesty is very

important in trying to motivate employees. He said that you must communicate clearly to

employees what needs to be done differently and how it should be done to achieve the

best success.

Decision-making is also a team effort with Dean Blaze. By office, each person

has a voice in what happens and what is changed. Dean Blaze gave the example of the

Admissions Office. Within their office, each employee should have a voice of who is

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admitted into the school as well as supporting those students when they arrive at the

school. The University of Tennessee Law School has many different ways of showing the

faculty they are included such as their staff advisory board, faculty appreciation day, and

regular staff events. Decisions are communicated to faculty members in many different

ways. A few ways Dean Blaze sends out information is by e-mail, through internal

newsletters, monthly staff events, and walking around during the day. He emphasized

how big of a challenge it is to communicate with the entire faculty but he makes it work.

Dean Blaze made the comment that he should improve in this aspect but at the end of the

day the message is received.

Dean Blaze described many different kinds of communication skills needed to be

successful as Dean of a Law School. Two that are most important are public speaking

skills and writing skills. As Dean, he is constantly giving speeches at different

community functions as well as writing letters to alumni who contribute donations to the

school. He said the only way a Dean would be successful is to have these skills. Dean

Blaze also believes that people need skill training to be effective communicators. He does

not believe a person can be born with them. By practicing writing and public speaking, he

said it becomes much easier. Also he believes the more organized and prepared a person

is determines if they are effective communicators. The main communication skill Dean

Blaze looks for in new employees is oral communication. He looks for this because most

of them will be communicating with students or alumni. The second skill he looks for is

written communication. This is mainly for the positions talking to people outside of the

school such as alumni or donors. When students apply, the communication skills Dean

Blaze looks for is the opposite of what he looks for in faculty members. He makes sure

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the potential student has good writing and application skills and not so much oral

communication skills. Once the student arrives, within the classes he/she will learn more

about oral communication.

Within the University of Tennessee Law School, communication is critical to

being successful whether as a faculty member or a student.

Communication as Dean vs. Communication Studies 201

During the semester, we have learned a great deal about communicating

effectively. Dean Blaze demonstrated many different ways of communicating effectively

throughout the interview. At the beginning of the interview, he presented himself very

cordially. My first impression of him was that he was a very successful, polite man. He

continued to show that my first impression was correct. Therefore a primacy effect was

occurring throughout the first few minutes of meeting Dean Blaze.

Another way of effective communication Dean Blaze reflected was the use of

verbal messages. Though at times during the interview it was difficult for me to follow

his thoughts and answers, he relayed his message across smoothly. A difference between

class lecture and this interview was how class lectures are more organized than responses

given within an interview. When Dean Blaze answered the questions, his statements were

not complete thoughts as well. We learned from the text that in order to successfully relay

a message to the receiver, you must be clear as to what you mean. Dean Blaze was clear

though he would change his answers many times before finishing his thought.

A similarity between the interview and class lecture was how Dean Blaze listened

effectively as well as exchanged nonverbal messages. Dean Blaze would listen to me

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very intently as I asked the questions to make sure he understood them properly. By

doing this, he was also relaying nonverbal messages by how he was paying close

attention to my questions. So, I was able to relax more due to him being so polite with

how he was showing me he was interested in what I was saying.

Dean Blaze is not only an effective listener but also an effective communicator. It

is very apparent that Dean Blaze has achieved great success by being an effective

communicator.

Critique of Performance

I believe I did a good job while conducting the interview. Though the interview

was over a little more quickly than I expected, I was still able to get more than enough

information to complete my work. Dean Blaze’s demeanor put me at ease to ask the

questions I needed to ask. He spoke to me very casually and not as formally as I

expected. The changes I would make in conducting the interview would be in how I

prepared. Being a prospective law student, I was extremely nervous before the interview.

This nervousness caused me not to be able to think on my feet as I needed to do in this

interview and made it difficult for me to formulate more questions to ask. In effect, I

learned that more in depth preparation will help me to be better prepared and more

confident in similar situations in the future. This preparation should include being

prepared for an interviewee that provides brief or short answers. In this case being

prepared with additional questions or more in depth questions could provide a better

result. Though he was very descriptive in his answers and gave me more than enough

information, I regret that I did not ask more.

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References

Blaze, D. (2015, February 26). Communication Within the University of TN Law School

[Personal interview].

Tubbs, S. (2013). Human Communication (13th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

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