A reminder that your final exam will be open Thursday, May 20 from 12:00 a.m.-11:59 p.m. (all times Pacific). In case you lost it, here is your study guide. Please delete the Week 14 items from the study guide. We didn’t get to those in class Thursday.
If you could please fill out this end-of-semester survey, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Have a great summer! Congratulations to you who are graduating.
This week is our final week of class this semester, which means you will be turning in your Case Study Essay & Presentation of your Case Study on Thursday @ 8 a.m.
As always, you can email me or schedule a time to meet with me via my Calendly.
Next week will be our final exam. Here is the study guide, which includes a Week 14 lecture on Apologies, Forgiveness & Justice.
❑ Attend synchronous class Thursday @ 8 a.m. (Pacific)
❑ Case Study Essay & presentation (Th)
This week we will be exploring apologies and forgiveness in class. We will also have our final guest speaker this week, Dr. Gloria Walters, who is a licensed psychologist at Pepperdine.
Next week is our final week of class this semester. Watch for a couple of things to drop this weekend:
As always, you can email me or schedule a time to meet with me via my Calendly.
❑ Attend synchronous class Thursday @ 8 a.m. (Pacific)
❑ Guest Speaker Questions
❑ Read McNeil (Chapter 1 & Chapter 2)
❑ Case Study essay
This week we will be exploring a key tenet of Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, listening, and then in class we will be discussing family conflict. Look for the listening mini-lecture to drop Monday.
Dane & Michael will be leading us in our final class discussion (I know you’re sad, but I promise we’ll make it through). In class we will be discussing Fisher & Ury (“10 questions…”) and Stone, Patton & Heen, 2010 (Chs. 1 & 2).
A couple of reminders:
1. We will have one more guest speaker next week, Dr. Gloria Walters, who is a licensed psychologist at Pepperdine
2. Your case study essay is due next week on May 7
As always, you can email me or schedule a time to meet with me via my Calendly.
❑ Attend synchronous class Thursday @ 8 a.m. (Pacific)
❑ Class Discussion #9
❑ Read Fisher & Ury (“10 questions…”)
❑ Read Stone, Patton & Heen, 2010 (Chs. 1 & 2)
❑ Watch Listening mini-lecture (dropping Monday)
Perhaps you’ve heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but maybe you haven’t. If you haven’t (and even if you have), I invite you to read one of the features on his life such as this New York Times article. We will be hearing from one of the world’s leading Bonhoeffer scholars this week, Dr. Derek Taylor, as we discuss Ch. 4 of Bonhoeffer’s classic book, Life Together. Dr. Taylor has researched and written on Bonhoeffer extensively, including several peer-reviewed articles (e.g., “Bonhoeffer and the Benedict Option: The Mission of Monasticism in a Post-Christian World” and “What’s This Book Actually About? Life Together and the Possibility of Theological Knowledge“), and a recently-released book titled Reading Scripture as the Church: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Hermunitic of Discipleship.
The second half of our synchronous class will be by Karina & Erica, as we discuss Ch. 8 of Getting to Yes.
Because most–if not all–of our class time this week will be dedicated to our readings, I have recorded a mini-lectures on Conflict Analysis which will be available Monday.
As always, you can email me or schedule a time to meet with me via my Calendly.
❑ Attend synchronous class Thursday @ 8 a.m. (Pacific)
❑ Life Together (Ch. 4)
❑ Class Discussion #8
❑ Watch Conflict Analysis mini-lecture
What does the death of JFK and Princess Diana have in common?
Both were major public events, yet each have unresolved mysteries about the details of the events. The Warren Commission concluded Lee Harvey Acted Alone in the shooting of JFK, but the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979 suggested there was more than one shooter. Some people think a drunken chauffeur was to blame for Princess Diana’s death; yet others blame the paparazzi.
If these highly public events raise questions, how can we ever be sure who is “right” and “telling the truth” in conflict between us, people whose lives aren’t constantly being documented?
This week we will be focusing on deconstructing conflict through analysis and assessment.
Gabby, Sydney & Ally will be leading us in discussion on Fisher & Ury Ch. 7 this week. Please come prepared to discuss this chapter. I will send out the questions when I have approved them.
Last week we heard from Gordon & Sue Jackson about Apartheid South Africa. Thank you for your participation! This week you have two mini-lectures (Relational Tensions to replace content we missed last Thursday and Anger & Aggression to be the asynchronous lecture for Monday).
As always, you can email me or schedule a time to meet with me via my Calendly.
❑ Attend synchronous class Thursday @ 8 a.m. (Pacific)
❑ Class Discussion #7
❑ Relational Tension mini-lecture
❑ Anger & Aggression mini-lecture
First of all, I hope you all had a nice Easter/spring break. I hope that it was a time of rest and rejuvenation, and that you’re ready for the home stretch of the semester.
This week we will be exploring Apartheid South Africa. We have been reading Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness, and you should be wrapping those up this week. Hopefully you were able to understand what South Africa was like for the last half of the 20th century. A reminder that I had also created this page to help you get caught up on modern South Africa history.
This week we have two guest speakers: Gordon & Sue Jackson, who grew up in South Africa during Apartheid. They have been our closest family friends since before I was born, and I grew up with their children. They will be sharing their insights on growing up in South Africa, what they saw in terms of communication and conflict, and other wisdom. You can read a little bit about them here. Don’t forget that part of your grade for Guest Speaker Preparation is question preparation, and those are due to be before class. Please show up ready to participate Thursday.
As always, you can email me or schedule a time to meet with me via my Calendly.
❑ Attend synchronous class Thursday @ 8 a.m. (Pacific)
❑ Guest Speaker Preparation (Tuesday @ 8 a.m.)
❑ Tutu (Ch. 8-11)
The first half of class we looked at the macro view of conflict. Now we are going to dive in to more micro-interpersonal conflict and will begin to focus more on practical application.
This week we will be focusing on listening and mediation. To get us started, please watch this mini-lecture on emotions.
Celine, Eden & Joe will be leading us in discussion on Wing, 2008 and Fisher & Ury Ch. 6 this week. Please come prepared to discuss this chapter. I will send out the questions when I have approved them.
As always, you can email me or schedule a time to meet with me via my Calendly.
❑ Attend synchronous class Thursday @ 8 a.m. (Pacific)
❑ Class Discussion #6
❑ Emotions mini-lecture
❑ Fisher & Ury (Ch. 6)
❑ Tutu (Ch. 5-7)
❑ Wing, 2008
This week is the Midterm Exam. You can find the study guide here. A few items about the exam:
Monday we will not be meeting in a formal class session. Rather, I will log on at 8 a.m. and will just hang out in case anyone has any questions. No attendance is required.
As always, you can email me or schedule a time to meet with me via my Calendly.
❑ Take Midterm Exam
This week we will think about theology and conflict, culminating with an essay on Theology and/or Ethics. As you prepare for this essay, you are free to pick any theological or ethical issue that you are interested in. This can be something you’ve always been interested, something that sparked an interest when you took Gen Ed classes like REL 101, 102, or 301, or HUM 111, 212, or 313. I’ve given you some potential topics on the essay instructions, but if you are stuck you are more than welcome to use the two chapters we are reading from Richard Mouw (Ch. 1 & Ch. 2) for coming up with ideas, plus here are a couple more ideas:
Katie and Konnor-Ashley will be leading us in discussion on Fisher & Ury Ch. 5 and Mouw Ch. 1 & 2 this week. Please come prepared to discuss this chapter. I will send out the questions when I have approved them.
As always, you can email me or schedule a time to meet with me via my Calendly.
❑ Attend synchronous class Thursday @ 8 a.m. (Pacific)
❑ Asynchronous mini-lecture
❑ Fisher & Ury (Ch. 5)
❑ Tutu (Ch. 1 & 2)
❑ Mouw (Ch. 1 & 2)
❑ Theology & Ethics Essay
COM 419: Communication & Conflict 