The Jesuit Difference (?): Narratives of Negotiating Spiritual Values and Secular Practices

ABSTRACT

We detail the experiences of a department of six faculty members in negotiating spirituality in a Jesuit, Catholic University. Grounding our work in “co-constructed narrative” as a method, we utilize narratives gathered through self-reflection, conversation, and interviews to elucidate how contradictory conditions are created through competing discourses of spiritual values and secular practices. These competing discourses create tensions of (a) embracing/resisting, (b) inclusion/exclusion, and (c) proclamation/silence. Faculty narratives revealed the ways they frame and negotiate these tensions in their attempts to construct their identities in relation to the organization and its values. Dialogic theory (Bahktin, 1981 1986 1993) is utilized to interpret faculty narratives as well as offer new directions for organizational communication theorizing.

Keywords:

• Spirituality
• Tension
• Dialogic
• Dialectic

The authors would like to thank Drs. Art Bochner, Lynn Harter, Patrice Buzzanell and our anonymous reviewer for their insights in substantially strengthening this manuscript for the special issue as well as acknowledge Dr. Richard Falvo for input on the project.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erika L. Kirby

Erika L. Kirby is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Communication Studies and Director of Women's and Gender Studies at Creighton University where she specializes in organizational, applied and work-family/life communication and discourses as well as their intersections with gender.

M. Chad McBride

M. Chad McBride is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Creighton University where he studies communication in and about personal and familial relationships, specifically focusing on face and privacy issues in social networks.

Sherianne Shuler

Sherianne Shuler is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Creighton University where she specializes in the intersections of organizational communication and gender studies, particularly as it relates to emotional labor.

Marty J. Birkholt

Marty J. Birkholt is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Creighton University where he directs the forensics and debate program and studies health communication.

Mary Ann Danielson

Mary Ann Danielson is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Creighton University where she studies employability skills, leadership styles, and team building as well as the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).

Donna R. Pawlowski

Donna R. Pawlowski is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Creighton University where she studies interpersonal/familial communication—with an emphasis on health care, metaphors and dialectics—as well as instructional communication and the pedagogical implications of service learning.