“I’m Done!” “No one is listening.” “There
is no communication.” are all phrases heard from disgruntled or disconnected volunteers. As the Director or Advisor of an organization
it is important to keep things from getting to this point. Written communication can play a key role in
bringing people together, keeping them together and moving the group
forward. While written communication can
be effective, it can also bring about adverse reactions, or confrontation. Through a collection of Katherine Soule’s
written documents – emails, PowerPoints, and survey analysis – she identifies
her audience and employees the rhetorical appeals ethos, pathos, logos and
kairos to address the disconnect of the volunteers of her organization and
initiate positive change.
Katherine Soule was tasked with bringing
back harmony and effectiveness to the 4-H Youth Development Program of Santa
Barbara County. She took over in the
summer of 2013. Her position was Youth,
Families, Community Advisor for San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara County
through the University of California Cooperative Extension. The Santa Barbara County 4-H Youth
Development Program falls under this title.
This put her in charge of 2-3 office staff, over 200 volunteers and over
800 youth of Santa Barbara County. 4-H
is a Youth Development Program that is an organization that uses volunteers to
deliver a program based on experiential learning to youth ages 5-19. The focus is to teach leadership, community
awareness and service, and educational and agricultural projects. When Katherine Soule took over there seemed
to be a lot of discourse and disconnect between staff, volunteers and
parents. The volunteer Management Board,
volunteer Program Development Board and staff were not communicating and were
in conflict with each other. Katherine
explained when she took over, she felt like, “Everyone was out in the ocean all
rowing their own boats.” She felt her main focus would have to be bringing them
all together.
It is evident in the written archives she
provided that she had to identify and focus on her audience and pay great
attention to her purpose of bringing the group together. This will be seen in emails, Power Point
presentation and survey result summary. During the interview, she explained her
realization that she had to respect that many of the volunteer’s identities
were connected to their service and association to the 4-H Youth Development
Program. The need for sensitivity, validation, and appreciation had to part of
all her communications.
The rhetorical tenants Katherine
Soule uses throughout her writings are ethos,
pathos, logos, and kairos. She employs the concept of ethos, which is explained as bringing credibility, expertise, or being well
informed about the subject at hand (Losh, 2013,p.44), to establish the credibility
and knowledge she brings to the situations she addresses. At times she uses
quotes from others to further the credibility of what she is trying to
establish. She explained how she feels
the need to be respectful and sensitive to the individuals whose identities are
related to their involvement with the organization so long. Through the use of pathos she take great care to generate emotions that may lead the
audience to be more accepting. (Lunsford, 2012, p.26) With Katherine being very
academic by nature, it seems the most drawn upon concept is logos , “the appeal to reason, to the
forcefulness of a well-though-out and well-structured position” (Losh, 2013,
p.44) She shows in her writings that to bring about positive
change it is logical that if we do x than y will come about. At times Katherine
uses the feature of kairos, “the suitable time and place for making an argument
and the most opportune way to make it.” (Lunford, 2012, p.27) She explained in
certain instances she has to respond quickly to some problems when there is
much controversy, emotions are high, or have high stakes, but all problems must
be addressed in a timely manner.
The first of Katherine’s artifacts
is an email sent to inform the 4-H YDP staff and volunteer leaders of upcoming
leadership training meetings. She is quick to identify her audience as the 4-H
YDP Staff, Program Development Board, and Management Board and refers to them
as ‘the leadership team that provides academic, administrative, and programming
oversight.” She shows that she knows of
their feelings from conversations she has had over the last year, and is aware
of the needs of her audience. By knowing and understanding her audience and
their needs, she is able to identify the purpose for which she is addressing.
The purpose of the email is to
inform the “leadership team” of the training meetings she will be conducting,
but also to address the number one problem of disconnect and lack of
communication. Katherine lets them know she is aware of the problems and wants
to “create greater community” and “foster a sense of camaraderie” within the
leaders of the organization. This is the
true purpose of the communication, yet the communication is an invitation to
receive training on three topics that are related to leadership strength,
openness, and communication. Lastly, her
purpose for writing the email is to encourage them to want to get to know her
better and have them know she wants to know them better. She to accomplish her
purpose her uses a combination of ethos,
logos, and pathos.
She
demonstrates ethos by beginning the
email by showing she has put in the time listening to the current leadership
and has made the 4-H YDP program’s needs a high priority. This demonstrates her credibility for
selecting a plan for improving relationships through the proposed trainings. Katherine Soule uses a quote from Gallup.
Inc. to show the credibility and validity of the training program. With the addition of future dates and topics
she shows her dedication to the program and demonstrates her planning and
organization skills. By listing the topics that she has chosen speaks to the
logic, logos, put forth in her plan
to bring about change in the group through strengths, openness, and
communicating. These are all in answer
to the complaints she had been hearing from many of the leaders. By dispatching
the rhetorical appeal of ethos, she
plays to her audience’s feeling of detachment by focusing on bringing the
“leadership team” together. She makes
them feel she is attending to their needs and requests. She closes with giving her audience the much needed
appreciation for their “dedication and investment” in our youth. The whole idea of the email is to let her
audience know they have been heard and steps are being taken to improving the
current situation and the leaderships concerns.
Katherine Soule uses a Rogerian
argument which Lunsford explains, “ Approaches audiences in nonthreatening
ways, finding common ground and establishing trust among those who disagree
about issues. Writers who take a Rogerian approach try to see where the other
person is coming from, looking for “both/and” or “win/win” solutions whenever possible.”
(2012,p.6) This is seen in her efforts
to bring a group with multiple views of problems together for the betterment of
the program. The only side or stand she
seems to take is the side of progress and togetherness.
The next artifact from Katherine is
the PowerPoint presentation, “State of the Santa Barbara County 4-H YDP Address”
she used to inform her audience of overall state of the organization. In this PowerPoint
presentation she focuses on a much larger audience. This audience she explains is a combination
of the overall membership, volunteers at all levels, the general public
(Stakeholder), and her academic peers. By having multiple audiences she had multiple
purposes. The multiple purposes were to inform about the overall structure of
program including management, planning, budgeting, assessment, policy and
procedures, and diversity. Pathos and ethos helped make the presentation reach her audience and purpose.
Katherine used pathos in the numbers and updates she provide to convey the feeling
of accomplishment and satisfaction. She
is able to feed on the emotion of hope
to inspire members and volunteers as well as appeal to the public (stakeholder)
to rally and continue to support the program. By speaking to diversity she
appealed to the feeling of reaching out and bring those on the outside into the
organization. Ethos was featured in
her use of graphs, flow charts, and outlines, showing her organization and her
knowledge of the program. Her attention to the details demonstrate her focus on
to the intricate parts of the organization. By using the University of California
Cooperative Extension symbols and trademarks in the PowerPoint give it a sense
of being credible and official. This PowerPoint presentation demonstrates
Katherine’s ability to effectively identify and appeal to multiple audiences by
using different rhetorical tenants to inform them of the state of the 4-H YDP.
She was able to do this from a position of authority and leadership. While this
artifact was intended for a large audience, some are for only one person.
In the next archive Katherine had to send
this email in response to a single club leader that is also a member of the Program
Development Board. Her primary audience is the one leader she is addressing,
but is aware that her email may be shared with other leaders as well as it being
copied to the 4-H office staff. Her purpose for this email is to address the
concerns of the leader who has explained her lack of trust and
feels of not being heard. Katherine also realizes the need to inform the leader
of the facts involved in a particular situation. An underlying purpose was to carefully
admonishing the leader for missing an important meeting. Lastly she wanted to
encourage the leader that change is coming and thank her for her service.
In this more personal email Katherine felt
the need to use patho, logos, ethos,
as well as kairos. In the opening of
this email Katherine tries to make an emotional connection by mentioning the
opportunity to meet the leader’s daughter.
She continues to try to connect by sharing her feeling of disappointment
in the issue that is upsetting the leader. She appeals to the individual’s need
to be heard and understood. In the
closing, she makes a point to show appreciation to appeal to the leader’s
feelings of being needed and appreciated. Katherine employs logos to take care of address each
concern of the individual in a very logical, orderly way. She lets the reader know that the new
structure of the 4-H YDP has brought
about change and growth. Katherine suggests to the leader avenues to take if
problems persist. Katherine explained that this particular issue was one that
she felt the need to respond to in a very timely manner, and did so. In this
email she demonstrates the importance of kairos.
Katherine has to demonstrate expertise and knowledge, ethos, to correct the inaccurate misinformation. In this instance
she must speak to the problem from a “well informed” stance. By her use of
rhetorical appeals Katherine addressed and informed this leader and avoided further
escalation of the issues of the leader.
In the final archive from Katherine is a
Survey Results Summary. She again identifies her audience as a combination of
the overall membership, volunteers at all levels, the general public
(Stakeholder), and her academic peers. Her purpose was to create and present a
needs assessment for the Santa Barbara County 4-H YDP. In her summary she uses
numbers and percentages to show the credibility of her findings and
conclusions. Along with her findings and conclusions she demonstrates ethos through the outline and structure
of the document. She strived to emphasize that the results showed the overall
feeling was that of satisfaction and quality in the program, but that there is
still work to be done to bring about improvement. As in most of her writings
she utilizes pathos to connect to the
many volunteers by offering her appreciation for the commitment they have made to
the youth of the organization.
By examining the various writing archives
of Katherine Soule to the staff and volunteers of the Santa Barbara 4-H YDP,
she successfully identifies her audiences.
She determines the purpose of her writings and effectively addresses
them. By employing the use of Pathos,
Ethos, Logos and Kairos she was effective in bringing
about more unity within the organization and a more positive change of attitude.
Katherine Soule demonstrated that by using different rhetorical tenants in her
writing that she could guide the direction of the organization and help bring continuity
to those who serve it.
