Saint Vincent College Faculty Blog

Many scholars and educators have contemplated the importance of a liberal arts education, so I do not seek to presume that I am stating anything new in this month’s blog. Rather, this month I aim to reflect on my view of the importance and meaning of a liberal arts education.

Topics: Faculty, Education, liberal arts, Michael Urick, saint vincent faculty, blog, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick

This month’s blog is a little more philosophical in nature than some of my other blogs because I’m writing about miracles. Let me start off by saying that I am a firm believer in miracles. To me, a miracle does not have to be some big once-in-a-lifetime supernatural cosmic event (although those count too, I suppose). Instead, I believe that miracles can be “little things” that happen each day. Some people view daily life as though nothing is a miracle. Others view every positive thing that they experience as a miracle – even those things that are perhaps mundane. I like to think that I fall into the latter camp.

Topics: Faculty, Michael Urick, SVC faculty, workplace culture, workplace, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick, miracles, extraordinary

Recently, Dr. Gail Fairhurst (a friend, mentor and colleague of mine from the University of Cincinnati) visited Saint Vincent to give a guest lecture on her research. While her comments were primarily about how to be an effective leader through focusing on communication style, she also talked about the nature of problems that leaders must solve. I am reminded of some research of hers that I read in which she identifies problems as “wicked” when they are challenging to describe, difficult to solve and closely related to other problems. She and her colleagues term these to be problem “knots” because they are often tangled together in such a way that multiple problems relate to, confuse and add to each other (Sheep, Fairhurst, & Khazanchi, 2017).

Topics: Faculty, problem solving, Michael Urick, SVC faculty, saint vincent faculty, professor, saint vincent professor, st. vincent professor, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick

I recently co-edited three books on leadership with a colleague from Poland. In them, I co-authored chapters with five students or alumni of Saint Vincent College’s Master of Science in Management: Operational Excellence program and six SVC faculty. One of the chapters, co-authored with Dr. William Hisker, was entitled “Benedictine Leadership” and was adapted from a foundational document we wrote in the development of the Benedictine Leadership Studies program at Saint Vincent.  But my primary role in these editing projects (aside from writing some chapters) was to look over the works of other authors to consider for inclusion in the books.

Topics: Michael Urick, SVC faculty, saint vincent faculty, blog, Faculty Blog, Dr. Mike Urick

When do teams begin and end? We see team membership change all the time, whether we’re talking about sports or a workgroup. My favorite baseball team is the Pittsburgh Pirates.  As anyone that follows the team knows, they have had quite a bit of turnover in players (for example the recent unfortunate trade of Andrew McCutchen, one of my favorites), yet they remain the Pirates. This team did not end when McCutchen left. Nor did it begin when he joined their ranks. In other words, the existence of a team can and likely will continue even when membership changes. I can think of several work teams that I’ve been a part of, including in my role as director of the Master of Science in Management: Operational Excellence program here at Saint Vincent, where members leave the team and new members come on board, all while the team continues along in its purpose. 

Topics: Operational Excellence, organizational culture, management, saint vincent professor, st. vincent professor, Dr. Mike Urick, Andrew McCutchen, organizational behavior, Jethro Tull, Master of Science in Management

Happy New Year!

Topics: Faculty, Michael Urick, research, SVC faculty, saint vincent faculty, Faculty Blog, mike urick, Dr. Mike Urick, new year

As we approach the end of the semester, final exams week and concluding class projects, a lot of students (and likely professors) are feeling a high level of stress, which can be defined as difficulty in coping with some aspect of one’s environment. Such timeliness is one of the reasons that I decided to write about stress and balance in this month’s blog.

Topics: Michael Urick, blog, Faculty Blog, Dr. Mike Urick, stress

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been working on co-editing a three-book series on leadership. The first book focuses on leadership theory. Thus, I’ve recently been reflecting on the importance of theory in academia.  

Topics: professor, saint vincent professor, st. vincent professor, Faculty Blog, Dr. Mike Urick, theory, academia

In my last blog, I asked the question “what makes a good manager/boss?” and received a lot of great feedback. In fact, I received the most comments and responses to that post than any others that I have written.

Topics: SVC, SVC faculty, saint vincent professor, Faculty Blog, Dr. Mike Urick, good employee

As a management professor, I am sometimes guilty of getting caught up in academic theories and big-picture issues of management (such as how organizations compete with each other or decide what products/services they will provide) as I prep for my courses.

Topics: Saint Vincent College, saint vincent faculty, management, managers, saint vincent professor, Faculty Blog, Dr. Mike Urick