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Defining Professionalism: A Cause Worthy of Inspection

This idea has been bouncing around in my head for awhile, but today I added to it significantly.  After helping teach the Teaching with Technology course last semester, I realized how little students know about professionalism.  Receiving emails from students with incorrect grammar, punctuation, and sporting titles like LittleBunnyFooFoo@gagmail.com caused me much reflection and even some wincing at times.

Currently, I'm working on idea at the CTL for teaching a class or at least providing materials to incoming or outgoing students to address such issues.  The hope is to provide them a greater chance at success in addition to removing the excuse that "no one ever told me."

I then started wondering if any research or theory has been developed in this area.  It seems like professionalism is becoming harder and harder to define in our increasingly casual culture, yet it remains a reality that can come back to bite you if you don't know the rules.  Attempting to define the parameters of professionalism (if no previous work has been done) at first made me a bit nauseated, and then I realized something.  If you based professionalism on principles instead of opinions, it might just be possible.  For example, if "Being Present" is a principle of professionalism, rules about computer and cell phone use become easier to define and harder to refute.  So, I believe the first step would be to define guiding principles followed by specific rules.

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