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Social science research investigating the challenges of managing work and family has been extensive over the past 30 years. Recently, scholars have examined work and family issues from a number [...]

One tremendous challenge in higher education today is meeting the needs of the diverse student populations in our classrooms and office hours. Currently, a growing number of college students are between the ages of 30 and 40 (Giczowski, 1990). For many individuals in this particular non-traditional segment of our student population, simultaneously managing multiple life-roles creates a variety of unique challenges. This study explores critical interactions between faculty and students when students are experiencing difficulties in managing school and family/work responsibilities from the framework of Negotiated Order Theory (Strauss, 1978). Data were collected through survey and critical interaction method. Results demonstrate that childcare concerns most often triggered students to initiate negotiations with faculty members, informational support was often lacking for how to manage such negotiations, limited options were perceived by students, and faculty members not granting student requests often relied on rules-based or fairness rationales when framing their responses. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed, along with practical applications for university personnel. Keywords: student-faculty interactions, student-parents, critical interactions, negotiated order

Between the years 1993 and 2000, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation sponsored the Comprehensive Community Health Models (CCHMs) Initiative in three Michigan counties. CCHMs was comprised of three closely related community initiatives carried out in the midst of a failed national health care reform effort and the continued penetration of managed care arrangements into many health care systems. This experimental initiative set out to test the hypothesis that traditional healthcare system animosities and exclusionary practices could be overcome by stakeholder participation in an ongoing, structured, collaborative dialogue about improving access to health services. In the process of collecting data through surveys, interviews, content analysis, and observation, we were struck by the occurrence of several overarching tensions that we perceive to exist in our data. The present article elucidates five such tensions and suggests how third parties such as communication researchers, evaluators, and practitioners can facilitate community health improvement initiatives and better their own data interpretation by acknowledging and understanding these tensions. KEY WORDS: Collaboration, community, health, tensions.