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Discourse Studies
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`It's just a process': questioning in the construction of a university crisis

Theresa Castor

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-PARKSIDE, USA, castor{at}uwp.edu

Questioning in an organizational context is a challenging event in multiple senses. Questioning may be used to criticize the leaders of an organization. For the criticisms to be heard as legitimate, however, the questioner must operate within contextual constraints (Shotter, 1993). The main purpose of this article is to examine how questioning functions to construct a university's crisis. Discourse within two faculty senate meetings is analyzed. Three faculty questioning strategies are described: appealing to another organizational entity, requesting either/or information; and metacommunicative commentary. Administration and senate leadership responded to questions using the strategies of appealing to a process and metacommunicative commentary. Faculty questioning functioned to challenge a current course of action while operating from within the organizational guidelines of discourse. Alternatively, leadership responses deferred any substantive change in the course of action. The strategies are related to issues of power, social action, and models of educational governance.

Key Words: educational governance • meetings • problem construction • questioning

Discourse Studies, Vol. 11, No. 2, 179-197 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1461445608100943
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