One of Sinclair\u2019s very own professors has become president of the International Listening Association.<\/p>\n
Kent Zimmerman is a professor of Communication at Sinclair and will also spend one year as the president of the ILA.<\/p>\n
The International Listening Association promotes the study, development and teaching of listening and the practice of effective listening skills and techniques.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to help people understand how listening works and give them the skills to do it and then apply it in teaching, research and in business,\u201d Zimmerman said.<\/p>\n
According to Zimmerman, listening is a hard skill to master and requires a lot of work and effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think really listening is probably the most essential communication skill that we have. People take it for granted. If they don\u2019t really know that they need it, then they think they can do it by themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On average, most people, while they may think they are listening well, are actually becoming distracted and are failing to retain most of the information they are being given.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe average individual only retains about 25 percent of what he or she hears, 24 hours later,\u201d Zimmerman said.<\/p>\n
The reason for this, according to Zimmerman, is that life can get in the way of people\u2019s listening abilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s because we\u2019re pretty busy people. We\u2019re distracted, we have issues that we\u2019re confronted with. And we have priorities in our life and sometimes we think we\u2019re listening and actually what we\u2019re trying to do is multitask,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to Zimmerman, the first step in improving people\u2019s listening skills is recognizing that listening requires hard work and effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cHelp people recognize that it is an activity that takes effort\u2014you have to get people through that door first. It\u2019s not a passive activity, it\u2019s not something that just occurs naturally, but it\u2019s an activity that really requires attention and focus,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to Zimmerman, learning how listen well and doing it properly can help to strengthen relationships and can be ultimately life changing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing a lot of listening, but we\u2019re actually listening less to people today than what we were 40 years ago,\u201d Zimmerman said.<\/p>\n
As president of ILA, Zimmerman hopes to reach out to a new base and connect with people who may not know about the International Listening Association and what they are here to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne [goal] would be that we would enhance our website and connect our website to the social media platforms because what I\u2019ve noticed is that we\u2019re behind the curb on connecting with the people who are digital natives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He hopes to advance the technology of ILA and bring their message and mission to people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re stuck in the year 1990 and we think that people are going to seek us out and then when they find the good stuff we can do then they\u2019ll join us, but I\u2019m amazed continuously at how few people even know we exist,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
People, according to Zimmerman, may know all the right expressions to make to have the appearance of listening, but really their mind has wandered off on to a different topic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we multitask, we only partially listen and sometimes we get a head nod and smile and our brain has already checked out and we\u2019ve already moved on the next idea,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes people forget that listening is a conscious choice and if we don\u2019t make it, other things will start to crop into our priority list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only will being president of the ILA give Zimmerman opportunity to help people with their listening skills, it will also give recognition to Sinclair.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it gives great visibility to Sinclair and community colleges. Out of 37 previous presidents, only three of them were from the community college. And I think it puts community college programs on the map,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He is using his experience and skills at Sinclair and taking them to International Listening Association to help them advance further.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have tried to institute the different things we do at Sinclair with the ILA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Zimmerman has spent three years training in different positions so that he could be prepared for the responsibilities as president. He will complete one year as president before becoming a \u201cPast President\u201d who guides the next president through their year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really kind of excited about what we\u2019re going to do,\u201d he said<\/p>\n
Zimmerman, while being president of the International Listening Association, will carry on his duties as a professor of Communication as well.<\/p>\n
Laina Yost<\/strong> One of Sinclair\u2019s very own professors has become president of the International Listening Association. Kent Zimmerman is a professor of Communication at Sinclair and will also spend one year as the president of the ILA. The International Listening Association promotes the study, development and teaching of listening and the practice of effective listening skills and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13546,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[2005],"class_list":["post-13588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-laina-yost"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/IMG_7102.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-3xa","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13588"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13610,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13588\/revisions\/13610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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