Unity Performing Arts Foundation.

(Unity) is a non for profit that was a concept of a man

named Marshall White, in the year of 1993. In the year of 1997, Marshall had his first meeting

with a group of individuals to make this vision a reality. After years of planning his dream

became a reality and Unity started in July of 2000.

The organization started as a way to expose minorities to the different art forms. How

Marshall did this was by creating a choral program called The Voices of Unity Youth Choir. As

the years went on, Marshall realized there was more purpose and substance to what he was

doing. He used the arts as an attraction and empowered youth to be adult leaders and

professionals. He did this by teaching them life lessons, principles for living a good life, and

other substance. Since then, Unity has launched two programs, a creative writing program named

Expression, and the choral program; The Voices of Unity. The choral program has gotten the

most attention exposing the students to different artists such as Roberta Flack, Keisha Cole, Kirk

Franklin, and several others. They have traveled the world competing in the World Choir

Olympics in Shoaxing and Shanghi, China; Riga, Latvia; and touring five European countries.

To this day this program continues to run and is equipping students with the exposure and

experience to be prepared for life.

I started my journey with Unity at the age of 7 years old. I remained a member until the

year of 2016 when I became an employee at the age of 19. I became Student Development

Coordinator, with the focus of preparing students for onstage and off-stage professionalism. I

also am for building and maintaining relationships among the students, internally and externally,

while working to grow and improve the organization. Upon taking this internship, I took on this

same focus, but narrowed it down.

 During my internship I focused on creating concepts and events to build the relationships

of the organization, internally and externally. Before any person can run an event, they need a

team. As part of my internship I started a Student Youth Council. To be on this team you had to

meet several requirements. This team consisted of students who had been a part of the

organization for at least one year, maintained a 2.5 GPA. They must know all the memorization

such as the mission statement, core values, etc., in both Spanish and English.

This team is responsible for the assistance in growth and improvement of the

organization as well as recruitment, and external and internal relationships. One way we did this

was the 2018 Harvest Party. This party was a concept I came up with for several reasons. The

two major reasons were to improve relationships within the organization, giving them the chance

to bond, and the other was to recruit students by allowing people to invite them, as guests, to the

party. This party took months of planning among my team, with me overseeing them. I created a

list of stations at the party that had games like; bobbing for apples, cookie decorating, cake walk,

and a few others. The Student Youth Council then oversaw the different stations while I DJed the

party and supervised them.

The party the turned out to be a great success. There was food, dancing, prizes, and over

100 people attended. We may not have gotten a huge number of new members joining from this

party, but we had a few, plus the exposure to the community was just the initial start. The best

thing that can be taken away from this experience was the bonding from the students. Not only

did students bond at the party, but the work the Youth Council put forth and achieved to make

this party happen brought them closer together.

Another great thing about bonding together over work is when it helps others. During this

internship I rounded up a group of ten students. Together they volunteered in a unique concept I
created called UNITY in the Community. Unity in the Community was created to build

relationships between the community and our organization. Since we are a non-for-profit, we ask

the community for a lot of donations, and this is our way of reaching back to the community and

showing gratitude for all they do. This also teaches the students leadership, good charity, how to

have a great work ethic, as well as allows them a chance to bond with each other and others. Last

Saturday, our UNITY in the Community was held at the Treasure House in Fort Wayne. It is a

thrift shop that raises money for the Rescue Mission. I arranged for our student volunteers to go

here and volunteer some time helping them clean, organize, and assist in any way they could. It

was a great experience for the students and gives us the chance to make more relationships.

Of course, all these initiatives and events are amazing, but they are only part of the

internship. The other part was the choral focus. I worked on weekends during our choir

rehearsals setting up the equipment used such as the keyboards, microphones, and chairs in the

room. After the setup was complete and rehearsal began, I ran each rehearsal teaching student’s

memorization. We have items such as 20 Prescriptions for Living the Good Life, the mission

statement, core values, and much more. These items are taught so that students can have

somewhat of a guide through life helping them to stay on the right path to become a leader and

professional. If students can correctly recite them all by memory, they receive a Unity Challenge

Button. This rewards them by giving them privileges like going on rehearsal break first or being

able to be dismissed first at the end. This was another huge part of my internship giving me the

goal to get all the students to achieve the Unity Challenge by our next concert, January 13th.

For this internship I was asked to keep five journals consisting of communication

theories I have learned from my time here at Manchester University. I have chosen the Social

Penetration Theory, and the Standpoint Theory. Both theories come together and intersect with
my internship very well. The first theory I would like to cover is the social penetration theory. In

summary, Social Penetration theory is the “process that explains how relational closeness

develops” (Griffin, E. 2003 p.133). A more recent definition is that social penetration is “the

process of developing deeper intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and

other forms of vulnerability.” (Griffin, E. 2012 p.114) This is what the goal of my internship

was. To build and maintain relationships, and relationships are built and strengthened through

self-disclosure. One example provided by the book was the example of the multilayered onion.

The onion represents our personality structure. Our personality structure has onion layers which

consist of “beliefs and feelings about self, others, the world; deeper layers are more vulnerable,

protected, and central to self-image.” (Griffin, E. 2012 p.114) The deeper you go into the onion

the more self-disclosure there is, which is the voluntary sharing of personal information like

values, secrets, or history about yourself. Some of these values are what I was assigned with

teaching the students with our memorization like core values. The depth of self-disclosure is

dependent upon your depth of penetration. Depth of penetration can be starts with peripheral

items. These are things like your tastes, studies, and likes. The ability to get more in depth is

available through reciprocation. I can think of two perfect examples where my internship

required for me to use this theory. One example is one of my students went through a heart

break. He felt as if no one understood him and he refused to open up, but I used the theory,

“Self-disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stages of relationship development.”

(Griffin, E. 2003 p.135), to exchange private information on how I had been cheated on in my

previous relationship. This gave him the ability to see that someone understands, and it allowed

him to feel more comfortable in sharing and allow social penetration in the future. The more you

share allows for another to feel more comfortable with you and result in depth. Another factor
that must be accounted for is time. This leads to my second example. There was a time when one

of the alumni was going through a hard time. He had just found out that his father had been

cheating on his mother for years. The reveal of this tore his family a part and now his parents are

going through a divorce. I grew up with this man, so we were taught the same things in this

organization, so being able to come as an employee and a friend helped. One thing that was

difficult though was getting I’m to initially share what was wrong. He has always been the type

to keep to himself, but I used the theory) “Self-disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early

stages of relationship development.” (Griffin, E. 2003 p.135) and shared with him the fact that

my parents got a divorce. I shared my experience and how it affected me. After that he opened

up more. These were just two examples of hundreds that have occurred over the year, so this

theory helps me in my job as well as everyday life. Also, what made a huge difference was the

fact that I constantly put in effort and time into trying to contact and spend time with him.

Penetration is rapid at the start but slows down quickly as the tightly wrapped inner layers are

reached.” (Griffin, E. 2012 p.116)

Sometimes when a relationship starts to fade, there I depenetration, where there is layer-

by-layer withdrawal. Sadly, this is displayed when we lose students. Part of my internship I spent

time contacting students, and I would even call students that have withdrawn from the

organization. I could feel the depenetration, and the fact that we could not talk in depth as we

used to.
 Social penetration can have both a negative and positive reward. Obvious rewards can be

a stronger relationship and deeper knowing of the other, while some costs may be the feeling of

vulnerability, or uncomfortability in knowing too much or sharing too much.

The theory has a few critiques. One critique is that although self-disclosure may lead to intimacy,

but “a person may reveal private information merely to express oneself, to release tension, or to

gain relational control.” (Griffin, E. 2012 p.122) A perfect example is sometimes I do not wish to

always share information about myself, but there may be tension when one of my students is

having a breakdown. I had a student start crying when I asked her to do the memorization, and

although I was aware of her situation, I did not know all the details. When I shared information

with her it was not necessarily to self-disclose, but rather to break some of the tension and take

control of the situation.

Another critique is by a scholar named Julia Wood. She is against the concept or idea of

rewards as an outcome. She believes it takes away the caring and compassion when viewing

outcomes. Although I agree with the critique, sometimes that is the goal. Usually going into a

conversation, you have a goal that you want to accomplish before having it. I still care and am

compassionate with my children, but the goal is to help them and penetrate to allow for bonding

and teaching them.

The second theory I will be covering is Standpoint Theory. “A standpoint is a place from

which to view and make sense of the world around us. Our standpoint influences what we see

and what we cannot, do not, or choose not to see” (Sorrells, K. 2013 p.34) In the internship I did,

there were many different standpoints. There is the staff, the students, the alumni, the board, and

the CEO. What makes Standpoint Theory so unique is it uses the viewpoint of the under

represented group. To each group I mentioned before they all have important says, but the group
with the least amount of power is the students. All though there is more of them than staff, they

have the least control or say in what happens as far as administrative side or event planning. You

may ask why it important to get the students standpoint. The book says, “the social group that

gets the chance to define the important problematics, concept, assumptions, and hypotheses in a

field will end up leaving its social fingerprints on the picture of the world that emerges from the

results of that field’s research process.” (Griffin, E. 2012 p. 449) This is exactly what transfers to

the internship. The goal is to empower the youth, so creating the Student Youth Council gives

the students the ability to not feel useless or just as if they are along for the ride, instead of

feeling a sense of value and capable of making a difference.

One example of taking in the student’s standpoint theory is when I teach memorization. It

is easy to just tell people to memorize or to learn something, but what the standpoint theory

allows us to do is to take into consideration how the students may look at it. When teaching, I

can relate to their view, because a few years ago I had the same student view, and I needed to be

taught and assisted, so this gives me the ability to remember my standpoint and give that extra

helping hand.

Like this theory states, “people in the dominant group, whether due to gender, class, race,

religion, nationality, or sexual orientation, do not need to understand the viewpoint of

subordinated groups and often have a vested interest in not understanding the positions of

subordinated others in order to maintain their own dominance.” (Sorrells, K. 2013 p.34) At work

the subordinate group would be the students, while the staff has the power. Luckily when the

staff make decisions on what the students should do, they have the different standpoints to help

guide and make decisions. One example of that is three of us that are on staff were once students,

so when we had a performance and they asked us to sing there and go to another location, and
then a third location, we remember our standpoints from when we were the subordinate group

and stand up for them saying it isn’t going to work. Another example of that is when we let the

students make decisions. We have done surveys in the past asking students their preference of

songs for times of rehearsals and activities. This allows for the switch of standpoint and allowing

them authority and empowering them, so the subordinate group isn’t always just following our

dictatorship. The other example is when I created the youth council. I gave the children an

opportunity to lead and give their standpoints when making decisions such as what activities they

want. One example of that is the Harvest Party. The students were given the authority by me to

choose activities, and which stations they would like to work. These are just small examples on

how this theory can make a difference. The standpoint theory should never be taken lightly, and

it assists us in giving everyone an opportunity to achieve greatness.

Critiques of this theory

NOTES:

Standpoint is all about unifying and, making sure we all don’t all stand in our own
separate standpoints people don’t get muted and voices don’t get heard.
Know Dialectics tensions of model- we want privacy and intimacy, but we also
want to feel intimate, so we must disclose info to but find a balance on a teeter totter, sharing
some info and choosing what to say and what to not say.

1. Say what theory is

2. How it applies
3. Discuss Critiques

HOW YOU MET GOALS OFCOMMUNICATION

Goal #1
: Students will participate credibly in communication relevant roles such as
message producers, message critics, service-learning practitioners,
interviewers, and
public speakers.
Goal #2
: Students will demonstrate knowledge and skills useful for employment,
service
to the community, self-reflection, and growth.
Specific Learning Goals:

Students will demonstrate successful communication skills as campus
and community servants and leaders.

Students will be able to demonstrate perspective-taking (putting yourself in the
others’ position) across communication contexts

Sources:

Griffin, E. (2003). A First Look At Communication Theory (Fifth ed.). New York, NY: McGraw
Hill.

Griffin, E. (2012). A First Look At Communication Theory (Eighth ed.). New York, NY:
McGraw Hill.

Source: Sorrells, K. (n.d.). Intercultural communication: Globalization and social justice. 2013.