Creating a Healthy Space: Forensic Educators

Creating a Healthy Space: Forensic Educators' Sensemaking about Healthy Tournament Management Practices Heather J. Carmack Dr. 0 1 0 Thi s Article is brought to you for free and open access by Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University, Mankato. It has been accepted for inclusion in Speaker & Gavel by an authorized administrator of Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works for Minnesota State University , Mankato , USA 1 James Madison University Follow this and additional works at: http://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/speaker-gavel Part of the Health Communication Commons, and the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Carmack, H. J. (2016). Creating a healthy space: Forensic educators' sensemaking about healthy tournament management practices. Speaker & Gavel, 53(1), 5-24. - Sensemaking about Healthy Tournament Management Practices Heather J. Carmack, PhD James Madison University Heather J. Carmack, Ph.D. (Ohio University) Dr. Carmack is an assistant professor and Associate Director of the Center for Health and Environmental Communication in the School of Communication Studies at James Madison University. Her research areas include communicating about patient safety, organizational responses to health and wellness, and organizational socialization and culture. She holds a PhD in Health Communication from Ohio University. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. This Article is brought to you for free and open access through Cornerstone: A Collection of Scholarly and Creative Works at Minnesota State University, Mankato. It has been accepted for inclusion in Speaker & Gavel by the Editor and Editorial Board of Speaker & Gavel. Proper APA citation for this article is: Carmack, H. J. (2016). Creating a healthy space: Forensic educators’ sensemaking about healthy tournament management practices. Speaker & Gavel, 53(1), 5-24. Carmack Creating a Healthy Space: Forensic Educators’ Sensemaking about Healthy Tournament Management Practices Heather J. Carmack Page | 5 Organizations are increasingly becoming concerned with the health and well-being of their members. To address these issues, organizations are creating wellness initiatives. One organization concerned with the well-being of its members is collegiate forensics. Forensic organizations have been working since the late 1990s to create formal and informal wellness initiatives to address the health of students and educators at forensic tournaments. The purpose of this study is to explore how collegiate forensic educators understand and implement these initiatives and the tensions they encounter. Collegiate forensic educators who host tournaments completed an open-ended qualitative questionnaire about formal and informal wellness initiatives. The findings suggest that educators struggle with the costs and logistics of tournaments and implementing these initiatives. Huniversities as administrators reflect on the physical, mental, and economic ealth and wellness continues to be an important topic for businesses and strain poor health habits have on organizational member productivity (Anderson, Harrison, Cooper, & Jané-Llopis, 2011; Bopp & Fallon, 2013; Farrell & Geist-Martin, 2005; Geist-Martin & Scarduzio, 2011; Jack & Brewis, 2005; Langille et al., 2011; Michaels & Greene, 2013; Reger, Williams, Kolar, Smith, & Douglas, 2002; Watson & Gauthier, 2003) . Not surprisingly, there is a reciprocal relationship between work and health; increasing work hours and work-related stress leads to poor health and poor health contributes to decreases in productivity and work quality and increases in absenteeism (Farrell & Geist-Martin, 2005) . These concerns have prompted administrators to encourage the adoption and implementation of organizational wellness initiatives. These initiatives can include fitness and nutrition classes, health referrals, ergonomic equipment, and employee assistance programs to address drug and alcohol abuse (Farrell & Geist-Martin, 2005) ; some organizations are even building on-site wellness centers so members can exercise before, during, or after work (Zoller, 2004) . These initiatives, which often offer members bonuses for weight loss and the implementation of healthy habits, are designed to Healthy Tournament promote health and wellness as well as increase productivity (McGillivray, 2005) . From an organizational member perspective, these initiatives can increase satisfaction with work and the organization (Grawitch, Trares, & Kohler, 2007) . Grawitch, Trares, and Kohler (2007) cautioned, however, that although it is important for organizations to implement initiatives to promote health, it is equally important to focus on the needs of organizational members (subordinates and supervisors) when designing the programs. For example, considering members’ interests, level of (...truncated)