OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Symbolic Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the symbolic frame
2. Apply the symbolic frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

During my term as Student President I worked with five other student officers to
plan, host and run Student Life events for JohnWood Community College. I ran monthly
meetings with the entire organization and led weekly officers meetings. I was also office
manager for the student life administrator.

The biggest obstacle we faced that year was the pandemic and how to operate
under a new light, as did many other organizations. We wanted to maintain all the regular
meetings as well as the average of 10 events each month. The restrictions were
continuously changing due to higher cases in our area, so we were constantly coming up
with new ideas on how to get people together, but apart. We were determined to keep a
steady number of active members in SGA because most members were academic
scholarship students. Scholarship student’s two main requirements were to maintain a 3.0
GPA and be a member of SGA. To keep your attendance in SGA it was a requirement to
be at every monthly meeting and attend a minimum of two events per month. We wanted
to plan enough events to give plenty of options for students to choose from to meet their
requirements.

2) Describe how the symbols of the organization influenced the situation.

The symbolic frame within my organization was shown through the push for
being student lead. The Student Government Association was put in place at John Wood
Community College to give students leadership opportunities early on in their college
careers. The organization consisted of scholarship students and created experiences for
them to add to their resume. The advisor for this organization took pride in helping
students grow as new adults, find their interests and build connections as they continued
in their professional life.

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 The advisor set the standard of making students feel empowered to lead and grow
outside of their comfort zone. He created an environment for students to take pride in
their work and set goals for themselves to work towards in their education and careers.
This impacted my officer team as a whole because we were pushed to become leaders in
unusual circumstances. We were the first team to work with such strict guidelines from
Covid-19 and our advisor still encouraged and guided us to grow as much as possible as
leaders.

3) Recommend how you would use organizational symbols for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

We didn’t have a lot of the symbolic frame represented in my organization. I think

it would be beneficial for them to define their symbols and what they represent. This is
something they could incorporate to teach the new leaders each year about leadership.
They could even define new symbols each year based on the officer team and what they
want to focus on as their values.

It would also be beneficial for the organization to teach the officers all of these
frames we’ve talked about this semester. Looking back, we were just expected to figure
out what leadership was and how to fill those roles. A value they could instill into future
years would be to teach the leaders as they are figuring out their officer roles.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

I wouldn’t change the structure or symbols of this organization. I think the

symbolic concept of being student led is amazing for young leaders trying to find
themselves. If I were to change anything it would be encouraging more student
responsibilities and having the advisor less involved. They should lean more into
student’s being in charge and giving them more power within the organization. Power
could be distributed more once the students learn their leadership skills and are more
familiar with their roles.

I would also recommend the organization to follow through with this value of
being student led by training students in leadership. They should attend seminars and
conventions for students to learn more about leadership and how to be leaders. We were
not trained and just given guidance by our advisor. It would have been nice to get more
advice and lessons from other leader role models.

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 Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership (7th ed.).
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass