Communication Capstone: Virtual Poster Presentation- Nicole Reese

Studying Women within Leadership in the Episcopal Church through a Co-Cultural Lense
Our group studied women in leadership within the Episcopal Church because throughout all of American history, seeing a woman in a leadership position is rare. Past research has been done on women in the workforce, but minimum findings have represented women having leadership within the church. This research adds to existing knowledge because it looks at the lived experiences of women in this leadership role and the communication strategies they use.
When conducting research, the method used was the phenomenological approach, which looks at the lived experiences of an individual. Through this process our group was granted IRB approval, conducted three interviews, and then transcribed, coded, and interpreted each interview. After analyzing the responses and experiences from my co-researchers, two underlying themes were discovered; collaboration/collegiality and support. Through this research we discovered that all three women understood that the decisions they were making were always better off when they worked with a collaborative approach. Our co-researchers expressed how important support is in the role they have. The word “support” was referenced 14 times throughout our transcriptions, and was said that having support is the main way our co-researchers continue to do the job they have.
To interpret the findings, we had to refer back to Orbe’s co-cultural communication theory. We found our co-researchers used nonassertive accommodation through the process of collaboration that each co-researcher referenced using. We also see our co-researchers explain different ways in which they were constantly trying to show how capable they were of their jobs, thus participating in nonassertive assimilation. Through this research we have learned that the experience of women as a co-culture in the workplace, specifically in the Epsicopal Church has more to do with the actions/support of the people they work with/for, than the specific individual that is filling that position.