UC Business Scholars Gain Edge with Good Manners

Hooded sweatshirts, jeans and soccer shorts took a bow to business suits on a recent evening as 23 freshmen from the University of Cincinnati College of Business got a real-life taste of proper etiquette in the formal dining atmosphere of the five-star Maisonette restauarant.

In recent weeks, the students have learned about good manners at the hands of the guru, UC’s version of “Miss Manners,” LisaMarie Luccioni, adjunct assistant professor of communication in the

McMicken College of Arts and Sciences

. The true test of what the students learned came Oct. 27, as they sat down to linen-covered tables with formal place settings.

According to Chris Frericks, 18, a first-year scholar in COB’s Carl H. Lindner Honors-PLUS program, most of his classmates don’t have a clue about proper courtesy. “They’ve never been taught it. They’ve worked at Skyline’s, McDonald’s and Burger King. The places they’ve worked don’t really have much to do with proper etiquette,” says Frericks, who is from Maineville and graduated from St. Xavier High School.

While the Honors-PLUS students who make up Luccioni’s current class may have a better understanding of courtesy than a typical college freshman, they, too, need guidance to keep them from committing a business blunder that could cost them a valuable co-op job or embarrass their future employers. “I think this has always been a pressing need for young people getting ready to enter college and, eventually, the job market,” says Jeri Ricketts, Honors-PLUS director. “Our students begin interning immediately following their freshman year, and interview mid-way through their freshman year, so we want to be sure that they have the requisite social and communication skills to avoid embarrassment and to handle themselves in a professional manner.”

Says Honors-PLUS freshman Sarah Madrigal from Bluffton, Ohio: “Generally we’re more about just feeling comfortable. I don’t do things to be rude, but I tend to do what makes myself comfortable. I prop an elbow on the table or put a foot under me when I sit down.”

Their instructor would agree that etiquette is about comfort – but not necessarily theirs. “My definition of etiquette is basically putting people at ease while representing yourself favorably,” Luccioni explains.

Thus, some of the key points she stresses are:  remembering and using people’s names, because we all really like it when people use our names, the importance of a firm handshake and the power of the simple, handwritten “thank you” note. To emphasize her first point, Luccioni gets to know her students’ names before their first session, which brings surprised smiles to their faces as she calls them by name during their first meeting.

In a world influenced by the manners displayed on shows such as Jerry Springer’s, the drive to teach proper etiquette seems to be mushrooming, says Luccioni. On the Internet, a recent search for etiquette on Yahoo generated 497,000 hits while Google found 776,000. Newspaper articles recount stories about the lack of civility among congressional candidates and other politicos, the need for a civility curriculum in grade schools, surveys reporting that most people say lack of courtesy is a serious problem in our country and even brutes on airplanes.

In addition to her courses with Honors-PLUS students at UC, Luccioni is slated to teach etiquette to students in seminars at the College of Law during winter quarter. There is also discussion about adding etiquette to the curriculum in a new program in Organizational Leadership at the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences.

Luccioni does not see one age group as more in need of etiquette training than another. “I see a demand for this in people of all ages. People who are already working in corporate America need guidance, as do novice students. Who hasn’t been flustered by not knowing what to wear to an event or going to a restaurant and not knowing the protocol?”

For those who have questions about good manners, Luccioni tends to have the answers, from the proper way to eat a roll with butter to gracefully removing a piece of gristle from your mouth.