"Communication is the process through which we continuously negotiate the meaning and purpose of our lives. This process is not transparent or innocent: it is shot through with issues of race, gender, class and culture. Our goals must be to understand this process more clearly, to use it more compassionately, and to transform it when necessary."

~Prof. Shailor

Office: CART 230
Phone: 262-595-2218
Office Hours: Tuesday, 11:30-12:30
E-mail: shailor@uwp.edu

Background Information

Jonathan received his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts in 1992. He also earned his B.A. (1980) and M.A. (1988) degrees there. His teaching experience includes five years as an assistant professor at Ithaca College (New York), and five years as a high school teacher of English and drama.

He is Director of the Program in Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and the Director of the Critical Thinking Project. He is UWP's Teaching Scholar for 2004-05, and the Director of The Shakespeare Project at Racine Correctional Institution. He won the Stella C. Gray Teaching Excellence Award in 1998.

Jonathan teaches a wide range of coures for the communication department. His main interests are in conflict management, and uses of storytelling and public performance as tools for dialogue and community-building.

Jonathan is very much committed to the idea of "the engaged university," and enjoys tying his research interests to his community work. He works as a mediator in Racine and Kenosha, teaches classes at Racine Correctional Institution, and provides training and consultation for business and community organizations. For the past two years, he has run both the Chicago and the Milwaukee Lakefront marathons in part to raise funds for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside's Prison Project.

Jonathan's international experience includes one year of study at the Roehampton Institute in London, and two years of teaching at the Belair School in Jamaica, West Indies. He also studied Spanish in Costa Rica and Colombia.

Jonathan lives in Kenosha with his wife Catherine (Ph.D., UW-Madison), a counseling psychologist at the Bradley Counseling Center in Lake Villa, Illinois. They have two very playful Tonkinese cats, Socrates and Sophia, and a little black cat named Trisket.

Major Publications

Shailor, J. (1999). Desenvolvendo uma abordagem transformacional à páratica da mediacão: Consideracóes teoricas e prátics. In D. Fried Schnitman & S. Littlejohn (Eds.), Novos Paradigmas en Mediacão. Porto Alegre, Brazil: Editora Artes Medicas Sul Ltda.

Shailor, J. (1997) Context and the coordinated management of meaning. In J.L. Owen (Eds.), Context and Communication Behavior. Reno, NV: Context Press.

Shailor, J. (1992). Empowerment in dispute mediation: A critical analysis of communication.Westport, CT: Praeger.

Other Affiliations

Mediator~ Racine Center for Conflict Resolution

Theatre of Empowerment