story by Shannon Beatty
photos by Rita Revy

One vision from a faculty dinner several years ago still haunts Elizabeth Sinclair-Colando.

"The wife of one of the faculty members just picked up her knife and licked it," she said. "The person with me noticed, too, and we just sat there with our mouths hanging open."

Other people in the room also noticed. And stared.

"Maybe they eat that way in their house, and maybe she just wasn't thinking," Sinclair-Colando said.

But the image of a woman licking her silverware is burned into her brain. As associate dean of undergraduate studies in the College of Business Administration, she emphasizes the importance of etiquette to students' future careers.

"You could be the best person for the position," she said. "But if you can't communicate that in a way that's culturally acceptable to the organization, you aren't going anywhere."

Etiquette experts believe the laid-back atmosphere of college may be keeping students from learning the p's and q's of socializing in a formal setting. Translation: Sitting in the dark eating Chee-tos out of the bag and watching The Jerry Springer Show prepares students poorly for the very public world of business. In the Roman arena of business competition, the interviewee without manners is the Christian running from the lions. He or she will be eaten alive.

Organizations across the country have recently launched etiquette programs to save students and young businessmen and women from making a career-stunting faux pas. Kent State is no exception.

Since January, schools like Ohio State University and MIT have held programs for their students with the help of outside etiquette consultation companies.

"A lot of this was taught years ago around the family dinner table," etiquette expert Darcy Matz told the Minneapolis Star Tribune during a training dinner for the University of Minnesota. "Now we don't do a lot of dining at the table. We're using paper napkins and plastic forks, eating out of fast-food containers, eating in the car."

Sinclair-Colando said her generation, which raised today's college students, is much more involved with careers and activities than previous generations. Some of the in-home training has fallen by the wayside.

"We educators assume often that students just know these things, when in fact that's not the case," she said. Kent State has discussed adding an etiquette class for credit, but nothing has been done yet.

Rebecca Erwin, president of the Kent State chapter of Golden Key National Honor Society, said in daily life, a person's manners show others something about him or her that doesn't always come across in conversation.

"When I think about (etiquette), it's like a date," she said. "That's one of the first tests. If they burp at the table, if they pick their teeth, I find out that the person is someone who I'd be embarrassed to be with."

Erwin noticed the need for a manners refresher when the chapter officers went to the national convention during fall semester 1999. Group members were awkward in social situations and when they attended dinners in formal restaurants.

She contacted University Food Services, which had given 11 previous etiquette programs, and set a date. Golden Key would pay much of the cost of a six-course meal in Kent State's Schwebel Garden Room Restaurant for members who chose to attend.