10.1177/1080569904273753 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / March 2005 Myers, Tucker / INCREASING AWARENESS OF EI INNOVATIVE ASSIGNMENTS INCREASING AWARENESS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN A BUSINESS CURRICULUM Laura L. Myers Mary L. Tucker Ohio University IN TODAY’S GLOBAL, “bigger is better” business environment, the need for intrapersonal awareness and interpersonal communication skills is greater than ever. Business schools are being asked to address this need by increasing attention to communication coursework in the business curricula. In fact, the Management Education Task Force of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) issued a report in April 2002 that called for an increase of instruction in communication, leadership, and interpersonal skills to make curricula more relevant to “today’s global workplace” (Doria, Rozanski, & Cohen, 2003). Furthermore, as a response to feedback from employ- ers, alumni, and executive advisors, business schools across the country are addressing the need for an increased emphasis on “people skills” by teaching business students the soft skills that set exemplary managers apart from their typical peers (Alsop, 2002, p. R11) and that enhance their ability to negotiate the “interpersonal dimension” of work life (Muir, 2004). Whereas the ability to gather, interpret, analyze, and respond to data may be a function of technical competency, the ability to receive, inter- pret, analyze, and respond to messages, both external and internal, is regulated by one’s emotional intelligence (EI). EI is “a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ 44 Authors’ Note: The authors would like to thank the journal reviewers for their helpful suggestions that made this a stronger article. We also wish to thank our colleague Theresa Moran for her insightful editorial comments. Business Communication Quarterly, Volume 68, Number 1, March 2005 44-51 DOI: 10.1177/1080569904273753 © 2005 by the Association for Business Communication