CORE COURSES
Take the following courses:
CM-130 Introduction to Human Communication
Surveys the fundamental tenets of human communication through application. This course is concerned with how and why we speak, listen, respond, and strategize through the uses of verbal and nonverbal symbol systems.
3 CreditsS
CM-132 Message Analysis
The study of rhetoric investigates the art of persuasion. The course introduces the basic rhetorical concepts and language we need to make sense of the sea of messages we swim in. The course aims to sharpen your ability to reason, reflect, send, perceive and discern messages in a variety of contexts. Upon completion of this course students understand several humanistic perspectives toward communication and are able to apply the basic tools of rhetorical analysis. Students have an increased awareness of the ways in which our symbolic behaviors shape our social lives.
3 CreditsH, CS
CM-133 Mass Media and Society
An examination of the convergence of mass media (print, radio, television, sound, film, and internet) which serve our most common public interests. The focus is on the four primary functions to inform, to entertain, to persuade, and to transmit culture. Students have a better understanding of the tension between media as business and its social responsibility to its citizens. This course is not open to seniors.
3 CreditsH, CS
CM-200 Art of Public Speaking
Seeks to develop and improve fundamental principles and methods of selecting, organizing, developing, and communicating a line of reasoning and evidence for constructive influence in speaking situations. Students make three formal presentations, analyze messages, and improve their listening skills
3 CreditsCS, HPrerequisites: Sophomore, Junior, or Senior standing.
CM-401 Senior Seminar
Senior Seminar in Communication is an opportunity to refine your understanding of your communication POE and experiences and their application to the professional world of business or graduate school. Students will reflect on their communication expertise, prepare resumes and interwiewing techniques, network with alums in communication, and communicate their expertise. This course intends to make explicit the strong knowledge base acquired in a Communication POE and to explore the opportunities available in the field of communication.
1 CreditHPrerequisites: Senior standing.
SKILLS & METHODS COURSES
Take 12 credits from the following courses:
CM-210 Race and Language in the United States
This class examines racism as a cultural system observed through our beliefs and practices about spoken English. The goal of the course is to develop an understanding of how linguistic prejudice contributes to the cultural programs of racism in the US.
3 CreditsSW-US
CM-220 Group Communication
This course is designed to improve communication with others in small group task and problem-solving situations. Working with a community partner students propose, plan and carry out a service project. We explore ways of developing communication strategies for group decision making, for leadership, and for managing interpersonal conflict, as well as presentations skills. This course takes a balanced approach to understanding and using communication theories, as well as offering practical experience using those skills for working in small groups. By the end of the semester students understand the group experience in terms of shared leadership of working cooperatively with diverse group members; and the necessity for ethical choices.
4 CreditsH, CS, SW-LEPrerequisite: CM-130 or CM-132 or CM-133. Pre- or Co-Requisite: FYC-101 or EN-110 or EN-109.
CM-230 Interpersonal Communication
Introduces students to the various theories and styles of one-on-one communication. It emphasizes the transactional approach in the study of the communication process as it occurs in interpersonal relationships. It explores interaction as a way by which we come to know ourselves and each other.
3 CreditsH, CSPrerequisites: CM130
CM-240 Introduction to Storytelling
This course aims to develop a deeper understanding of the art of storytelling and the ability to create narratives for specific and diverse audiences and purposes across multiple mediums. To be able to create impactful stories that can achieve the goals we set as storytellers, we will focus on audience analysis, narrative structure and storytelling for different mediums. AI and ChatGPT will be used to explore the ideas of intercultural sensitivity, empathy, perspective, and humor in storytelling.
3 Credits
CM-261 CM Studies in Germany I
This course is a short-term study abroad class that meets for one hour a week in the spring semester to prepare for a 10-day trip to Germany in May. We will cover an array of communication topics including public speaking, intercultural and group communication, as well as journalism and PR/marketing related topics. The cost for the trip will include travel, hotel, food and fees. Estimated cost for the course is approximately $3,000.
1 CreditI, HCorequisite: CM262.
CM-262 CM Studies in Germany II
This course is a short-term study abroad class that meets for one hour a week in the spring semester to prepare for a 10-day trip to Germany in May. We cover an array of communication topics including public speaking, intercultural and group communication, as well as journalism and PR/marketing related topics. The cost for the trip will include travel, hotel, food and fees. Estimated cost for the course is approximately $3,000.
2 CreditsI, HCorequisite: CM261.
CM-288 Strategic Communication
This course will introduce students to strategic communication theory as it informs practices and skills that organizations employ to achieve goals. Students will learn about communicating with various stakeholders across corporate, non-profit, and public service organizations. This includes designing messages on behalf of social causes and corporate interests that are intended for diverse audiences.
3 CreditsPrerequisite: CM-130 or CM-132 or CM-133
CM-300 Professional Presentations
Designed for students to improve and polish their speaking skills for effective presentations in professional settings. It is a performance course with emphasis placed on speech structure, audience adaptation, style of presentation (oral report and manuscript reading), with the use of PowerPoint and/or Prez1. Video is used to help speakers understand the relationship between their speaking behaviors and responses of listeners.
3 CreditsCS, HPrerequisites: CM200.
CM-330 Media Analysis
Designed to explore analytical approaches applied to a variety of media, including advertising, television sitcoms, new shows, propaganda, film, music and architecture, in order to ascertain the persuasive messages inherent in each artifact. By examining the rhetorical choices revealed by each method of criticism, we can better understand the structure of message design, the medium and in a larger sense the cultural values that shape both.
3 CreditsH, CW, CSPrerequisites: CM132 or CM133.
EB-351 Marketing Management
Analyzes consumer behavior leading to selection of product as well as pricing, promotion and distribution strategies. Research projects help students apply concepts to the complexities of decision making in marketing.
3 CreditsSPrerequisite: EB201.
PACS-105 Introduction to Conflict Resolution
A survey of the field of conflict, this course explores the causes and consequences of social conflict. Theory and case studies are used to understand interpersonal disputes, the intricacies of groups in conflict and international issues and crisis. Emphasis is given to understanding the basic theoretical concepts of the field and developing basic conflict resolving skills.
3 CreditsS, WK-SIPrerequisite or Corequisite: FYC-101
PACS-108 Mediation
Students learn the basic model of interest-based mediation and the theoretical framework that guides its use. Role-plays and simulations will be used to prepare students to serve as mediators in a variety of contexts. Students will be trained to use a co-mediation model to resolve interpersonal and small group conflicts. There will be Saturday and Sunday meeting times 9 am-5 pm. There are 3 weekends. You will enroll for 1 weekend if you take 1 credit, 2 weekends if you do 2 credits and 3 if you take 3 credits. Homework assignments will be completed online.
1-3 CreditsS
EN-273 Visual Literacy
This course explores how visuals and text are used for purposes of identification, information, and persuasion. It looks at many visual modes such as comics, ads, maps, graffiti, film, art, scientific images, and web sites. Students have the option to create arguments using only text, only images, or a combination of both.
4 CreditsHPrerequisite: EN110 or EN109.
EN-315 Technical Writing
Writing focuses on various document designs and ways to present those designs in expressions appropriate to audience and purpose. Ethical discussion focuses on quality control, accuracy, and various forms of bias
4 CreditsH, CW, SW-ERPrerequisites: FYC-101 or EN-110 or EN-109 and Sophomore, Junior or Senior standing.
SEMINAR COURSES
Take 12 credits from the following courses:
CM-340 Intercultural Communication
This course examines symbolic patterns of communication as they relate to issues of diversity. Interactive skills needed to open channels of communication between and among people of diverse backgrounds are analyzed and developed. A multi-cultural approach to the study of human communication serves as a basis for exploring issues of diversity that include but are not limited to race, gender, class, ability, orientation, religion and ethnicity.
3 CreditsH, I, SW-GEPrerequisite or Corequisite: FYC-101
CM-365 Organizational Communication
Examines the strategic uses of communication by individuals in organizations and by organizations as a whole in the pursuit of organizational goals. Provides students with a theoretical vocabulary to analyze communication in organizational settings in order to understand processes such as social networks, leadership, and power. Focuses on personal and organizational ethics in work place communication.
3 CreditsH, S, CWPrerequisites: CM130 and CM230 and CM220.
CM-388 Public Communication Campaigns
Provide catalog description here: This course examines the strategies and effects of public communication campaigns aimed at informing and persuading audiences in health, political and environmental contexts. During the semester, students will develop, execute, measure, and analyze a real-world communication campaign within the community.
Prerequisite: CM-130 or CM-132, or CM-133
CM-499 Special Topics
Allows departments to offer special topics not normally offered. Departments may offer more than one special topic.
1-4 Credits Prerequisites vary by topic.
CM-400A Health Communication
Explores how communication functions to promote health, the important role of information in health care, the development of communication campaigns to promote health awareness, alternative and multicultural approaches to health care, the promotion of ethical health communication, and the use of new health communication technologies.
3 CreditsHPrerequisite: CM-130 or CM-132 or CM-133
CM-420D Truth and Lying
This media studies course introduces students to the theories of rhetoric to understand the question, who can we trust? We pay special attention to the classical period of Rhetoric and the Rhetoric of the 20th century. Rhetoric has been transformed through media. Despite these transformations, rhetoric has always been considered of first importance for the ethical practical conduct of our everyday lives. How we present or lives our beliefs, attitudes, and commitments is indeed the concern of when we lie and who we can trust in our personal and public lives.
3 CreditsH, CWPrerequisites: CM132 or CM133.
CM-420E Digital Storytelling
Digital stories derive their power in weaving images, music, narrative and voice together, and thereby giving deep dimension and vivid color to characters, situations, experiences, and insights. This course offers students the opportunity to experiment with narratives and their visualization using digital media technologies as a vehicle to tell stories creatively with a clear point of view and audience awareness.
3 CreditsH, F, CTDHPrerequisites: CM133 or 1 of the following courses, CM290 or IT110 or AR404.
EB-375 21st Century Leadership
This course examines the challenges of providing leadership in the information age of global and cultural contexts. Leadership as manifested in today's workplace provides both opportunity and a great responsibility. The role and function of leaders look very different today than years ago. Change is the norm. Leaders must understand today's challenges and be able to function effectively given a borderless, multicultural, virtual, and diverse group of followers.
3 CreditsS,CTGESNo prerequisites.
ELECTIVE COURSES
Take 12 credits from the following courses:
In this class, students will learn how to read, understand, and conduct social research
about individuals and systems that create disparity in health care and outcomes. The
research that we will read and learn to conduct will rely on texts and stories rather
than numbers and statistics. The class will address questions such as: what conditions
are present that allow some populations greater access to health care than others?
What social problems underlie the disparities in health outcomes for women, people
of color, and people from low-income backgrounds. Students will gather and analyze
their own research data. 3 CreditsS, WK-SIPre-Req or Co-Req: FYC-101 or EN-110 or EN-109 Focuses on health and medical writing for public audiences. The course will familiarize
students with health literacy, plain language, and visual communication skills. Students
will analyze and compose common genres of public health writing, including reports
about health in the media, advocacy documents, science journalism articles, and public
health posters. 3 CreditsH, CWPrerequisites: EN110 or EN109. An experience in creating forms of nonfiction prose ranging from analytical essay
to the familiar essay to satire. First-year students need the instructor's permission
to enroll. 4 CreditsH, CWPrerequisite: EN110 or EN109. This advanced writing course introduces students to the genres and techniques of journalism.
Students will write a number of news and feature stories. The writing process involves
interviewing, note taking and other forms of data gathering on campus and local news
events, creating multiple story drafts and participating in peer-editing workshops:
work culminates in a portfolio of stories written throughout the semester. Students
need not plan to become professional media writers to benefit from the course. 4 CreditsH, CWPrerequisite: EN110 or EN109. When we want to convey a message to others, how do we choose whether to Tweet, blog,
or shoot video? And why does it matter which we choose? Contemporary life asks us
to be agile interpreters of images, texts, and sounds. In response, this course immerses
students into the theory and practice of how and why we choose the media in which
we communicate. Students explore how we understand and manipulate media, but also
how media-in and of themselves-influence what gets written and how. Through an assignment
sequence that includes text, webtext, image, sound, and video, students gain strength
and versatility as writers by honing their awareness of genre, audience, and rhetorical
situation. The course culminates in a multimodal, web-based portfolio. This course
may be of interest to those considering not only professional writing, but also business,
marketing, technology, creative entrepreneurship, media studies, art, and/or design. 3 CreditsH,CW,CTDHPre-Req: FYC-101 or EN-110 or EN-109. This course will introduce students to the context and forms of social media. We will
explore the theories and practices of narrative expression in online context, explore
social media as culture and study the impact of " the sharing economy. " What is social
media, who uses it, who gains from it, and how is it transforming new media aswell
as traditional media. One of the outcomes of social media is that everything is connected,
creating massive amounts of user generated content and data. Students will learn to
analyze, design and visualize this data. We will also focus on the social norms of
user communities and how we can leverage it to better understand emerging technologies.
Students will have the opportunity to explore both theory and practice of social media
through writing assignments, presentations, curating and creating creative content,
and participating on both online and offline discussions. 3 CreditsFPrerequisites: IM110 or IT110 or IT111 or CS110. Examines in depth the development and implementation of marketing strategies, for
businesses and not-for-profits, for domestic and international businesses. 3 CreditsSPrerequisite: EB351. This promotion management course is designed to give students an in-depth examination
of integrated marketing communication and how it relates to handling promoting an
organization, a campaign, a product and (or) service, or any other specific cause.
The course will look at various promotional techniques such as public relations, various
sources of advertising and marketing, and the utilization of direct sales approaches,
with the focus on the marketing mix to the various aspects of communications that
take place between the firm and its customers. At the same time, this course lends
itself to studying both " applied " and " theoretical " issues to give students both
a real-world view of advertising and promotions, as well as frameworks for understanding
such real-world decisions. Specifically, it will focus on the concept of " what is
in it for me " and the attempt to establish a two-way dialogue with consumers. The
course will offer an insight into strategies that can be developed and implemented
to manage promotional activities. 3 Credits The early part of the course takes an in-depth look at the fundamental nature of the
employer- employee relationship. The fundamental framework is then used to evaluate
traditional aspects of Human Resource Management practice: Selection, training, recruitment,
performance appraisals, and compensation. Class time involves some lecture, in-class
exercises, guest speakers from industry, and case analyses. 3 CreditsSPrerequisites: EB202 or PACS202. Bargaining and Conflict Management provides students with an opportunity to learn
about bargaining and conflict-management theory. Students will have the opportunity
to explore and apply this theory, and to examine aspects of bargaining style, in a
variety of bargaining simulations. The course will also have an international component
by utilizing international bargaining simulations as an instructional tool. 3 CreditsS,CSPrerequisite: EB202 or PACS202. CM-310 Understanding Health Inequity
EN-271 Public Health Writing
EN-306 Creative Nonfiction Writing
EN-311 Professional News and Feature Writing
EN-376 Writing Across Media
IM-310 Social Media
EB-355 Marketing Strategies
EB-359 Advertising & Promo Mgmt
EB-371 Human Resource Management.
EB-379 Bargaining and Conflict Management
CAPSTONE
Complete one of the following options below (a minimum of 4 credits):
OPTION 1:
CM-490 Communication Internship
Communication students may apply their acquired skills and knowledge to on-the-job
internships for a semester during their junior or senior year for a total of 9 credit
hours. Television stations, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, public relations,
advertising agencies and human relations in health organizations are all possible
placements. You not only work as full-time members of a business team, but also evaluate
and document your growth in a work journal and prepare a portfolio of presentations
or publications.
2-9 Credits Corequisite: CM495. Prerequisite: Communication core and Jr. or Sr. standing.
CM-495 Communication Internship Research
In addition to the on-the-job experience provided by the internship, students are
required to pursue research related to their placement. An in-depth research paper
or presentation is completed during the semester.
2-6 CreditsHCorequisite: CM490. Prerequisite: Communication core and Jr. or Sr. standing.
CM-490 Communication Internship
Communication students may apply their acquired skills and knowledge to on-the-job internships for a semester during their junior or senior year for a total of 9 credit hours. Television stations, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, public relations, advertising agencies and human relations in health organizations are all possible placements. You not only work as full-time members of a business team, but also evaluate and document your growth in a work journal and prepare a portfolio of presentations or publications.
2-9 Credits Corequisite: CM495. Prerequisite: Communication core and Jr. or Sr. standing.
CM-495 Communication Internship Research
In addition to the on-the-job experience provided by the internship, students are required to pursue research related to their placement. An in-depth research paper or presentation is completed during the semester.
2-6 CreditsHCorequisite: CM490. Prerequisite: Communication core and Jr. or Sr. standing.
OPTION 2:
CM-497 Senior Thesis Seminar
Designed to serve as a capstone course for students who emphasize Communication in
their POE. The students will be expected to examine communication theories and research
methods relevant to a topic, theme, issue, or problem that has served as an area of
special interest throughout the previous years of study.
3-6 CreditsH, CSStudents must have Senior standing and a POE in Communication.
CM-498 Senior Thesis Research
Designed to serve as a capstone course for students who emphasize Communication in
their POE. The students will be expected to examine communication theories and research
methods relevant to a topic, theme, issue, or problem that has served as an area of
special interest throughout the previous two years of study.
3-6 CreditsH, CSStudents must have Senior standing and have a POE in Communication. Prerequisite:
CM-497.
CM-497 Senior Thesis Seminar
Designed to serve as a capstone course for students who emphasize Communication in their POE. The students will be expected to examine communication theories and research methods relevant to a topic, theme, issue, or problem that has served as an area of special interest throughout the previous years of study.
3-6 CreditsH, CSStudents must have Senior standing and a POE in Communication.
CM-498 Senior Thesis Research
Designed to serve as a capstone course for students who emphasize Communication in their POE. The students will be expected to examine communication theories and research methods relevant to a topic, theme, issue, or problem that has served as an area of special interest throughout the previous two years of study.
3-6 CreditsH, CSStudents must have Senior standing and have a POE in Communication. Prerequisite: CM-497.
POE Credit Total = 55
Students must complete at least 18 credits at the 300/400-level. Any course exception must be approved by the advisor and/or department chair.