Study Communication

The study of communication is at least as old as written language itself. The first “scholar” of communication is also the first named historical author, the ancient Mesopotamian priestess, princess, and poet Enheduanna. As a vibrant component of a liberal arts education—since the inclusion of “rhetoric” in the trivium of subjects establishing classical Greek education—the study of communication has changed over the centuries. Today, students engage communicative inquiry as a method of developing the portable skills that will serve them in their collegiate studies and beyond. Through examining the collaborative construction and negotiation of meaning, between self and others, as it occurs within cultural contexts, students who earn a major in Communication (BA) will be able to construct effective messages in oral and written forms, as well as engage in collaborative work as interdependent group members, while adjusting their communicative strategies to account for various audiences, contexts, and diverse organizations and cultures in which they will advocate.

Students of communication also have the opportunity to take their skills and put them into use immediately, as part of their every-day lives, but also in more applied and specialized contexts, such as working for the student newspaper or engaging in intercollegiate debate tournaments with the award-winning Howling Yotes.