Students will develop capacities focused on the role of communication to address current social, political, economic, technological, and environmental issues both locally and globally. Students will learn how to engage, critique, and create change in/through communication practices based on stakeholder engagement, deliberation and debate, facilitation and negotiation, dialogic communication, performativity, and rhetorical strategies using interpersonal, small group, and mediated forms of communication. Students may pursue careers as mediators, negotiators, community organizers, communication experts, political strategists, and policy makers, among others, in non-profit organizations, think tanks, government agencies, and businesses.
Pathway Starting Point Courses
COMM 113 Public Speaking (3 credits)
COMM 130 Introduction to Media Production (3 credits)
COMM 140 Introduction to Media History, Theory, and Criticism (3 credits)
COMM 170 Rhetoric and Public Issues (3 credits)
COMM 171 Argumentation and Debate (3 credits)
COMM 224 Introduction to Gender and Communication (3 credits)
COMM 249 Introduction to Communication Technology, Culture, and Society (3 credits)
COMM 260 Introduction to Performance and Social Change (3 credits)
Lower-Level Courses
COMM 51 First-Year Seminar: Organizing and Communicating for Social Entrepreneurs (3 credits)
COMM 53 490 First-Year Seminar: Collective Leadership Models for Community Change (3 credits)
COMM 61 100 First-Year Seminar: The Politics of Performance (3 credits)
COMM 62 First-Year Seminar: African American Literature and Performance (3 credits)
COMM 73 First-Year Seminar: Understanding Place through Rhetoric (3 credits)
COMM 75 First-Year Seminar: Researching Society and Culture (3 credits)
COMM 82 First-Year Seminar: Food Politics from an Organizational Communication
Perspective (3 credits)
COMM 84 3 First-Year Seminar: Make A Zine! Do-It-Yourself Writing, Publishing, and Distribution (3 credits)
COMM 85 First-Year Seminar: Think, Speak, Argue (3 credits)
COMM 89 1D First-Year Seminar: Special Topics (3 credits)
COMM 142 Popular Music (3 credits)
COMM 223 Small Group Communication
COMM 312 Persuasion (3 credits)
COMM 318 Cultural Diversity (3 credits)
COMM 349 Technology and Social Justice (3 credits)
COMM 350 Practices of Cultural Studies (3 credits)
COMM 355 Terrorism and Political Violence (3 credits)
COMM 360 Social Media and Society (3 credits)
COMM 371 Argumentation (3 credits)
COMM 372 The Rhetoric of Social Movements (3 credits)
COMM 374 The Southern Experience in Rhetoric (3 credits)
COMM 375 Environmental Advocacy (3 credits)
COMM 378 Environmental Filmmaking: Creative Production and Social Impact (3 credits)
COMM 390 Special Topics in Communication Study (3 credits)
COMM 393 Internships (1-3 credits)
COMM 396 Independent Study and Directed Research (1-3 credits)
Upper-Level Courses
COMM 412 Critical Theory
COMM 423 Critical Perspectives on Work, Labor, and Professional Life (3 credits)
COMM 432 Visual Culture (3 credits)
COMM 435 Memory Acts (3 credits)
COMM 437 United States Black Culture and Performance (3 credits)
COMM 450 Media and Popular Culture (3 credits)
COMM 453 The History of New Media Technology in Everyday Life (3 credits)
COMM 454 Media and Activism (3 credits)
COMM 470 Political Communication and the Public Sphere (3 credits)
COMM 471 Rhetorics of Public Memory (3 credits)
COMM 472 Rhetorical Criticism (3 credits)
COMM 490 Special Topics in Communication Studies (3 credits)
COMM 499 The Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication (3 credits)
COMM 500 Visual and Material Rhetoric (3 credits)
COMM 521 Communication and Social Memory (3 credits)
COMM 523 Communication and Leadership (3 credits)
COMM 524 Gender, Communication, and Culture (3 credits)
COMM 527 Organizational Ethics (3 credits)
COMM 549 Sexuality and Visual Culture (3 credits)
COMM 562 Oral History and Performance (3 credits)
COMM 571 Rhetorical Theory and Practice (3 credits)
COMM 572 Public Policy Argument (3 credits)
COMM 573 The American Experience in Rhetoric (3 credits)
COMM 574 War and Culture (3 credits)
COMM 575 Presidential Rhetoric (3 credits)
COMM 576 Making and Manipulating “Race” in the United States (3 credits)
COMM 577 Rhetoric and Black Culture (3 credits)
COMM 596 Advanced Independent Study/Directed Reading (1-3 credits)
COMM 624 Hate Speech (3 credits)
COMM 625 Communication and Nonprofits in the Global Context (3 credits)
COMM 652 Media and Difference (3 credits)
COMM 658 Surveillance Cultures (3 credits)
COMM 661 Race and Ethnicity (3 credits)
COMM 665 Performance, Politics, and Culture (3 credits)
COMM 667 Performance Activism (3 credits)
COMM 690 Advanced Topics in Communication Studies (3 credits)
COMM 695 Field Methods (3 credits)