Graduate Programs

The Department and
Its Academic Areas of Emphasis

The department has the closely related missions of providing a first-rate liberal arts undergraduate education experience that prepares students to meet the complex communication challenges of the 21st century; providing doctoral education second to none in our areas of specialization; providing national and international leadership in research and knowledge dissemination in our collective research specialties; and providing effective undergraduate teaching for majors and non-majors alike. The Department of Communication Studies focuses at the graduate level on the study of human communication as a social practice. Our faculty and graduate students engage in scholarship and teaching that center on the role that human communication processes play in the construction, maintenance, reinforcement, and reformation of various aspects of social, professional, and institutional life.

The department has three areas of specialization that cohere around the common concern of understanding and explaining how different modes and media of communication serve as important influences on people’s everyday lives: Interpersonal Communication and Relationships, Media and Society, and Rhetoric and Public Advocacy. However, you are encouraged to draw liberally from the intellectual resources available throughout the department as you develop a plan of study toward the degree. These three programs complement one another and share in common the department’s intellectual focus on the study of human communication as social practice. Academic advisors and committee members work closely with individual students to integrate course work from Communication Studies and other University departments, along with teaching and research experiences that will help students meet their professional goals.