Department announces curriculum change

A curriculum change for the Communication Department has been
approved and is set to take effect in Fall Semester 2007.

Major changes to the curriculum will occur with the following courses: Comm 498R Communication Internship, Comm 499 Case Studies in Communication and other 400 level courses.

Comm 498R and Comm 499 have been moved into the core courses. Students must either participate in an internship or in Comm 499 Case Studies in Communication to graduate.

“We realize that not every communication major would benefit from an internship; we’re still allowing the option of taking Comm 499 instead,” said Ron Bennett, Communication Department chair. “The motivation behind this is we want to encourage students to do an internship, we are trying to give them motivation to do it.”

Bennett said that Comm 499 is currently a ‘capstone’ class taken by seniors who put together an e-portfolio and do projects. In the fall of 2007, Comm 499 will become a case study class.

“What [students] would largely be graded on is their participation and discussion in class, said Bennett.

Comm 399, a new Communication course will begin in the fall also.
“[Comm 399] will take some of the old components from 499 to a junior course. For example, the e-portfolio and interview workshops need to be done before their senior year,” said Bennett.

It will be required for students to take 15 credits from a pool of courses they can choose from, but they will also be required to take 3 credits from the 400 level courses in order to graduate.

Bennett says that these changes will “encourage students to make better choices for their emphasis area.”