Communication Studies Communication is the human infrastructure of everyday personal, public and political life. By embracing both social scientific and humanistic approaches to communication, our undergraduate and graduate programs provide students with the knowledge to understand and the skills to enrich human interaction in these different contexts. Our undergraduate and graduate curriculum offers particular strength in the theory and practice of interpersonal communication, health communication, political rhetoric, and public culture. Undergraduate students may therefore select from a wide array of courses that focus, for example, on the following: communication and conflict, communicating in small groups, intercultural communication, health campaigns, interracial communication, communication strategies in political campaigns, scientific and environmental communication, nonverbal communication, the rhetoric of war, the rhetoric of religion, and visual rhetoric. Graduate students admitted to our nationally ranked masters and doctoral programs will have the opportunity to tailor their advanced coursework in interpersonal and health communication or rhetorical studies to suit their professional goals. In choosing to pursue a degree in Communication Studies, undergraduate and graduate students will study with a distinguished faculty. We excel in both teaching and research. For their work in the classroom, members of our faculty have received numerous teaching awards, including the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor Award and the Sandy Beaver Teaching Award. Our outstanding research and scholarship has earned local, regional, and national recognition. The department is home to a Distinguished Research Professor, a National Debate Coach of the Year, three Fellows of the Behavioral Health Sciences Institute, one recipient of the Outstanding Health Communication Scholar Award, and two recipients of the National Communication Association's Douglas Ehninger Distinguished Rhetorical Scholar Award. Our faculty members' scholarship regularly appears in the field's best journals and its research is often funded by local, state, and federal government agencies. Many of our faculty are members of one or more editorial boards, and hold leadership positions in national and regional professional organizations.
