Communication - Speech (COMM)
COMM-101
Fundamentals of Oral Communication
3 Credits
Lecture: 3 hours per week
Offering: Fall, Spring, and Summer, All Years
This course introduces students to what communication is and how it affects human interaction. Emphasis is on public speaking with attention to audience analysis, organizational, and delivery skills. The controlled and supportive classroom environment is an ideal setting for students to practice and perfect those communication skills of effective speaking and critical listening valued in all professions, the community, and personal relations. It is, however, a complex discipline of reading, writing, research, and performance.
COMM-103 Oral Interpretation
3 Credits
Lecture: 3 hours per week
Offering: Spring Only, Even Years
This course makes literature come alive through effective reading. Interpreting is the goal of this course. Students will learn to select, analyze, and perform literary pieces including stories, plays, poems, and famous orations.
COMM-111 Interview Techniques
2 Credits
Lecture: 2 hours per week
Offering: Spring Only, All Years
This course provides practical experience in the development of interviewing techniques for a variety of settings and career applications. The process is analyzed and practiced, including setting up, conducting, and assessing the interview. Students learn to design and carry out effective interviews through study and practice of the practical "do's and don'ts" for several types of interviews. Skills gained are helpful to those pursuing careers in journalism, communications, law enforcement, psychology, oral history, and counseling.
COMM-207 Dynamics of Social Media
3 Credits
Lecture: 3 hours per week
Offering: Fall and Spring Only, All Years
This course explores emerging and established social media communication platforms and their impact on human interaction. Topics discussed and explored include: social media history, structure, and functions; virality; and persuasion and marketing via new media.
COMM-209 Argumentation
3 Credits
Lecture: 3 hours per week
Offering: Spring Only, All Years
This course is an introduction to the principles and practices of argumentation as a form of communication. Analysis, reasoning, evidence, and refutation skills are stressed. It provides skills in reasoned argumentation and is useful for pre-law, business, and careers where logical analysis and structured reasoning is stressed.
Recommended Prerequisites: COMM-101 and strong college-level reading and writing skills
COMM-212 Nonverbal Communication
3 Credits
Lecture: 3 hours per week
Offering: Fall and Spring Only, All Years
This course is an introduction to the basic concepts in the study of body language, symbols, and various means of communicating without using spoken language. The study of nonverbal communication will help students better understand how people communicate in relationships at work and at home, and may create an awareness of the students' own nonverbal communication style.
COMM-220
Introduction to Intercultural Communication
3 Credits
Lecture: 3 hours per week
Offering: Fall, Spring, and Summer, All Years
This course is an introduction to cultural differences and their effects on communication. The course attempts to help students become more sensitive to the needs of people from other cultures with whom we interact. With more diversity in our country, and to create and maintain positive relationships with minimal hostility and friction, an understanding of how to communicate across cultures will prove to be a considerable asset. Communication competence with people of other cultures calls for a repertoire of communication skills rarely taught in any other college course.
COMM-233
Interpersonal Communication
3 Credits
Lecture: 3 hours per week
Offering: Fall, Spring, and Summer, All Years
This course is an introduction to the skills and concepts that impact how people deal on a one-to-one level within interpersonal relationships. Emphasis is on self-examination and understanding how "I communicate with others" and how that can be improved. Students will develop an understanding of how perception, identity and gender influence our communication. This is an excellent course for developing skills necessary for everyday life where relationships must be developed and maintained.
COMM-236 Small Group Communication
3 Credits
Lecture: 3 hours per week
Offering: Spring Only, All Years
This course is designed to present the fundamentals of small group communication in such a way that the student actually experiences the small group process and evaluates his/her own and other's behaviors for success. The course will combine theory and practical application.