- Students on the Job Market

Graduate Courses

School of Communication Studies 

Projected Course Offerings

Note: this is a partial listing of courses that are offered.  For a complete listing of courses “on the books” please consult the graduate directory.

623 Seminar in Instructional Communication (5)

This course provides graduate students with an overview of the impact of communication in the classroom. Specifically, this course focuses on the dynamics of communication and how this influences student outcomes (e.g., learning, motivation) as well as instructor outcomes (e.g., efficacy, job satisfaction).

632 Instructional Training and Development in Communication (5)

Includes philosophies of organizational development; theories of instructional design, emphasizing stages of planning implementation, and evaluation; and communication training skills, including needs assessment and evaluation, writing objectives, application of communication content, and selection of instructional modes and resources—all investigated within business, professional, and governmental organizational contexts.

700A-F Professional Seminar in Communication Studies (1)

The professional seminar serves to orient students to graduate school and provide forums to discuss what it means to be a scholar, teacher, citizen, and/or communication practitioner. The seminar will be taught over six quarters (1 credit each/6 total) and are required for first and second year graduate students.

701 Research Designs in Communication (5)

Nature and selection of communicative research problems; development of strategies, techniques, and appropriate designs; critical evaluation and development of experimental and descriptive procedures. Y.

702 Communication Historiography I (5)

Prereq: 600. Bibliographic, analytical, and interpretive skills for dealing with published primary source materials, including letters, speech texts, and audiovisual recordings in their historical contexts. Designed to help students become skillful library users, situate a research problem in context, and analyze primary historical materials.

703 Communication Historiography II (5)

Prereq: 702. Techniques for research using archival material: transcripts, unpublished speeches, letters, diaries, artifacts (e.g., scrapbooks, museum exhibits), memoirs, manuscripts. Readings exemplify a variety of historical philosophies. Students research an original problem of their own definition within the theme of the quarter; the writing of conference papers is encouraged. Course builds on the pedagogical skills introduced in 702 by developing the ability to critique bibli­ogra­phies, argumentation, and prose style.

704 Qualitative Research: Ethnography of Communication and Conversational Analysis (5)

Provides students with an understanding of how to conduct communication research projects using two qualitative research methodologies that stress the collection and analysis of naturalistic data—ethnography of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and conversation analysis. Students will learn to design and implement communication studies using ethnography of communication and conversation analysis.

705 Integrated Theory in Communications Studies I (8)

COMS 705 (and its companion course, 706) will provide students with a broad-based introduction to, and critical examination of, the historical foundations as well as the contemporary theoretical investigations of the communication discipline. Students will read primary source materials coupled with contemporary texts extending these works in developing, applying, and testing communication theory. Required of all first-year graduate students in Communication Studies. Y.

706 Integrated Theory in Communications Studies II (8)

COMS 706 (and its companion course, 705) will provide students with a broad-based introduction to, and critical examination of, the historical foundations as well as the contemporary theoretical investigations of the communication discipline. Students will read primary source materials coupled with contemporary texts extending these works in developing, applying, and testing communication theory. Required of all first-year graduate students in Communication Studies. Y.

710 Communication and Information Diffusion (5)

Analysis of major approaches to data and information diffusion systems on local, regional, national, and international levels. Emphasis on acquisition analysis and dissemination of data as information, including critical points of interface and interaction between a system and its users.  Y.

 711 Research Design and Analysis I (8)

COMS 711 (and its companion course COMS 712) introduces students to fundamental principles of research design and analysis and serves as a foundation for other courses in the program. Students will learn theoretical principles and research skills associated with four content areas: (a) Metatheoretical Assumptions, (b) Quantitative Design and Analysis, (c) Qualitative Design and Analysis, and (d) Mixed-Method Design. Required of all first-year graduate students in Communication Studies. Y.

712 Research and Design and Analysis II (8)

COMS 712 (and its companion course COMS 711) introduces students to fundamental principles of research design and analysis and serves as a foundation for other courses in the program. Students will learn theoretical principles and research skills associated with four content areas: (a) Metatheoretical Assumptions, (b) Quantitative Design and Analysis, (c) Qualitative Design and Analysis, and (d) Mixed-Method Design. Required of all first-year graduate students in Communication Studies. Y.

720A Relationship Initiation (5)

Exploration of theories and research concerning the interactive (i.e. communicative) processes involved in initiating interpersonal relationships.

720B Relationship Maintenance (5)

Exploration of theories and research concerning the interactive (i.e. communicative) processes involved in maintaining interpersonal relationships.

720C Relationship Termination (5)

Exploration of theories and research concerning the interactive (i.e. communicative) processes involved in terminating interpersonal relationships.

721 Communication Process in Small Groups (5)

Theory and research in group social system, group modification of individual judgment, leadership styles, group vs. individual goals, and intragroup lines of communication in small problem-solving and learning groups.

722 Listening Behavior: Theory and Research (5)

Analysis and evaluation of listening process in terms of theory, research, and operational characteristics.

730 Communicative Process in Organizations (5)

Prereq: Ph.D. student. Interaction between organizational structure and communication within organizations. Emphasis on theoretical and methodological analysis. Primary focus on conducting major research project.

731 Introduction to Relating and Organizing (5)

This course is the first in a series of courses designed to introduce graduate students to the interconnections between micropractices and macro organizational and societal structures and influences. Particular attention will be paid to how individuals and collectives experience and enact fundamental tensions in their efforts to relate and organize. Y.

733 Organization Communication Consulting: Foundational Perspectives (5)

Prereq: Ph.D. student. A focus on theoretical perspectives to organizational communication consulting and organizational development. Review of theory and research on com­mu­ni­cation training, consulting practices, com­mu­ni­cation variables involved in the client/consultant relationship, as well as intervention techniques.

740 Rhetorical Criticism (5)

Theories and methodologies of selected modern critics. Exploration of interdisciplinary dimensions in criticism of rhetorical interactions. Class and individual projects. Y.

741 Introduction to Rhetoric and Public Culture (5)

An introductory survey of ideas theorizing the relationships between rhetoric and public culture. Since many of these ideas offer critical and analytic perspectives, students will also learn how to engage in critical analysis of the relationships between rhetoric and public culture. Likely theories/theorists include: Kenneth Burke, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci, Jurgen Habermas, cultural studies, post-colonial studies, feminist studies, and postmodernism. Y.

742 Feminist Rhetorical Theory (5)

This course will begin with an examination of what it means to “write women into the history of rhetoric.” This examination will provide the backdrop for an initial “historographical” approach to women’s contributions to rhetorical theory. Beyond this initial focus, the course will examine recent developments in feminist theory that impinge on or work from an understanding of rhetoric. As such, the course cuts across both historical and theoretical boundaries mapping the space for a feminist rhetoric.

745 Rhetoric and Popular Culture (5)

Seminar exploring the relationship between rhetoric and popular culture. Surveys major theoretical approaches (i.e., cultural studies, interpretivism, and genre) and emphasizes the application of theory through writing and criticism.

751 Introduction to Health Communication (5)

Survey of the wide range of topics within the area of health communication, including cultural concepts of health, patient-centered meanings of health, physician-patient interaction, social support, health promotion campaigns, harm reduction campaigns, mass media constructions of health, risk communication, and health related values and ethics. Y.

780 Topics in Communication (1–5)

Communication topics of interest to faculty and students not covered by regular classes. Each offering will consider a different topic on onetime-only basis. May be repeated. Y.

790 Interdisciplinary Seminar (3–12)

794 Research (3-12)

Prereq: perm. Individual research on special projects. Projects must be approved prior to registration.

830 Organizational Communication Perspectives (5)

Introduction to organizational communication. Specific objectives include development of historical progress, examination of major research issues such as information flow, network analysis, communication overload and underload, exploration of theoretical founda­tions in organizational decision making, superior-subordinate communications, organizational effectiveness, and change processes.

831 Interpersonal Communication Perspectives (5)

Provides advanced graduate students with opportunity to identify and analyze basic components of dyadic communicative system including multivariate nature of both relationships and effects.

832 Integrated Research in Communication Studies (5)

COMS 832 is designed to provide advanced graduate students in Communication Studies with an opportunity to apply communication theory in exploring questions and/or addressing problems that connect the realms of interpersonal communication studies and organizational communication studies. The course will be open to COMS graduate students who have successfully completed their first year of graduate studies and to graduate students from other programs in the university contingent on instructor permission. The precise questions explored and methods employed in that exploration will vary according to instructor interests and background.

833A-E Special Topics in Relating and Organizing (5)

Advanced seminar focusing on the role and dynamics of communication employed in the processes of relating and organizing. Topic varies with instructor. Three different topics (15 credits) required.

840 Public Deliberation (5)

COMS 850, Public Deliberation, addresses theoretical and practical dimensions of the public, private, civil, and technical spheres of human discourse, with an emphasis on the content, structure, persuasiveness, and social-cultural implications of the speech and action emerging from and contributing to those spheres.

841 Rhetoric and Popular Culture (4)

This course is designed to introduce M.A. and Ph.D. students to major works in the study of rhetoric, popular culture, and their relationship. It assumes that forms of popular culture (e.g., popular music, advertising, television programming, popular novels, etc.) are social artifacts that serve an important persuasive function in society. Popular culture, that is to say, provides conceptual and practical frameworks that help to orient us to and make sense of the world around us. Thus, this course will help graduate students to develop a set of theoretical, methodological, and analytical resources for researching and interpreting the persuasive functions of popular culture in specific historical and geographical contexts.

842 Communication and Media Studies (5)

This course examines media and their messages as rhetorical constituents of public culture. The course examines theories of media from speech and writing to electronic communication within the rhetorical context of their formal, material, and social practices. This course strengthens the curriculum in two ways. First, it provides an enhanced, doctoral-only section of COMS 448/548, which extends the study of rhetorical theory into the most contemporary communication experiences and examines the convergence of speech, mass communication, and writing in modern life. Second, it diverges from that course by expanding the focus from electronic media and by intensifying the connection between media and public culture.

843A-Z Topics in Public Advocacy (5)

This course explores political, legal, cultural, and moral dimensions of rhetorical artifacts in the public sphere, focusing on the work of agents and agencies in promoting arguments and agendas for and against an array of policy positions.

844A-Z Topics in Philosophy of Communication (5)

Study of particular philosophical traditions (e.g., post structuralism, pragmatism, the Frankfurt School, analytic philosophy, Marxism), philosophers (e.g., Burke, Levinas, Foucault, Dewey, Habermas, Giddens, Marx, Wittgenstein), and/or topics of interest to faculty and students not covered by regular classes (e.g., visual communication; humor; privacy; surveillance; the rhetoric of law; civil society and discourse; the rhetoric of terrorism; narrative, rhetoric, space, and place; political communication; and cultural studies). Topics will vary and the course may be repeated.

850 Organizing for Health (5)

This course introduces students to research on communication issues in health care organizing and provides a forum for developing research agendas in this area. Underscoring course readings and assignments is the assumption that health, illness, and healing acquire meaning through symbolic interactions located within

social, political, economic, and cultural structures. 

851 Health and Family Communications (5)

This course inquires into various ways in which interaction patterns in the family are affected - or, some would say, effected - by the context of health and illness within which the family system operates. More specifically, the course examines the role of family communication in facilitating health among family members and in responding to the ways in which illness disrupts the lives of individuals and their families.

852 Health and Communication Culture (5)

The purpose of this course is to examine the influence of culture on communicative aspects of patient and public health. The course explores theories of communication, medical anthropology, and health education

to understand the conceptual foundations of intercultural health. The course analyzes how peoples’ health beliefs play out in interactions with patients and providers, and examines how public health strategies can be designed for specific cultural contexts. The larger purpose of this course is to train graduate students to communicate more effectively with patients, providers, and the public in multicultural health care settings.

853 Relational Issues in Health Communication (5)

This course will highlight the communicative accomplishment of health relationships. In particular, students will gain an understanding of the interactional resources that enable health care participants to construct emergent relationships and identities. This course serves as a required component of the new graduate major in health communication.

854 Public Understanding of Health and Healing (5)

Seminar exploring the relationships among communication, public culture, and public perceptions of health and healing. Surveys theoretical approaches (i.e., cultural studies, rhetorical analysis) and emphasizes the

application of theory through writing and criticism. There is a strong emphasis on exploring current issues and challenges facing the health care industry and the public’s understanding of health and healing.

895 Dissertation (1–24)