The Reputation of Ohio University's School of Communication Studies

Ohio University's School of Communication Studies fared very well in the new 2004 Doctoral Reputational Study by the National Communication Association.

The Ohio University School has three emphases: Organizing and relating, health communication, and rhetoric and public culture. These emphases were divided into four of NCA's seven topical categories: Organizational communication, interpersonal-small group communication, rhetorical communication, and health communication. The School ranked 9th nationally at the doctoral level in organizational communication (with the 2nd highest score for quality improvement in the last 5 years); 10th in health communication (tied for the 3rd highest score for quality improvement in the last 5 years); 18th in rhetorical communication; and 20th in interpersonal-small group communication.

Texas A&M University ranked 1st in organizational communication; the University of Pennsylvania ranked 1st in health communication; the University of Georgia ranked 1st in rhetorical communication; and the University of California at Santa Barbara ranked 1st in interpersonal-small group communication. 

Of special note in the 2004 results is the report's measure of "quality of change" of each program studied.  When scores are rank-ordered for the Top 20 programs in their quality of improvement over the last 5 years, Ohio University's School of Communication Studies ranks 4th in interpersonal communication, 3rd in health communication, and 2nd in organizational communication. 

This is a program on the move, with strong improvement in recent years.

The survey was the work of a collective group of communication scholars, led this year by Thomas A. Hollihan of the Univesity of Southern California. The 84-page questionnaire was mailed to 1,165 potential respondents, with usable completed questionnaires received from 376 faculty respondents for a 33 percent response rate. Results are reputational, in the sense that faculty were asked to rate doctoral programs in communication other than their own, on the basis of their opinions of those programs.