Communication Studies, with both Major and Minor program options, is designed to help students develop analytical and composing skills in multiple contexts, including text-based, visual and web-based environments, with expected application in a broad range of career opportunities in communications (for example, web content design, digital media design and production, film creation, marketing communications, public relations, and multimedia journalism). Each student in the major or minor will acquire solid grounding in fundamental knowledge and skills in communications and also have an opportunity to select courses specifically in communications as well as from several correlated disciplines in order to complete patterns of learning and development that serve individual interest and ambition.
Communication Studies reflects the Jesuit Mission through its grounding in ethical considerations. Beyond connecting with the Jesuit tradition in rhetorical theory and practice—which involves steady engagement with the world—the program will encourage students to use their communication knowledge and skills in promoting social justice in the world.
Opportunities for development offered in the major and minor reflect an understanding that change is almost a daily phenomenon in communications, and the program is designed to keep students abreast of relentless shifts in the communications marketplace. As communication technologies steadily move forward, everything you need to know and everything you want to see can be held in your hand every second of your life. This new world will be astoundingly democratic, literally involving billions of everyday participants in the project to make meaning, shape policy, and create the future. Communication Studies will encourage students to create a future distinguished by integrity, wisdom, and innovation; in their courses within the program, they will have lively opportunities to develop the originality, concern for ethics, critical thinking, and resourcefulness required for bold leadership in the field of communication.
Students interested in the Communication Studies minor program should contact Dr. Owen W. Gilman, Jr. (Director, Communication Studies), in Merion Hall 115, or by e-mail at ogilman@sju.edu. To get frequent announcements of interest in the broad field of communication, students can become fans at the program’s Facebook page.
