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Speech Communication

Amy Slagell, Professor-in-Charge

The Program in Speech Communication promotes student development in directions that are central to the College mission. Students are provided opportunities to develop their understanding and appreciation of the human communication process, to enhance their communication and related critical thinking skills, and to heighten their awareness of communication as a linguistic, social, and cultural phenomenon. In this way the program contributes to the humanistic, aesthetic, and critical development of liberally educated students in order to prepare them for full and effective participation in society.

Five faculty members currently teach courses in the program and from eight to ten teaching assistants handle the lab sections of Sp Cm 212, Fundamentals of Public Speaking, a course that enrolls over 1,400 students this academic year and an additional 200 over the summer. Students who major in speech communication are preparing themselves for a wide range of employment opportunities in business, industry, education, and law, as well as for work at the graduate level. The speech communication curriculum consists of fifteen courses, including five that are cross-listed with other departments and programs.

Faculty in speech communication also bring their distinctive focus on oral communication to bear as active contributors to the university-wide initiative known as ISUComm, which attempts to blend written, oral, visual, and electronic communication into a unified whole.

Visit the program's website »