The communication studies department is proposing changes to its curriculum that include creating four areas of concentration instead of the two that are available now, having fewer upper division requirements and adding a practicum course requirement.
The department is still working on the proposal, said Tim Groeling, chair of the communication studies department.
The next step will be to submit the proposal for approval by the Undergraduate Council in the Academic Senate. Students can expect to see any changes in the curriculum, if passed, to take effect during the next academic year, said Richard Weiss, vice chair of the Undergraduate Council.
“It’s still very tentative, but we think the department is moving in the right direction with their proposal,” Weiss said.
Currently, communication studies students must take seven lower division classes and 14 upper division classes, and they must declare a concentration in either mass communications or interpersonal communications.
Under the proposed changes, the department would instead offer courses in four areas: mass media communications, which is a renaming of the current mass communications, political and legal communications, interpersonal communications and new media communications.
Students would take one core course from each of the four areas and then four more core courses from whichever areas they choose. Communication Studies 101 would no longer be a requirement.
The program’s lower division requirements would remain relatively unchanged, Groeling said.
The department would also no longer require students to declare a concentration, a change that gives students more flexibility within the program, he added.
“In looking at how we wanted to change our curriculum, we found out that we were one of the only programs in the nation that required students to declare a concentration,” Groeling said. “By getting rid of that, students can choose their own focus through the courses they pick.”
In addition to the eight core courses, students would also take two other upper division requirements and a practicum course, for a total of 11 upper division classes.
The practicum course would give students the opportunity to apply their knowledge in a practical field, Groeling said.
An example of a course that would fulfill the practicum requirement is Groeling’s Political Communication class, in which students spend part of the quarter using video-editing skills to make commercials for political campaigns, he said.
“This change came out of the desire to (give) students a capstone experience and take their knowledge and apply it in some sort of practical communication,” Groeling said.
Groeling said the curriculum has remained largely the same since the communication studies program was established in the 1970s. The department decided to streamline its curriculum to reflect new trends, such as the emergence of digital media in the communications field.
“We’re basically reformatting the major to take advantage of changes in technology and changes in student interest,” Groeling added.
The move to require students to take at least one course in each of the four areas would allow students to get a more comprehensive background of what is generally a very broad major, said Amy Morley, a second-year communication studies and business economics student.
“Communications can be applied to a lot of different places,” Morley said. “By emphasizing more categories and forcing students to take something in all of them, you get a wider experience.”