The School of Communications introduced a new curriculum that will take effect beginning as early as fall 2014.
This curriculum, which places a greater focus on better preparing students for successful communications careers, has six important changes. These changes include: accentuating the role of web and mobile communications, deepening undergraduate research, unifying the journalism major, adopting a single publishing course, converging cinema and television arts and re-branding the communications science major.
By completing all of these changes, School of Communications administrators hope to create solutions to the most prominent problems that students have seen over the recent years. As highly suggested, the Digital Media Convergence class is now being broken into two separate courses, the one-hour Web and Mobile Communications course and a three-hour, lab-based Creating Multimedia Content course. The school will also change the senior Capstone class, making the class a more research-focused, 4-hour class, instead of the 2-hour seminar it has been in the past. The journalism track is also becoming more simplified, as the school adopts classes that both print/online news and broadcast news majors can take together, such as the new Journalism in a Free Society and Multimedia News Production courses. A similar concept will be put into place for Strategic Communications majors as well, who will now only have the option of taking Corporate Publishing, the most in-demand course, instead of being able to choose from multiple courses.
One of the biggest changes occurring in the school affects those students in the Media Arts and Entertainment major, which now has a new name, Cinema and Television Arts. These changes will expand the courses that are offered under this major, and will also include a 60-hour BFA degree. Finally, due to the low interest in the Communications Science major, a new major, Media Analytics, will be taking its place. A Communications Design major has also been proposed, but is awaiting approval.
Many students took advantage of two sessions last Wednesday and Thursday, April 2 and 3, where Jessica Gisclair, Associate Professor of Communications and Chair of the Department of Communications, discussed these changes in greater detail. Gisclair said she is confident that the new curriculum will give students an edge upon graduation, as they enter into the communications industry.
"We're making the changes to the curriculum because we hadn't revisited our curriculum since 2006, and we usually change every 5 or 6 years, so it was time for us to revisit and start talking about it," Gisclair said.
All current sophomores and juniors can choose between the new and old classes, while current freshmen and the incoming Class of 2018 will be strictly put onto the revised track. Students are encouraged to meet with advisors or any other officials in the School of Communications to further discuss the changes and how it may impact their studies.