2024-2025 Undergraduate Catalog
Communication Studies Department
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Leah Seurer, Chairperson
Dakota Hall 334
(605) 677-5476
Leah.Seurer@usd.edu
www.usd.edu/commstudies
FACULTY
Associate Professor:
Leah Seurer, Interpersonal and Family Communication, Qualitative Methods, Health Communication
Assistant Professor:
Kristina Lee, Political Rhetoric, Religious Rhetoric, Interfaith Dialogue
Dominic Manthey, Rhetoric of Democracy and Dissent, Public Memory, Philosophy of Communication
Lecturer:
Aimee Sorenson, Basic Course Director, Communication Pedagogy
Instructor:
Nicole Ackman, Organizational Communication, Business and Professional Communication
Jennifer Hough, Communication Pedagogy and Curriculum Development, Nonverbal Communication, Research Methods
MAJOR:
Communication Studies, B.A., B.S.
MINOR:
Communication Studies
The study of communication is the study of meaning-making - how humans use symbols to create and influence the world in which we live. Through our dynamic curriculum, the Department of Communication Studies addresses the many ways communication functions to create, maintain, and transform personal life, social relations, political institutions, media channels, organizations, and cultural conventions in society. Further, our education programs promote skills required for competence in mediated and non-mediated communication, and develop intellectual habits for analyzing, interpreting and critiquing communication problems and questions.
Our program prepares students for professional careers in a variety of fields - business, education, politics, social and human services, health care, administration, sales and marketing, technology, public administration, and arts and entertainment. Many of our majors go on to post-graduate education in law, medicine, business, education, and social and natural sciences.
SCHOLARSHIPS
Please contact the department for additional information about available scholarships and awards. Also see College of Arts & Sciences for college/school level scholarships.
- Norman Watson Scholarship
- Speech Communication Scholarship
- Zeta Phi Eta Award
Student Learning Outcomes for Communication Studies (B.A., B.S.)
- Students will intentionally engage with diversity in ways that increase awareness, content knowledge, cognitive sophistication, and empathic understanding of the complex ways individuals interact within systems and institutions leading to opportunities for equal access to participation in educational and community programs for all members of society.
- Students will be able to demonstrate cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills that support effective and appropriate interaction in a variety of cultural contexts.
- Students will be able to demonstrate the cultivation of knowledge, skills, values and motivation that will enable them to make a difference in the civic life of communities and promote the quality of life in a community and engage in activities of personal and public concern that are both individually life enriching and socially beneficial to the community.
- Students will recognize when there is a need for information and identify, locate, evaluate and effectively and responsibly use and convey that information to address the need or problem at hand.
- Identify the theoretical and philosophical foundations of the field of Communication Studies.
- Describe and apply communication theory to make sense of human symbolic action.
- Compare and contrast the major research methodological approaches in the field.
- Prepare and present ethical and effective messages in interpersonal, small group, and public contexts.
- Accurately describe and critically evaluate complex messages.
- Identify information needs, efficiently retrieve and critically evaluate the credibility of information, using reliable sources in the creation of ethical and effective messages.
- Engage ethically and effectively with individuals and groups that are different from their own experience.
- Demonstrate the reasoning and advocacy skills necessary for ethical participation in the social world.
- Students will interact with other students and evaluate the effort put into team tasks, interactions with others, and the quantity and quality made to team discussions.
Programs
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