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2015‐16 Communication Annual Report

TABLE OF CONTENTS

State of the Communication Discipline ......................................................................................... 3

Department of Communication: Our Mission, Vision and Learning Outcomes .......................... 3

Our Mission ................................................................................................................................. 3

Our Vision .................................................................................................................................... 3

Program Goals & College Strategic Plan ..................................................................................... 4

Strategies and Tactics .................................................................................................................. 5

Learning Outcomes ..................................................................................................................... 5

Accomplishments in Teaching ....................................................................................................... 5

Unique Curricular Offerings ........................................................................................................ 5

Contributions to Other Units ....................................................................................................... 7

Distance Education ...................................................................................................................... 7

Contributions to Unique Curricular Initiatives ............................................................................ 7

Internships ............................................................................................................................... 7

Study Abroad ........................................................................................................................... 8

Spring Break Trip ................................................................................................................... 11

Public Health Program ........................................................................................................... 11

Changes in Enrollment and Workload ......................................................................................... 12

Enrollment Trends ..................................................................................................................... 12

Assessment ................................................................................................................................ 12

Conclusions and Actions ........................................................................................................ 13

Faculty Teaching Awards ........................................................................................................... 13

Diversity ..................................................................................................................................... 14

Accomplishments in Research and Professional Development ................................................. 14

Service Contributions ................................................................................................................... 14

Service to the College ................................................................................................................ 14

Service to the Community (Professional in Nature) ................................................................. 15

Service to the Profession ........................................................................................................... 15

Accomplishments of Students and New Alumni ......................................................................... 15

Recent Graduate Employment and Post‐Graduate Study Information .................................... 16

Curricular Development and Change .......................................................................................... 17

STATE OCommungrowth adisciplineis informsocial scidialectic,anthropofoundatiocommunphenomecritical th The disciindividuaanalysis o(e.g. orgacommunvarious mscience (gender st(e.g. sociapplied ( Because that cut adistinctlyinternatimediatiocommunand chan DEPARTM Our MissThe Deparelationathe deveand worl Our VisioThe Depaintegratedepartm

F THE COMMnication reseand institutioe in the secoed by the inences, build, aesthetics aology, sociolon is built onication: rhetenology, socheory.

pline rangesal behavior (of communianizational cication). Remethods of ie.g. media etudies, medal interactioe.g. journali

of the diveracross all arey applied foconalization aon and confliication in thnging the wa

MENT OF CO

sion artment of Cal processes,lopment of d.

on artment of Ced communient's gradua

MUNICATIOearch and edonal consolidond half of thtellectual trding on the aand poetics ogy and polin the seven toric, semiotcial psycholo

s in scope froe.g. informacation at thecommunicatesearch in thnquiry inclueffects), critiia criticism),on), humanitsm).

sity of the deas, but moscus with signand global cct resolutionhe public sphay we comm

OMMUNICA

Communicat including etengaged citi

Communicatcation progrates are com

N DISCIPLINducation expdation as an he twentiethaditions of tancient Greeas well as psitical scienceprimary tradtics, cyberneogy, sociocul

om the micration processe institutionion, internate discipline ding quantitcal and cultu, interpretiveties (e.g. rhe

iscipline, it ist scholars anificant oppoommunicatin. We also ahere. As witunicate is lik

TION: OUR

tion creates thical and crizens prepar

tion at the Cram for undemmunication

NE perienced rapacademic h century. Tthe humanitek arts of rhesychology, e. Our theorditions of etics, tural theory

ro‐analysis osing) to macal or societational also utilizes tative social ural studies e social scientorical studi

s difficult toagree that thortunities forion, media, hanticipate onh all disciplinkely to rema

MISSION, V

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Contributions to Other Units While we have the second highest number of majors in the Humanities and Social Sciences and one of the top five at the College, the Department of Communication continues to play a significant role in supporting our liberal arts mission by contributing to general education offerings for our students and in special curricular initiatives. Honors: We contributed more than 30 credit hours to the honors program this academic

year through courses, Bachelor’s Essays and Independent Studies. First Year Experience and Learning Communities: Communication faculty members

contributed 20 credit hours in courses for the First Year Experience and Learning Community program this year, generating more than 360 student credit hours. We anticipate continued contributions in this area as several faculty are already assigned to FYE/LC courses for fall and spring of AY 2016‐2017.

REACH: Our faculty members were active participants in the REACH program this year,

teaching REACH students in four different courses. Distance Education Departmental faculty taught 36 hours of Communication courses online during the 2015‐2016 academic year, as well as 15 hours of Applied Communication concentration for the Bachelor of Professional Studies program. Contributions to Unique Curricular Initiatives The Department of Communication offers a wide variety of options for students to participate in interdisciplinarity, internationalization/globalization, personalized education and high impact student experiences. Examples include internships, study abroad, a departmental spring break trip, and our involvement in the Public Health curriculum. Internships Students are not required to complete internships to complete the Communication major, however they are strongly encouraged by advisors and faculty members to have at least one internship experience, if not more, before they graduate. A total of 43 students completed internships for COMM credit, the majority of whom (88%) worked for companies within South Carolina. Two students interned in New York, one in Washington DC, one in Philadelphia, and one in England. Some of the companies offering for‐credit internships included: Charleston Magazine, Charleston Music Hall, Congressman Quigley, Enough Pie, Kuszmaul Design & PR, Litton Entertainment, Obviouslee Marketing, The Citadel, The Odyssey, The Reynolds Group, Office of Senator Tim Scott, Charleston Wine + Food, CofC Athletics, Division of Marketing and Communications @ CofC, Kiawah Island Golf Resort, MUSC News Center, The Becket Agency, The College Today, and US Club Soccer, among others.

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miscellaneous temples, museums, parks and other sites of cultural and historical interest.

These excursions enriched students’ understanding of material covered in course textbooks and in‐class discussions and lectures. In addition, they helped polish students’ site‐specific communication in other ways as well. Whenever possible, the professors invited locals to share their indigenous experience and knowledge with the students. In addition to group activities, Dr. Ferrara accompanied individuals and small groups to places of particular interest to the students. For example, Dr. Ferrara invited students to navigate food markets, complete a sunrise hike, participate in bread, yoga, and pottery classes, try tapas, tour Ben Youssef, attend concerts, etc. Dr. Ferrara created a program that was student centered. To maximize time in each city, she taught and met with students individually and in groups while waiting in airports, on buses, in coffee shops, during breakfast, over dessert, on city walks, etc. The multi‐city European trip During the 2016 extended summer session, Dr. Merissa Ferrara and Mrs. Valarie Wright, MA took 14 undergraduate students to the following European cities: Florence, Cinque Terra, Rome, Athens, Mykonos, and Budapest. Two classes were offered as part of the study abroad program: COMM 336: Addressing Problems in Context – Health Communication, taught by Dr. Ferrara; and COMM 315: Ethical Communication in a Healthcare, taught by Mrs. Wright. The classes incorporated communication, health, cultural, historical, linguistic, philosophical, and psychological material specifically related to the cities where the students lived and studied. Highlights of the program included: private walking tours of Budapest and Athens; a private biking tour of Rome; guest lectures on public health, locally sourced food, and nutrition in Florence, Rome, and Athens; a trip to the Acropolis; cultural and health tours in Florence and Budapest; an excursion to the famous public thermal spas and the WWII Hospital in the rock of Budapest; two service learning experiences, one with the Salvation Army helping distribute supplies to Syrian Refugees (Athens) and volunteering with a home for children with disabilities (Budapest); and miscellaneous basilicas, castles, monasteries, museums, parks and other sites of cultural and historical interest.

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Director of the BA in Public Health. Dr. Beth Sundstrom (Communication) and Dr. Andrea DeMaria (Public Health) founded the Women’s Health Research Team to introduce students to the research process. Dr. Merissa Ferrara also joined the team this year, and this collaborative effort has resulted in multiple interdisciplinary publications for both faculty and students.

Changes in Enrollment and Workload The number of students majoring in Communication decreased slightly from 547 (Spring 2015) to 522 (Spring 2016). Additionally, we increased the number of minors to 78 (from 71 in 2015 and 45 in 2014) and graduated 133 undergraduate students and 4 graduate students. The average class size is 22.2 with 67.8% of student credit hours offered by roster faculty, 26% offered by highly qualified adjuncts and 6.2% offered by teaching assistants supervised by roster faculty. The only courses in the department taught by graduate teaching assistants are one‐hour discussion sections for COMM 214. These labs are highly structured with a pre‐designed curriculum and significant supervision by roster faculty teaching the course. Although the department did experience a slight decrease in number of majors in 2015‐2016, signs point toward this number increasing in 2016‐2017. In Fall 2015, we offered only five sections of our introductory writing and speaking course, COMM 280, but demand for this course has increased substantially, and in Fall 2016, seven sections will be offered, all of which will be filled to the course cap of 21 students. This course does not fulfill a general education requirement, so students who take this course either have declared or are planning to declare a major in Communication. This increase course demand suggests that the number of majors also should increase in the next few years. Assessment This year the Assessment and Basic Course Committee collected assessment materials from COMM 310‐Message, Design and Influence. Additionally, faculty teaching COMM 214‐Media in the Digital Age were asked to begin submitting data from common test questions and student surveys so that data can be analyzed next year. COMM 281‐Introduction to Communication Messages will also be assessed, and data will be collected from the spring 2016 and fall 2016 semesters. The assessment data collected and analyzed for COMM 310 focused on learning objectives related to the students’ ability to identify a target audience and then develop an effective message for that audience. The data collected included papers from a signature assignment and student surveys. The signature assignment required students to identify a target audience to whom they were writing and to write an article appropriate for that target audience. Learning outcomes for the papers were that students would be able to identify a target audience, design an appropriate and specific message for the target audience, and describe the target audience. The four dimensions designed to assess these learning outcomes focused on the students’ ability to identify a specific audience, to tailor a message to the audience, to have

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Teaching Award. Dr. Amanda Ruth‐McSwain was recognized by the graduate students as the Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year for 2015‐2016. Additionally, Dr. Laurie Lattimore‐Volkmann was recognized by the Department as the Outstanding Adjunct of the Year for her accomplishments in teaching and service to the department. Dr. Beth Sundstrom was named the recipient of the 2016 ExCEL Awards Outstanding Faculty of the Year in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Diversity The Department of Communication currently has 22 tenured or tenure track faculty: twelve white females, nine white males and one non‐resident male. An additional non‐resident male has been hired to begin teaching in Fall 2016. We continue to make every effort to increase diversity in our applicant pools for our searches to create a stronger, more diverse department including but not limited to advertising in the Chronicle and with graduate programs with typically more diverse populations.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Departmental faculty published one scholarly book, seven new articles in peer reviewed journals, and five additional book chapters, invited publications or reviews. Thirty one presentations were made by Communication faculty members at regional, national, and international conferences. Additionally, multiple faculty members serve as reviewers for peer reviewed journal publications and conferences and are active in the discipline (see FAS report and appendix for summary data). SERVICE CONTRIBUTIONS Communication faculty are involved in service at all levels at the College, as well as within our discipline. A selection of our activity follows: Service to the College Dr. Vince Benigni: Appointed by the President as Faculty Athletics Representative and

liaison with the Colonial Athletic Association Dr. Vince Benigni: Chaired the College of Charleston Distinguished Service Award

Committee Dr. Julie Davis: Speaking Lab Director Dr. Doug Ferguson: Faculty Coordinator for eLearning and Distance Education. Dr. Tom Heeney: Faculty Hearing Committee Dr. Jenifer Kopfman: Chaired the College’s Nominations and Elections Committee Dr. Celeste Lacroix: Member of the Faculty Advisory Committee to the President, Dr. Namjin Lee: Faculty Research & Development Committee Member Dr. Deb McGee: Member of the Post‐Tenure Review Committee Dr. Deb McGee: Co‐chair of the Public Health Steering Committee Dr. Ryan Milner: Faculty Senator Dr. Amanda Ruth‐McSwain: Member of the Cistern Yard Media Advisory Board Dr. Amanda Ruth‐McSwain: Director of the Bully Pulpit Series Dr. Beth Sundstrom: Member of the College of Charleston Institutional Review Board


Dr. Robert Westerfelhaus: Chair of the Committee of the Library Service to the Community (Professional in Nature) Dr. Deb McGee: St. Benedict's Catholic Church, Lector Dr. Elena Strauman: Speak Up For Horses, Communication Consultant Dr. Beth Sundstrom: South Carolina Cervical Cancer Awareness Initiative, Advisory Board

Member Dr. Robert G. Westerfelhaus: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church: St. John Chrysostom

Oratorical Festival, Judge Service to the Profession Dr. Vince L. Benigni: Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,

Conference Reviewer Dr. Douglas A. Ferguson: Broadcast Education Association (BEA) Identity Committee

Member, Dr. Celeste C. Lacroix: Voices of Diversity Division, Eastern Communication Association,

Conference Reviewer Beth L. Sundstrom: South Carolina Coalition for Healthy Families, Board Member Dr. Robert G. Westerfelhaus: President of the Carolinas Communication Association

ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF STUDENTS AND NEW ALUMNI Some of our recent student and graduate accomplishments include: Haley Clarke presented her competitively selected paper (originally written in COMM

410) to the James McCroskey Undergraduate Honors Conference at the Eastern Communication Association conference held in April in Baltimore,

Laura Johnson presented her competitively selected papers (originally written in COMM 410) to SEWSA (Southeast Women's Studies Association) and the Southern States Communication Association conferences. SEWSA was held in March at Winthrop University and SSCA was held in Austin, TX in April.

Rachael Avery, Shannon Baucus, Amanda Clark, Katie Kindwall, Abbey Marshall, and Laura Johnson presented their competitively selected papers (originally written for their capstone COMM 480 class) to the Theodore Clevenger Undergraduate Honors Conference at the Southern States Communication Association conference held in Austin, TX in April.

Erin Dempsey (COMM 410 course, Fall 2015) submitted a paper to the Mass Communication Division of the National Communication Association for possible presentation at the annual conference to be held in November in Philadelphia, PA. Traditionally a division with a high rejection rate, Erin's competitive paper was accepted for presentation by the division. Note: She did not submit to the Undergraduate Student section, thus her paper competed with all regular faculty submissions.

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Ryan Sedmak (2013) is featured in this spring’s issue of College of Charleston Magazine. Sedmak is a trending producer for NowThis, a New York‐based network created by one of the founders of Huffington Post. Sedmak credits his professional success to the internships he pursued while he was an undergraduate: “My professors really stressed the importance of internships and hands‐on experience. Early on, I knew that I wanted to intern at a network like NBC, and I worked with my adviser, communication professor Jenifer Kopfman, to do this. We came up with a strategy that allowed me to spend my last semester in New York working at The Today Show and Nightly News with Brian Williams and still graduate on time.” Read more about Sedmak’s post‐College success as well as his best advice for current students looking to pursue work in TV in the “I Want Your Job: Associate Film and TV Producer” series.

Lucy Remitz (2012) is a strategic planner for Epsilon, a marketing and advertising firm, based in Dublin, Ireland http://today.cofc.edu/2015/01/28/want‐job‐strategic‐planner‐dublin‐advertising‐agency/

CURRICULAR DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE Departmental faculty identified a weakness in our major such that many graduates of the program tend to find jobs in public relations and other areas of strategic communication, but none of our courses specifically address that area of the field. To address this need, the faculty voted to add an introductory level course to our curriculum, thus increasing hours needed to complete Communication major from 36 to 39 hours. The preliminary title for the new course will be COMM 216: Principles and Practices in Strategic Communication. The first section of this new course will be offered in Spring 2017, and paperwork will be submitted to require this course for all majors effective with the Fall 2017 catalog. The foundational knowledge students will gain in the introductory course will allow faculty to focus on advanced strategic communication principles in existing upper level courses. No new resources will be required to implement this change.

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