UG Course Descriptions

This class will investigate the history and evolution of the road movie in American film while simultaneously considering the genre’s reflection on America and its ever-changing social and cultural landscape.

An examination of the role of communication media in the context of changing global realities. The course examines the theoretical underpinnings of understanding multiculturalism and the effect of the processes that constitute difference as we define it. The course explores the multicultural practices, theories, polices, normative models, relationships between media and society, and the production of cultural diversity. (Fulfills the required course for the Global Studies Minor)

The purpose of this course is to expand your understanding of intercultural communication and the practical applications of such knowledge to intercultural relations and cross-cultural communication. To this extent, we will analyze issues connected to the conceptualization of culture and the importance intercultural communication has for your personal life; we will examine verbal and nonverbal messages in intercultural communication; and finally, we will focus on intercultural communication in several contexts, such as organizational, interpersonal, or media. By the end of the course, you should have gained a better understanding of the values, beliefs, and behaviors of people from other cultures, as well as your own. In addition, you will have gained new skills that permit you to analyze quotidian events from an intercultural perspective and to communicate in a culturally effective manner with people from other cultures.

Introduces students to tools, vocabulary, and techniques used to tell a screen story and take an original idea to outline form. Students become familiar with screenwriting terminology as scenes from well-known films are analyzed to reveal structural elements in the writing. By the end of the course, students have developed an original idea into a detailed short-length screenplay.

Students will take the screenplays from COM 232 and learn all of the production attributes of film necessary to bring those screenplays to life in the form of 10-20 minutes films.

An introduction to the contemporary memoir and the related genres of life writing, the autobiographical essay, the personal essay, etc. The course will require a balance of reading well-known contemporary authors as well as working on our own essays, including weekly writing, sharing, editing, and providing feedback to others. Topics covered will include defining memoir, the nature of memory and truth, how to make our life experiences accessible to readers, form, scene, character, voice details, and methods for critique and revision. Students will also document their writing process through memos, drafts, and a final portfolio project.

Introduction to stagecraft with practical applications to productions for children.

This course will focus on specific genres, directors, themes or eras in film as comprehensively as possible through critique and analysis of film directly and consideration of cultural context and critical analysis and academic evaluation of said theme. The topic of the course will be a revolving one.

This course gives students the tools to design, write, and present primary communication research in both academic and professional contexts. Developing the literacy to interpret and evaluate published research will also be stressed. The research methods introduced will include experiments, surveys, content analysis, focus groups, interviews, and participant observation.

Focus on how the discipline of public relations evolved, and how public attitudes are influenced by the media. Students will learn to recognize ethical and legal implications of media situations.