Department of Communication Studies
Academic Master Plan
March 30, 2012
Prepared by: Paul King, Chair
Department of Communication Studies
Forward
A recent survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) placed strong verbal communication skills as the factor“most sought by employers” in making hiring decisions (NACE’s Job Outlook 2011 Survey). This finding confirms a great deal of previous work that has established the importance of skill in verbal communication and in managing interpersonal relations as primaryrequirements for potential new employees, as well as the skill areas that lead to advancement within a company (see Medford, 2011; or Curtis, Winsor, & Stephens, 1989, for an historical review).
The increasing use of social media and computer-mediated communication exacerbates the problems associated with developing interpersonal competence, including oral communication skills. While we are becoming increasingly isolated in a virtual world, our most important interactions will always require interpersonal competence. A recent online article by the American Management Association (Lifland, 2008) quotes Kim Fields, Director of Career Services at Wake Forest School of Law:
My advice to students is that it’s important to develop social skills, to learn how to work with different kinds of people and different generations. As we continue to focus on technology as our primary means of communication, we are in danger of our interpersonal skills becoming more obsolete. I believe those traits will be sought after even more in the future because a lot of young people are uncomfortable in social situations. They’ve become so used to communicating via e-mail and text messaging. They also need to learn about what’s appropriate in various situations.”
The AMA article continues,
We’ve been doing our survey since 1999, and each year, when we ask employers to rate the importance of a variety of skills and abilities, communication comes out on top. Ironically, when asked which key skill was most lacking in new college graduate candidates, respondents replied, “communication skills”.
In addition to a need for skill development, an understanding of the process of communication is important for the liberal education of human beings. Several theorists argue that language is the unique ability that defines our humanity and separates us from other creatures. Frank Dance (1980) refines this argument by suggesting that language is the tool that permits humans to develop point of view: the ability to see beyond ourselves and capture meaning from the point of reference of another being, or from another point in time. Without consideration of alternate points of view, free choice is impossible. Freedom is the essential component of liberal education (from the latin, “libere,” to set free) as it is applied to thought. Oral communication is the primary manifestation of language from which written language is derived.
In summary, it is our position that a vibrant program in communication studies is essential to the academy for both academic and practical reasons. The purpose of this summary document is to establish the realistic development potential of the Communication Studies Department at TCU.
Faculty Input in Document Development
Last year, the COMM faculty held a meeting for the specific purpose of planning the future growth of the department. The conclusions of that meeting, along with recent input from the department curriculum committee and our graduate program director form the basis of this report.
Development Areas
Graduate Footprint
The COMM department maintains a strong and vibrant master’s level, graduate program. The COMM master’s program is a longstanding program, having been in operation at TCU for almost 40 years. Currently, the program is listed as a top 10 graduate program for 11 specific sub-areas of communication study, including: communication and social cognition, communication competence, family communication, public speaking, reticence, and several others. This rating is based upon historic and current publication activity in the discipline’sprincipal journals. The database is maintained by the Communication Institute for Online Scholarship (CIOS), and is one of the primary databases used in University libraries. Data are updated regularly and the top 10 rankings are in effect as of the date of this report. In addition, occasional publication of program strength based on the perception of scholars in the field indicate that TCU’s communication studies department is considered one of the top tier master’s-granting programs in the U.S.
At any point in time, approximately 12 to 16 students are enrolled in the program. The size of the program primarily reflects student financial aid resources (stipends and tuition waivers) available to fund graduate study. Normally, all potential aid slots are filled and the program is becoming increasingly competitive. Average GRE scores for our current group of applicants is over 1200 (V&Q).
The program can be immediately expanded to 20 students with the addition of student financial support. The addition of one graduate course per semester would accommodate the increased curricular demands. We now have three assistant professors with very strong publication records that would very much like to be more heavily involved in the graduate program.
In the long term, there is a strong potential to develop a doctoral-granting program in the department. Recent faculty hires have enabled us to develop very strong areas of curricular expertise in family communication, general interpersonal communication, and instructional communication. An additional faculty line in the area of organizational communication could expand our capability in that area as well (we have a Professor, an Assistant Professor, and a full-time instructor currently working in that area).
The benefits of expanding our graduate programming to offer a PhD include:
1. Market: No competing program exists in North Texas.
2. Human resources: Recent faculty hires and department expansion already provide a significant share of the resources we expect to require. Two additional faculty lines should be sufficient to begin the program.
3. Technical and physical resources: Fortunately, subscription to the required journals and databases is not expensive in this academic field. With recent expansion of the Moudy Building, the department has the space required to house a larger graduate program, including a new suite devoted to graduate student office space. In addition, a computer lab is currently housed on the third floor. Finally, recent expansion included the addition of laboratory space (2 rooms), enabling us to conduct behavioral, observational research to a much greater degree.
4. Faculty expertise: Faculty are heavily involved in research at present. CIOS can be utilized to compare the TCU COMM department to existing PhD programs. If we were to begin such a program tomorrow, we would be ranked #5 in the U.S. in terms of faculty research productivity (this is a ‘per capita’ measure of output related to the number of publications in refereed journals divided by number of full-time faculty in the program). It should be noted that longstanding scholar, Dr. Ralph Behnke, is not included in these current rankings, so we are not basing our claim to expertise on past accomplishments. We have significantly increased our visibility in other areas. Dr. Paul Schrodt is on the National Communication Association publications board. Dr. Paul Witt is editor of one of NCA’s premier journals. Dr. Schrodt and Dr. King were recently approached about running for positions of leadership in regional associations. Dr. Powers was recognized last year for his career work by the International Listening Association. Several faculty members are members of editorial boards and regularly serve as expert reviewers. Drs. King, Schrodt, Witt, and Garner have accepted invitations to serve as visiting scholars at other Universities (guest speaking engagements) within the past year or two.
5. Additional resources for TCU OCO courses. Graduate students serve as lab assistants for University-required oral communication courses. Expansion of the graduate program would permit us to also expand our lecture/lab model for the basic speech communication course with the benefit of reducing the current, heavy requirement for use of occasional faculty.
6. Record of success. A substantial number of TCU M.S. graduates have completed their doctorates at a variety of institutions, including: University of Nebraska, University of Texas, LSU, Florida State University, and several others. Three recent TCU alumni are currently completing work on doctoral degrees.
Research Footprint
TCU’s communication studies department currently occupies an enviable position regarding research productivity. We are already regarded as the nation’s most prolific master’s-level program in terms of quantity of journal articles (per faculty member). In addition to the data already provided concerning research quantity, CIOS has also developed a publication prestige index1. In real terms, a high prestige index indicates a greater likelihood of publishing in national level journals and in journals that have high readership and low acceptance rates. This index indicates that the prestige value of publications by TCU COMM faculty is very high. As an example, the TCU COMM mean prestige index is 43.26. By way of comparison, the mean prestige index for the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin is 34.00. This is important because UT’s doctoral-granting program in Communication Studies has historically been regarded as the best in Texas and one of the best programs in the nation.
The addition of two experienced assistant professors, Dr. Andrew Ledbetter and Dr. Johny Garner, should leave us well situation to continue producing research on a regular basis. Both already have strong track records in publication of research. Dr. Ledbetter is published in Communication Monographs and Human Communication Research, the most highly regarded research journals published by the National Communication Association and the International Communication Association, respectively.
Two faculty members currently have book contracts. Publication of textbooks has not been a priority of the department and will likely remain only an occasional addition to our work. Faculty are frequently invited to contribute chapters to anthologies, however.
Research has not been supported by the writing of external grants. Development of a culture for grant writing would require expansion of programming to include the PhD. This would provide the resources needed for such work and attract young faculty interested in such work.
Global Footprint
The author of this report, Dr. King, is the only faculty member with a track record of work in this area (and that record is quite limited). I developed a course designed to be taught in London. The course was offered on one occasion and fell short of the number of students required to “make.” My plan to revise the class and offer it again was set back by personal issues (responsibility to care for aging parents). I am an active member of the International Communication Association and often travel to ICA conferences and meet colleagues from other nations (e.g., have traveled to the U.K., Israel, Canada, Germany). This past fall, I presented some recent research findings at the conference of the European Communication Association in Hamburg, Germany.
We offer a course in intercultural communication and we value the importance of international experience for our students. If I can locate a colleague willing to participate in the TCU London program, I would like to revisit the summer travel option. Experience in the College of Communication is that offering two classes simultaneously (6 hours credit) is a more attractive opportunity for students than offering a single class.
Community Engagement Footprint
Three years ago, the department developed a senior-level course in service learning: communication and service learning. Unfortunately, the faculty member who offered the class was supported by back-to-back one year contracts that could no longer be offered in 2010-2011. The course attracted a great deal of publicity while it was offered, including local news articles and a special recognition during halftime of a football game. Continuation of this work would require an additional faculty line or elimination of other existing course offerings.
We do continue promoting community engagement through individual assignments in some classes. For example, two occasional faculty members, Ms. Carie Kapellusch and Mr. Jeffrey Giraud, have developed an assignment involving fund-raising to purchase laptop computers for public school students. The program identifies the encouragement of at-risk students to pursue college.
Applied Learning Footprint
Faculty in Communication Studies advocate a theory into practice perspective. While we emphasize theory, we strongly support the addition of applied learning to our curriculum. Several of our undergraduate courses are obviously intended to develop applied skills (interviewing, advanced public speaking, debate, listening) while others use case studies and practical problem solving as instructional components (organizational communication, communication in group leadership, conflict management, group discussion).
The lead teacher in organizational communication is Dr. Johny Garner. I asked Dr. Garner to provide some information related to his applied learning activities in this and other courses. The following paragraphs summarize his experience:
Dr. Johny Garner involves applied learning in both his teaching and his research. In terms of research, Dr. Garner is working on a comparison of employees in multiple organizations express dissent. He has connected with organizations in the community through a variety of contacts including the university advancement office, Mark Mourer, and other connections. In order to obtain permission to survey employees, Dr. Garner offers free consulting services to these organizations. Following data collection, he provides a brief, personalized report in nonacademic language describing communication strengths and weaknesses and detailing action steps that the organization can take to leverage strengths and shore up weaknesses. Dr. Garner has completed four such data collections, has two scheduled for the next two weeks, and has two more lined up for the summer/fall.
Dr. Garner is also establishing connections between his teaching and applied communication. He has taught approximately 90 students in his Comm 30163 class during the 2010-2011 year, and the course project for that class involves students in groups of 4 or 5 making contact with community organizations, discussing communication strengths and weaknesses with their liaison to an organization, and collecting survey or interview data with employees based on those strengths or weaknesses. Students then present their findings in class. Organizations have included XTO energy, Chick-Fil-A, a local Marine Corp unit, and Silver Fox Steak House, among others. His graduate class during the fall did similar projects (although with more depth). One of those projects, written by two graduate students, is under review for the National Communication Association conference (the paper is entitled “Voices in a Chorus: Connections between Role Clarity and Organizational Culture”). Dr. Garner is also involved in two directed studies where students are engaged in community organizations. Allison Rodger is doing her senior honors thesis on leadership, dissent, and emotion at Zenith Commercial Roofing, and Judith Shannon is doing a graduate directed studies looking at nonprofit employees and volunteers through the Volunteer Center of North Texas.
Finally, the department encourages students to complete an internship. We hope to review and strengthen our work in this area in the coming year.
Enrollment and Financial Aid Model
Enrollment and financial aid requirements for the graduate program have already been discussed in terms of our graduate footprint. At the undergraduate level, we have recently changed to a new matriculation requirement designed to improve the quality of our work. The number of majors had grown to an level that was unsustainable given our other responsibilities (University service courses and graduate programming). At this point, it appears that we have been successful in managing the number of majors with no impact on overall credit hour production, which is very high. For example, fall 2010 data indicate that the Department of Communication Studies total credit hour production (5,115) was the highest in the College of Communication by a substantial degree (Office of Institutional Research, 2010). The current level of credit hour production places us at a level comparable to History, Religion, and Management (which have larger faculty). The Department of Communication Studies Curriculum Committee has conducted an analysis of our experience with this new model. That analysis is attached to this report.
Financial Assistance available to undergraduate students in generally awarded by the Office of Scholarships and Student Financial Aid. A single scholarship, the TCU Guild Award, is awarded by the Department.
Improvement of Teaching
Evaluation of teaching is currently limited to use of SPOT ratings. Next year, the department will undertake the development of a comprehensive approach to the evaluation and improvement of teaching. In addition, we will consider the development of department criteria designed to improve teaching in two areas: graduate teaching and online instruction. Vehicles for this work will be membership on the graduate faculty, and department requirements for competence in offering instruction through Ecollege, including course assessment by the staff of the Koehler Center for Teaching Effectiveness.
For example, we should consider requiring that faculty who teach a graduate seminar should be actively publishing research in that area. This will, in turn, be a specific means to operationally improve the teacher/scholar model.
Summary
1. The Department of Communication Studies can develop and sustain a larger footprint in graduate programming. Immediate addition of graduate students is possible with incremental increases in tuition and stipend awards. Development of a doctoral program in the unit is feasible, marketable, and many of the needed resources are already present. Addition of graduate financial aid and two new faculty lines would be a minimum requirement for development in this area.
2. The Department of Communication Studies should be able to maintain an already impressive national presence in the publication of research. Development of a PhD program would be a practical step in creation of a culture of writing external grants.
3. The Department of Communication Studies will continue to encourage international experience among majors, but it is likely that our programming in this area will be limited to one or two summer courses, at most.