ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to continue the trend of identifying the course offerings of National Communication Association (NCA) department members started by Wardrope (1999). A curricular profile of U.S. communication departments. Communication Education, 48(3), 256–258. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634529909379173 and followed by Bertelsen and Goodboy (2009). Curriculum planning: Trends in communication studies, workplace competencies, and current programs at 4-year colleges and universities. Communication Education, 58(2), 262–275. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634520902755458. Supported by an Advancing the Discipline grant obtained by the NCA in 2019, this third iteration identifies the Top 30 course offerings across 322 NCA Department members as of May 2020. The results indicate that over the past three decades, the most currently offered communication courses have remained relatively stable, with the interpersonal communication course remaining the most currently offered course by NCA department members, followed (in this study) by the persuasion, introductory, intercultural, public speaking, organizational, group, research methods, argumentation and debate, and theory courses. Future researchers might extend this line of research by inquiring whether these offered courses are required for the undergraduate degree in communication, a department major or area of emphasis, a department minor, or institutional graduation as well as probe the graduate courses offered by communication departments.
Notes
1 Of the six members, four members are community colleges that did not have a formally designated communication department but offered several communication courses (range = 4–19 courses) at the 100- and 200-levels (one institution offered one 300-level course); one member is a university that offers only online noncommunication graduate programs; and one member is a consortium of seven city-wide postsecondary vocational institutions, with two of the seven institutions offering courses in reading, writing, and speaking.
2 Although beyond the scope of this project, we noted that 23 of the 322 department members either (a) mentioned the NCA’s Learning Outcomes in Communication project or (b) listed some or all of the nine learning outcomes on their department website.
3 Aside from the courses listed in and , the remaining 34 communication course offerings are (in alphabetical order) Activism & Social Justice, Communication and Aging, Communication and Rhetoric, Copy Editing, Corporate Communication, Dark Side of Communication, Deception, Feminist Communication, Global Communication, Health Communication Campaigns, Instructional Communication, Intergroup Communication, International Communication, Intercultural & International Communication, Internet, Interracial Communication, Life-span Communication, Listening, Mass Communication Criticism, Peace Communication, Performance Studies, Public Address, Public Communication, Religious Communication, Rhetorical Criticism & Theory, Rhetorical Research Methods, Sales Communication, Science Communication, Storytelling/Narrative, Speechwriting, Teaching Methods for Speech/Communication, Theatre, Urban Communication, and Voice and Diction.