Communication

Department of Communication
College of Arts and Sciences
Steven A. Carr, Chair
Michelle Kearl, Graduate Program Director
260-481-6825 ~ Neff Hall 230

The master’s program in Professional Communication serves students seeking career management and staff positions as communication specialists in industrial, service, governmental, and media-related sectors of the economy. The curriculum may also be used as preparation for doctoral programs.

Students prepare plans of study in one of two broad areas: communication management or media specialist. Students who pursue this program benefit from four distinctive features: (1) the curricular fusion of two respected academic traditions: rhetorical and communication theory; (2) a functionally proportioned study of rhetorical and communication theory and practice; (3) the complementary relation of the required core, which provides a coherent theoretical base, and the selections offered by the applied specialization and cognate options, which facilitate development of a plan of study tailored to personal career goals; and (4) the scheduling of offerings to accommodate part-time students, including employed professionals, and to expedite completion of the program in as little as two academic years.

Degree Requirements

The curriculum consists of 33 credits in approved courses, a synthesis paper, and a written comprehensive examination. Comprehensive examinations will be routine. Under exceptional circumstances, you may be exempted from taking your comprehensive examination by the advising committee. The circumstances will include: (1) achieving A’s in all graduate courses (if you meet the following two criteria regarding synthesis paper and conference paper/publication and have all A’s in courses up to your last semester, you are exempt from comprehensive exams even if you are taking courses that semester); (2) having the synthesis paper approved by the deadline for that semester; and (3) either having a single-authored competitive paper presented at a regional or national scholarly meeting or having a single-authored competitive paper published in a regional or national scholarly journal.

Teaching Assistantships

A limited number of teaching assistantships are available and provide tuition reduction and a stipend. The assistantship normally requires teaching two Fundamentals of Speech Communication courses or other duties as assigned; they receive a tuition reduction and a stipend. All recipients must be enrolled in two graduate courses during each of the regular semesters of the academic year. See ipfw.edu/comm/grad for details.