Mission Statement
The mission of the Department of Communication is to produce innovative, high-impact scholarship and to deliver high-quality undergraduate and graduate education in the areas of public relations; interpersonal, group, organizational, and public communication; and communication media. From disciplinary and interdisciplinary foundations in the humanities and social sciences, the Department’s research, teaching, and service focus on symbols, messages, meanings, media technologies, media production, and communication practices in personal, professional, public, and political contexts.
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The Department of Communication is one of the largest departments at NC State, with 600-700 undergraduate majors and about 70 full-or part-time graduate students (M.S. and Ph.D.). The undergraduate curriculum offers three programs toward a degree: Public and Interpersonal Communication, Communication Media, and Public Relations. Each concentration places communication theory at its core. Faculty members collaborate on research and teaching, often across the program areas. Our professional interdependence reflects our departmental culture, which is characterized by mutual respect, friendliness and dedication to advancing the teaching, research and service missions of the university.
We inaugurated our M.S. in Communication program with the 2001-02 academic year. More recently we have developed an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in "Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media". On the undergraduate side, we implemented a core curriculum that gives our majors an integrated, innovative and rigorous understanding of the rapidly changing field of communication, a field now at the intellectual and economic forefront of the global information society. Our hiring of several new faculty members over the past several years has added significantly to who we are and what we can accomplish. Members of our faculty teach well and develop state-of-the-art courses, publish books with the best presses and articles in the top journals, and serve on editorial boards for various high-quality scholarly journals. (Click here to see brief biographies of all faculty members.) They also participate in our community, state and nation through various outreach and educational programs, and receive prestigious appointments and research grants. For instance, Dr. David Berube received an influential NIRT grant to study the public understanding of nano-technology. He has also created a university Center to study public understandings of science and technology. Two other faculty members, Dr. William Kinsella and Dr. Steve Wiley, have received prestigious Fulbright Awards to study communication processes in Germany and in Chile, respectively. Most recently, Dr. Joann Keyton won the National Communication Association's Gerald M. Phillips Award for Distinguished Applied Communication Scholarship. Working with this outstanding faculty, our students frequently participate in academic research conferences, publish articles in academic journals, and win national awards for video and radio productions, among other impressive achievements.
The Department's highly successful internship program places dozens of students each year in positions of responsibility and challenge, helping prepare them for jobs around the nation. Our alumni serve in a variety of important positions. They include a member of the U.S. Congress, producers of national television programs, heads of major university programs, executives with some of the nation's largest corporations, highly successful entrepreneurs, and managers of the Internet presence for some of the country's leading newspapers.
Thank you for visiting us. If you have questions regarding:
Undergraduate Admissions, Transfers, Courses, etc. - Ms. Sandy Stallings (sandra_stallings@ncsu.edu)
MS Program and CRDM Program - Joan Alford (jealford@ncsu.edu)
