CM 505 - ADVANCED MEDIA WRITING
Semester Hours: 3
This course offers an overview of various media writing genres, including Broadcast, Advertising and Public Relations. Students complete a mix of timed assignments with each context to acquire a more complete survey of media writing and prepare for a career within the mass media.
CM 508 - CLASSICAL RHETORICAL THEORY
Semester Hours: 3
This course surveys the early development of rhetorical theory in the Western world, from its sophistic origins in the 5th century BCE, through the Greek philosophers and educators, to the Romans and early Christians.
CM 509 - CONTEMPORARY RHETORICAL THEORY
Semester Hours: 3
This course surveys contemporary rhetorical thought, including modern and postmodern theories. The course requires rigorous academic analysis and critique as students explore historical and current rhetorical concepts.
CM 514 - CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING
Semester Hours: 3
This course introduces students to the genre of creative non-fiction. Undergraduate students (CM 414) will write five essays and revise toward a final writing portfolio. Graduate students (CM 514) will write five essays and a collage assignment, revising toward a final portfolio.
CM 518 - LEGAL ARGUMENT
Semester Hours: 3
This course examines argumentation in legal communities, that is, the way lawyers and judges provide reasoned support for the positions they defend concerning what the law requires in a given case. It considers common forms of legal argument, sources and forms of evidence, and legal values that underlie legal argument. It provides students with a critical perspective from which to judge legal arguments and a basic set of tools for developing legal arguments. This course will not provide any in-depth consideration of the content of civil, criminal or constitutional law, but will use examples from various areas of law to illustrate how legal arguments are developed.
CM 520 - PUBLIC RELATIONS WRITING
Semester Hours: 3
This course provides students with professionalization in their writing and editorial skills in public relations. By emphasizing different audiences and various media, students will find and hone their public relations voice. Students will gain experience with instant responses, making ethical and legal decisions, and practicing a wide range of PR writing and design including the development of media kits, pitches, backgrounders, press releases, memos, newsletters, radio announcements, and brochures. Students will gain firsthand experience writing on a digital platform for a non-profit organization and building a digital audience.
CM 530 - MASS MEDIA IN AMERICA
Semester Hours: 3
This course is designed to examine the role and influence of different forms of media in various societies. The course focuses on evolutions in mass media in the larger world as a context for what has happened in America. The use, and sometimes abuse, of media has evolved continually as technology has advanced. By focusing on the structures and theories of mass communication, this course helps students make critical judgments about how media influences society and how society influences media.
CM 533 - DARK SIDE INTERPERSONAL COMM
Semester Hours: 3
Research from the dark side of communication has typically been studied from a single standpoint confined to a specific context. This course offers a more complete view of human communication by exploring a variety of topics related to the "darker" side of interactions situated in the contexts of Interpersonal Communication, Organizational Communication, Computer Mediated Communication, Health Communication, and Blended Communication. By merging theory and practical application, the different contexts provide students with an enhanced understanding of how dark side behaviors are experienced and communicated.
CM 535 - SOCIAL MEDIA
Semester Hours: 3
This course focuses on uses and effects of social media in interpersonal, organizational, mass mediated, health, and political settings. It investigates questions such as: Who uses social media? Can we develop meaningful relationships through social media? How do people use social media to find information, get social support, and evoke political change? Is privacy dead? This course focuses on the history of social media and current computer-mediated communication theories.
CM 540 - PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGNS
Semester Hours: 3
This course provides professionalization and team work experience for students in the public relations track. Students practice the research, planning, implementation, and evaluation of strategic communication plans for various public relations contexts.
CM 542 - USABILITY STUDIES
Semester Hours: 3
Introduces students to the theory and practices of usability, which involves designing useful, easy-to-use websites, software, and products. The course involves group projects conducting real-world usability testing.
CM 544 - ADVERTISING
Semester Hours: 3
This course defines advertising and considers how it works, how it is developed, and some controversies surrounding its use.
CM 551 - ORGANIZATIONAL TRAIN & DEVELOP
Semester Hours: 3
Provides students with the opportunity to learn to design, and execute, professional organizational training programs. Students learn to design needs assessments, write training proposals and contracts, as well as design budgets, training scripts, presentations and post-evaluations for companies.
CM 552 - USER-CENTERED DESIGN
Semester Hours: 3
Introduces students to user-centered design principles that inform the practice of user experience design. Students will use visual thinking as they complete contextual inquiries and mapping exercises.
CM 553 - COMMUNICATING WITH USERS
Semester Hours: 3
This course teaches students how to effectively research user needs and produce technical communication documents to meet those needs.
CM 554 - NEW MEDIA WRITING & RHETORIC
Semester Hours: 3
This course teaches students to consider and implement rhetorical principles across a variety of media and includes an examination of communication strategies used widely in academic and industry settings. The course focuses on new media through an exploration of digital technologies and the way digital culture and new media have dramatically impacted reading, writing and research practices.
CM 600 - INTERNSHIP
Semester Hours: 3
The student works in a professional capacity for at least 10 hours a week under a general supervision of a faculty member and direct supervision of a management-level practitioner in some field of professional communication (user experience, advertising, public relations, professional writing, and journalism).
CM 610 - COMMUNICATION PEDAGOGY
Semester Hours: 3
This course is designed to prepare students for teaching in the field of communication. Toward this end, students will explore a mix of theories, methods, and strategies related to communication pedagogy. Students will also have the opportunity to develop their teaching competency by engaging in various teaching assignments.
CM 631 - ADVANCED COMMUNICATION THEORY
Semester Hours: 3
This course surveys major theories that inform the scholarly study of human communication. Through readings, discussions, and research, students learn how communication theories are developed, analyzed, evaluated, and applied. More specifically, the course goals are: 1) to enhance students' ability to critically analyze current theories of human communication, and 2) to provide students with the opportunity to actively participate in research that tests major communication theories. Original works are read.
CM 633 - INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
Semester Hours: 3
The art of communicating "one to one" is the focus of this course. This course surveys major theories that inform the scholarly study of interpersonal communication. Through readings, discussions, and research, we will learn how interpersonal communication theories are developed, analyzed, evaluated, and applied. More specifically, the course goals are: 1) to enhance students' ability to critically analyze current theories of interpersonal communication, 2) to provide students with the opportunity to actively participate in research that tests major interpersonal communication theories.
CM 640 - SPECIAL TOPICS
Semester Hours: 3
CM 655 - COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE
Semester Hours: 3
This course explores the complex and dynamic relationship between communication and culture. It uses a contextual approach to examine significant similarities and distinctions between and among cultures from both macro and micro cultural perspectives, giving particular attention to how verbal and nonverbal communication moderates our cultural practices.
CM 662 - INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Semester Hours: 3
This class reviews research in technical communication, information science, cognitive science, semiotics, and computer science that helps students understand how communities represent, organize, retrieve, and ultimately use information.
CM 670 - ADVANCED COMMUNICATION METHODS
Semester Hours: 3
This course is concerned with the methods and philosophy of scientific communication research. Having taken a basic course that covers elements of research design is highly recommended.
CM 675 - RHETORICAL CRITICISM
Semester Hours: 3
This course examines how rhetorical scholars analyze persuasive discourse, providing hands-on opportunities for students to engage in such analyses. It examines significant variables in rhetorical processes, a number of methods employed to understand adaptations to rhetorical needs, and considers pragmatic, ethical, social and ideological dimensions of persuasive discourse.
CM 699 - MASTERS THESIS
Semester Hours: 3-6
Required each semester during which a student is working and receiving direction on a masters thesis. No more than 6 hours credit may be applied toward the degree.