The UNCW Department of Communication Studies began in the early 1970s as the Division of Speech Communication in the Department of Creative Arts. Dr. Betty Jo Welch was the founding department chair of the department and there is now a scholarship in her honor. In 1990 the Department of Communication Studies was formally founded.
There are approximately 500 pre-communication studies and communication studies majors combined, making the COM department one of the largest undergraduate programs on campus. Our size allows many students to “find their people” as they explore foundation classes and specializations.
Our faculty offer expertise in many areas of the discipline and are hired for the passion and skill in teaching, research and service to the department, university and region.
Navigate the sub-sections on the left-hand side of the page to learn more about the unit's mission, discipline, current activities, position opening and representative accolades.
You may have noticed our department images on our website or printed on various promotional items within our department. Each image was the result of a class project and directed independent studies involving many of our COM students.
Dr. Jeanne Persuit and Dr. Rick Olsen ('87) were "clients" for an undergraduate class. Teams of students researched our department, other communication studies departments, the discipline itself and other sources for inspiration.
They prepared mockups of their designs as they would look full color, grayscale, on letterhead, t-shirts and web pages along with extensive rationale for their design choices. They also interviewed the clients to get a sense of what was needed in the design.
The winning design offers:
The original winning design was then further refined by Robert Pryce through a directed independent study. He took on the challenge of making the original design "less corporate" as well as figuring out how to layer and animate the design.
We are quite proud of the image and how well it expresses our department's commitment to both effective communication and whole student development. We are also proud of the process that emphasized student involvement and applied learning.
Our graduate program logo followed a similar process. Students in our undergraduate Pier601 class, a student-run IMC firm, were given our graduate program as a “client.” The graduate director, Dr. Jeanne Persuit, offered the basic goals and parameters for the image. Several designs were offeredd and evaluated by other professionals and members of our target audiences. The winning design offered an aesthetically pleasing layered look that can be interpreted as both a wave and a wing. This connects with both our location and our mascot. We also liked that it was very distinct from our undergraduate image.
Find answers to frequently asked questions about communications studies at UNCW. Learn about program courses and determine if this program is for you.
Check out some frequently asked questions about our department.
A broad disciple encompassing the social sciences, humanities, liberal arts that leverages this broad foundation to act skillfully in a broad range of applied areas including digital creativity, integrated marketing communication, journalism, HR, sales, entrepreneurship and more. For more information review
Many of our students enjoy taking a wide range of courses in our department. Others prefer to specialize. There are many specialty and sub-discipline areas of communication studies represented in our curriculum. Primary areas are:
We do not require you to select a track or declare a formal area of study. You have the flexibility to customize your degree program based on aspirations for graduate study and professional career paths. We have students who thrive as laser-focused specialists and wide-ranging explorers.
Graduate study options at the Master’s and Doctoral levels are available in specialty areas represented in the department and many more! We have a graduate program in Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC). Our graduates have gone on to graduate programs directly related to our undergraduate areas as well as related areas such as health communication, MBAs, MPAs, JD, and many more. It is helpful if students discuss their aspirations with their advisor early in their time with us so we can help them prepare to be a competitive applicant for graduate school.
Check out Why Study Communication? For more information on the professional outcomes of a Communication Studies degree.
The ideal communication studies student enjoys making connections between theory and practice. Our best students find ways to connect the insights derived from the study of communication with their practice in all its forms including:
Essentially, we want students who strive to make excellent communication choices and can explain WHY they made that choice!
We focus on “professional readiness” broadly and with specific skillsets for those that pursue them while they are here. We have students go into media production, marketing and social media management, start their own businesses, get hired to do a wide variety of client services (recruiting, onboarding, training), sales, wealth management, graphic design and more. Others pursue graduate school in areas such as law, MBA, MPA and even Public Health, Educational Leadership and more.
Our mission statement states:
"Above all, our primary purpose is to provide our majors an undergraduate degree program in which the philosophy, practice, criticism, and study of communication are emphasized and balanced. Specifically, we seek to integrate application with theory."
See the full Mission Statement.
Communication Studies comes from one of the oldest formal areas of study in the world: rhetoric. One of the first teachers of rhetoric noted the following:
"... because there has been implanted in us the power to persuade each other and to make clear to each other whatever we desire, not only have we escaped the life of wild beasts, but we have come together and founded cities and made laws and invented arts; and, generally speaking, there is no institution devised by man which the power of speech has not helped us to establish." - Isocrates, Antidosis
Communication has also been an ongoing theme in many aspects of the human condition, large and small. A more contemporary communication scholar. W. Barnette Pearce offered a similarly compelling reminder of the centrality of communication:
"More importantly, there is a revolutionary discovery that communication is, and always has been, far more central to whatever it means to be a human being than had ever before been supposed.
Prior to this century, no major analysis of international relations explained inequitable standards of life or power as the result of a particular pattern of communication between nations, but this is a common theme today. No major analysis of the form of government focused on media and channels of communication, but this is a common orientation today.
No interpretation of pathologies of individual or families cited patterns of communication as the causes of problems or the means of their solution. But this is a unifying concept in half a dozen disciplines today. Some social scientists claim that "the world" exists in communication; that the apparently stable even/objects of the social world—from economic systems to personality traits to "dinner with friends"—are collectively constructed patterns of conversations; and that "solution" to (some? most? all?) problems consists in changing the conversations we have about them." - W. Barnett Pearce, Communication and the Human Condition.
In sum . . . we’re kind of a big deal.