CURRICULUM

The focused, highly-interactive curriculum fuses communication theory with practice equipping students with the skills essential to professional success. The four-quarter curriculum consists of a set of core courses and the flexibility for students to create their own program through elective options.

Students enroll in one core course and one elective course each quarter. In addition, following fall quarter, students will complete a weeklong Master’s Practica Intersession, comprised of a series of graduate-level topical seminars. At the end of the academic year, students will have completed 9 credit units to receive the Master of Science in Communication degree.

Change Management

This course focuses on the use of basic communication theory to examine communication as a process and as a resource at both micro and macro levels, as well as the management of communication in organizations.

Communication, Management & Ethics

This course provides a framework for systematic reflection on the ethical dimension of managerial communication. The course raises both "philosophical" and "practical" questions and focuses on areas of human interaction where it is difficult to be either wholly principled or merely practical. The course includes discussion of representative texts and case studies, including attention to predicaments encountered or observed during the term. The readings draw on several literatures on ethical judgment, the demands and evasions defining various communicative practices, the conflicting responsibilities of institutional work, the relationship between private and public interests, and other concerns as well.

Managing Information for Innovation

This course is designed to provide students with a mix of approaches and techniques to manage technological innovation and change within their organizations. The course examines how teams and organizations can be designed to promote innovation, discusses strategies that encourage or impede effective product development, and explores practices used to implement new technologies and drive change.

Strategy in the Global Economy

Successful managers in a global workplace must recognize and work with local cultural forms and practices at odds with what were once simply practical, instrumental and rational propositions of organization, technology, and economics. This course seeks to foster an awareness and understanding of cultural perspectives, values and communication styles and show their relevance to conducting business globally.

Communication Strategy & Competition

This course is designed to provide an understanding of the economic principles that govern strategic decision-making in order to gain and sustain a competitive advantage in business markets, with special emphasis on communications markets and information technology. 

Contemporary Media in Business, Government & Society

This course concerns the many intersections between media – both old and new – and social institutions. These institutions include business, the not-for-profit sector, the professions, science, and government. The focus of the course is on news and informational media broadly defined to include, for example, advertising and public relations. The behavior of audiences and their patterns of media use is also a topic considered in the course. The general orientation is social scientific analysis of the process and effects of mediated communication.

Corporate Citizenship

This course addresses the relationship between corporations and their stakeholder, It explores best practices for improving social responsibility, transparency, and effectiveness of ethical communication in a (sometimes) unethical world.

Current Issues in Law, Technology & Strategy

In this course, students discuss the legal framework affecting the full range of converged communications, including intellectual property law; communications law and regulation; spectrum policy; web contracting; corporate email and Internet policies; compliance with Internet privacy regulations; online liability; and issues of competition and industry structure. Students will also conduct an extensive examination of strategies for corporate influence of the marketplace and participation in policy making.

The Design of Digital Organizations

This course will provide the opportunity to explore theoretical and practical communication issues in organizations as they relate to the organization operating in cyberspace. Contemporary communication perspectives will be presented and critically evaluated via the study of how organizational culture, structure, and information communication technologies provide an important foundation for understanding how an organization can "live" successfully in the online world. In this course, students will consider message construction, patterns of interaction, new media, information flow, organizational forms, and how to strategize online communication behavior within a legal framework.

Leadership & Decision Making

This course investigates how individuals influence group decisions. Students are video taped in decision-making interactions in order to assess and improve their leadership and analytical thinking skills in groups. This course is highly interactive – allowing students to evaluate and practice real world challenges in this content area.

Managing Global Teams

Globalization, information, and technology access have transformed the face of the business world. Whole industries have been re-defined, i.e. impact on cost structure by foreign manufacturing, speed of product development, and ability to leverage global resources for almost any business need. These opportunities also create new challenges for today's managers. This course uses an action-oriented approach to develop a good understanding of international management and their practical implications when leading and managing multicultural teams in the new global economy.

Managing Workplace Diversity & Inclusion

Workplace diversity presents significant managerial opportunities and challenges. This interactive course explores current issues of concern including: age cohorts and generational expectations; gender roles and expectations; work-life challenges; gay, lesbian and transgender experiences;  Latino, Black and Asian workplace experiences; dispersed teams; health and disability concerns; emerging religious challenges and workplace violence. The course seeks to foster an awareness of similarities and differences and managerial communication challenges to creating a productive, inclusive workplace culture. 

Master's Practica Intersession

The Master's Practica Intersession is designed as a weeklong series of graduate level seminars as a content addendum to the curriculum. Seminars are revised annually to include topics such as crisis management, corporate ethics, digital media, globalization/economy, and communication technologies to name a few. Students are required to complete four (4) of the five (5) daylong seminars.

Organizational Behavior

The purpose of this course is to increase students’ understanding of the various components of an organization such that they may identify, analyze, and solve organizational problems. Students will learn how components of an organization--such as leadership, organizational design, motivation, informal networks, and culture--interact to facilitate organizational effectiveness. Throughout the course we will apply theories and research findings in the analysis of case studies and “real-world” organizational examples.

Persuasion

This course is an exploration of the ways in which communication can be more effectively used to exert influence and to exercise power — bringing together a variety of disciplines including rhetorical analysis, leadership theory, composition, speechwriting, and public speaking. The goal is to help students understand how the beliefs and behaviors of decision-makers and publics can be influenced by effective communication.

Privacy & Communication

This course looks at the theory of communication privacy, as well as privacy in action.  We will discuss general theories of privacy including why it is important, how it affects societal norms and behavior, and the historical background of privacy.  We will then look at privacy issues in action including internet and social media privacy, reputational privacy, professional privacy, and business privacy.

Public Speaking

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of public speaking, with a particular focus on civic persuasion. Students will learn advanced research and organizational skills needed to create clear, concise, and engaging presentations. They will also learn to analyze and adapt speech content and delivery for unique audiences. Finally, students will improve their individual speaking style by studying public speaking skills as both a speaker and an observer.

Topics in Marketing Strategy

Beyond the Great Recession, companies are facing a variety of unprecedented strategic challenges from globalization, technological change, and empowered consumers and corporate buyers. Thriving in such an environment requires the kind of market-driven approach to strategy taught in this course. After an initial overview of marketing strategy basics, each week we will discuss practical approaches that address a series of “hot” marketing issues, followed by a discussion of communication implications. Using lessons from the course, each student will work on a course project to develop a marketing plan for a product in their company. 

Understanding & Leveraging Networks

This course uses social network concepts to understand and leverage the growing connectivity and complexity in the world around us on different scales — ranging from small teams to the World Wide Web. It discusses how we create and manage social networks within organizations, as well as with suppliers, customers and competitors and how these networks shape attitudes and behaviors.

Visual Communication

The contemporary marketplace increasingly uses visual messages to communicate complex concepts that were historically communicated through the written word.  Visual Communication uses a set of universal principles to effectively communicate through the design and layout of images and data.  Through the study of Design, Cognitive Science, Cartography, Human Machine Interface, Typography and semiotics, this class will study the ways that we perceive visual messages, how we interpret them, and how to create them for a variety of purposes.