The department will work on creating new emphases and degree requirements to prepare students for new marketplace.

President Kim B. Clark and the administration have challenged the communication department to redesign and restructure one of the most popular majors on campus to help students meet the evolving needs of the communication industry before the end of the year.

Students should expect these changes to be significant and affect every communication major who does not graduate before Fall 2010. Not only are all of the communication classes being reworked, but the department hopes to create entirely new emphases and degree requirements as well.  Students on older catalog years will substitute the new classes to fulfill their catalog year requirements.

 “We want to give students the most relevant and marketable skills, enabling them to better compete in an industry that is still rapidly changing,” said Ron Bennett, the Chair of the Communication Department.

Lee Warnick is one of the faculty members asked to lead the overhaul of the Communication Department.

“We are learning that communication professionals have to know more than just communicating,” Warnick said. “Employers are looking for individuals who can write content, edit video clips and then create a Web site for all that content to be viewed on. Employers want people who can do it all.”

The new curriculum will prepare students to create content for social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as Internet-based media such as Hulu and entrepreneurial blogging sites. Warnick sees the future of communication taking the shape of a grassroots movement where people will be fed content by small, specialized outlets rather than large media corporations.

Bennett believes students will welcome these changes as this new curriculum will not only meet students’ needs but ignite their interests as well.

Not every reaction to these announcements has been positive. Several students have expressed concern over the transferability of this new curriculum.

Stephanie Stratford is a communication major who hopes that the new degree will be accepted at other schools.

“It’s hard enough to transfer to another school with the Foundations program being unique to BYU–I. I hope the new degree isn’t like, once you start here, you’re stuck here,” Stratford said.

 “Our first priority is to train communications professionals, almost like a technical college,” Warnick said.

The transferability of the new curriculum will be something that the committee will have to address.

Both Warnick and Bennett also said there is a risk that the new curriculum may become too specialized because no one is certain where the communication industry will end up in five or 10 years.

“Facebook and Twitter may be trends that disappear in a couple years; however, the concepts they have created will not go away,” Bennett said.
Warnick hopes that collaboration with industry professionals will help his committee avoid any overspecialization.

The curriculum, requirements and transferability of the new communication degree is still uncertain as the department has only begun to select faculty to be involved with designing the new curriculum.

“We are only in the top of the first inning,” Warnick said. He is also hoping to receive feedback and ideas for the new curriculum from students via an e-mail that will be sent out to all communication majors.

Ryan Price

scroll staff