The Department of Speech Communication officially became the Department of Communication Studies in August, 2003.

The department has undergone a number of natural evolutions over its four-decade history, and the field has evolved to the point where Speech Communication no longer describes the department’s educational mission, the type of research conducted by the faculty, or its curriculum.The department offers two separate degree programs, each with an undergraduate and a graduate component.

The B.A. and M.A. degree programs in Speech Communication evolved from a public address emphasis to one that includes five areas of emphasis: argumentation and persuasion, organizational communication, interpersonal communication, and intercultural communication.

The B.A. and M.A. degree programs in Communicative Disorders program evolved from an emphasis on disorders of speech itself to one that focuses predominantly on disorders of communication that are not speech….areas such as language, non-oral communication, assisted communication, pragmatic aspects of communication, and even swallowing.

All of these changes reflect changes that have occurred in the field.Most departments made up of components such as ours have changed their name to reflect this shift away from a focus mostly on speech to an increasingly broad focus on the elements of human communication.

In keeping with these changes, the Department of Speech Communication changed its name to the Department of Human Communication Studies. The new name is more indicative of the education students can receive through the department’s degree programs and of the variety of career directions that are available to graduates in fields such as education, healthcare, business and industry, and human services.