Public Advocacy

FIND YOUR VOICE WITH PUBLIC ADVOCACY

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Welcome to the Public Advocacy concentration within the Department of Communication Studies. Public Advocacy practitioners are advocates, consultants, rhetoricians, debaters, speakers, listeners, critical thinkers, and voices for the heard and unheard. Our track strives to provide you with the skills and knowledge necessary to discover your own voice, and to contribute to conversations that shape local and global communities alike. Public advocacy equips you with communication and critical thinking skills for any number of settings: corporate, nonprofit, legal, governmental, health care, and community organizing, among others. We hope to instill in you an appreciation for argumentation, public discourse, the examination (and sometimes faulty use) of logic in both oral and written arguments, and the role of symbols (verbal and non-verbal) in our everyday discourses.

The core requirements for the Public Advocacy track can be completed in one semester with proper planning.

Suggested course of study:

1. You’ll begin by completing either COMM 2102 or COMM 2103.
COMM 2102 Advanced Public Speaking builds on the fundamentals you acquired in COMM 1101 Introduction to Public Speaking as you continue to become a more established and confident speaker. COMM 2103 Argumentation and Debate will introduce you to the fundamentals of formal debate as you compete with fellow students and learn the process of introducing and defending arguments.

2. In COMM 3130 Communication and Public Advocacy, you’ll explore how symbols are used in public advocacy from both applied and theoretical perspectives, with emphasis on rhetorical uses of language and non-verbal symbols in the creation and transmission of public messages.

3. Finally, for your Elective Track courses (six hours), you will select two courses from an approved list that best suits your goals within the Public Advocacy track. Sample courses include COMM 3052 Topics in Mass Media, COMM 3131 African-American Oratory, COMM 3055 Topics in Public Relations, and COMM 4410 Professional Internship. If you take both COMM 2102 and COMM 2103, one of those can count as an elective track course. This is your opportunity to mold the public advocacy track to your individualized needs as you look forward to your post-graduate trajectory.

There are other courses that make up the Public Advocacy concentration and more general major requirements, micro and macro requirements, and related coursework. Follow your track worksheet and make choices in consultation with your Academic Advisor. To find your new advisor within the Department of Communication Studies, go to Banner and click to load your advising transcript. Then, get to know the new name under “Advisor(s).”

Again, welcome to the Public Advocacy concentration.