Department Vision

The Department of Communication Studies will provide distinctive, challenging, thorough and relevant preparation for professional, personal and academic pursuits in Communication Studies. We will prepare graduates to be ethical communicators and leaders in their communities and in the public and private employment sectors. The department will be recognized as the appropriate forum for achieving the goals of the Middle States Commission, MHEC, the Undergraduate Education Initiative, and our university mission with regard to the centrality of developing oral communication competencies of all students.

Department Mission

The Department of Communication Studies fosters the development of oral communication competencies of all Frostburg State University students. The Department provides a learning environment characterized by close personal interaction with caring faculty, with emphasis on theory-informed understandings and applications of face-to face, textual, visual, and electronic communication in interpersonal, small group, organizational, and public contexts. The Department offers specific tracks with flexible tailoring to meet students' goals as they prepare for career or graduate studies and to serve as members of the communication studies discipline. We strive to help each student learn how to interpret, critique, and create communicative and rhetorical messages within the context of relationships embedded within formal and informal settings. We prepare students to negotiate technology and conflict as they contribute to civility within a diverse, rapidly changing society as effective, ethical communicators, organizational leaders, and engaged citizens.


Department Learning Goals

Majors and minors in Communication Studies learn how to:

1. Identify and understand major theories in the field of Communication Studies.
2. Engage in theory-grounded analysis and criticism of past and present communication events.
3. Engage in civil discourse as speakers and listeners functioning in a democratic society in a variety of formal and informal settings.
4. Demonstrate the awareness of and ethical adaptation to the diversity and potential conflicts among communicators.
5. Use technology efficiently, appropriately, and ethically to research and communicate ideas to various audiences.