Small Group Communication

Catalog description

<b><font color="7A0018">Begins Fall 2025. Effective Fall 2025, COMM-14 replaces COMM-04. </b></font><br> This course emphasizes the principles of public speaking within a democratic society, focusing on the foundational knowledge and practice of delivering effective informative and persuasive messages in a small group context. Students develop speaking, participation, and leadership skills through faculty supervised and faculty-evaluated presentations. The course introduces rhetorical theory, small group theory, and methods of rhetorical analysis, enabling students to discover, develop, and critically analyze ideas and information in public discourse. Students also explore and evaluate group communication processes,including problem-solving, conflict management, decision-making, and leadership, while considering the historical roots and key rhetorical theories that ground the study of public speaking.