Program Purpose and Description
Our Mission:
We teach communication principles, research methods and skills to Texas State students, produce and disseminate communication scholarship to a national and international constituency, and provide service to the department, the university, the community, and the profession.
We will:
- Facilitate learning about human communication by teaching all Texas State students (COMM 1310 Fundamentals of Human Communication) as well as providing high quality, comprehensive undergraduate and graduate communication programs to our majors and minors.
- Advance knowledge about human communication through the dissemination of high quality research in regionally, nationally, and internationally recognized publications.
- Provide professional service to enhance the quality and prestige of our programs, the university, and the discipline of communication.
Our Philosophy:
We will apply communication principles to enhance human communication knowledge and skills based upon a solid theoretical foundation.
Our Vision:
We aspire to be nationally and internationally recognized by students and our peers for our high quality communication programs and faculty and to be recognized as having the best quality Communication Studies department in Texas.
Our Values:
- We value high quality teaching. Quality teaching is our highest value followed closely by producing high quality scholarship.
- We value the importance and centrality of human communication in the education of all students.
- We value learning principles and skills of human communication that will enrich one's quality of life regardless of one's professional or vocational goals.
- We value openness, collegiality, and a supportive climate in which to achieve our mission.
- We envision a department that is recognized for its open and supportive climate. We seek to model the affirming communication principles and skills that we teach.
- Students We support the University Core Values in affirming that "our university exists to enrich our minds and to humanize our hearts so that we might contribute to the betterment of humanity.
- We are dedicated to providing a curriculum and educational experience that develops our capacities not only to analyze critically and think creatively, but also to reason ethically and feel compassionately.
- We value diversity of thought, opinion, and perspective as well as personal feedback and human interactions. We desire decisions to be made through dialogue, consensus, and collaborat
We agree with Isocrates, Webster and Mead
“In most of our abilities we differ not at all from the animals; we are in fact behind many in swiftness and strength and other resources. But because there is born in us the power to persuade each other and to show ourselves whatever we wish, we not only have escaped from living as brutes, but also by coming together we have founded cities and set up laws and invented arts, and speech has helped us attain practically all of the things we have devised . . . . By speech we refute the wicked and praise the good. By speech we educate the ignorant and inform the wise. We regard the ability to speak properly as the best sign of intelligence, and truthful, legal, and just speech is the reflection of a good and trustworthy soul. . . . If I must sum up on this subject, we shall find that nothing done with intelligence is done without speech.” (Isocrates Antidosis)
“If all my talents and powers were to be taken from me by some inscrutable providence, and I had my choice of keeping but one, I would unhesitatingly ask to be allowed to keep the power of speaking, for through it, I would quickly recover all the rest.” (Daniel Webster)
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” (Margaret Mead)
