Changing a curriculum is already stressful enough without finding new ways to create anxiety, discontent, and rancor. To provide a truly integrated liberal education, the author contends that educators must not only change their curricula--the courses they offer--but they must change what they do in the classroom, the kinds of papers and…

Discusses assessment with a focus on the speech communication discipline. Addresses the challenge communication administrators and educators continually face. (PA)

Questions survey results which find oral communication education alive and well in higher education. Argues that those outside the discipline need to be educated about the nature of speech communication education and that a concerted effort must be made by faculty and administrators to reinforce the academic credibility of the discipline. (PA)

Offers a keynote address presented to the Southern States Communication Association. Outlines why communication may be considered the central academic discipline, a site where other disciplines intersect. Issues a challenge to take stock and pride in the discipline of communication. (SR)

Environmental differences for speech departments at large and small colleges are not simply of scale; there are qualitative as well as quantitative differences. At small colleges, faculty are hired as teachers, rather than as researchers. Because speech teachers at small colleges must be generalists, and because it is often difficult to replace…

Analyzes why it is important to establish professional advisory councils for communication programs. Discusses their implementation and maintenance. (SR)

The speech communication department chair's most important function involves creating a healthy departmental climate for professional growth and development. While the department chair must be able to recognize and accept the fact that some faculty members cannot or will not improve their performance, there are still four principles he or she can…

Reviews tasks and duties of department chairs, stressing the importance of establishing priorities and delegating appropriately. Includes an Appropriate Chair Role analysis for the Communication Department, George Mason University. (PD)

Offers advice to professional colleagues on the transition from a large university to a small college department. (PD)

A chairperson and professor of a small, college communication program examines his transition with respect to students, courses and curricula, support services, equipment, and administrative and faculty relations. (PD)

Defines the speech communication field and discusses the status of speech communication at the University of Georgia. (PD)

Discusses the speech communication field and program at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. (PD)

Points our the reasons speech communication is particularly fortunate among academic fields today. Reviews criteria that will ensure the preservation of college programs: (1) quality of research; (2) interrelationship with other disciplines; (3) a balance between competence instruction and theoretical instruction; and (4) a public constituency.…

Discusses experiences with responsibility-centered management for communications programs at Indiana University-Bloomington. Points out three problems with university fiscal planning which bear directly on communications programs. (SR)

Two papers describing and reacting to the proposed abolition of a department of communication are contained in this document. The first paper ("Proposed Abolition of a Department of Communication" by Thorrel B. Fest) describes the factors that led the attack. Environmental factors--distrust of the discipline, decreasing funds, and…