This post is the final of three posts looking at the development of Communication Across the Curriculum. In Part 1 I discussed the rise of Communication Courses and charted the long term trends of publications on the topic. In Part 2 I looked at the motives and aims behind the creation of Communication Courses, the trends in how they were discussed over a number of decades, and how the Communication Across the Curriculum movement emerged.
Today I would like to look at common threads in articles on CAC during the late 1980s, the 1990s, and the first decade of the 2000s. I also want to discuss current questions or concerns that have emerged in articles in the past few years.
The emphasis on how Communication Across the Curriculum (CAC) courses might prepare students for corporate jobs continued through the 1980s:
The importance of the development of oral communication abilities has been documented in a number of sources. Studies of graduates, employers, and corporate executives have revealed, for example, that skills in problem solving, communication, and interpersonal relations are most valued in high tech corporations….One way of assisting students in developing oral communication competencies is the required speech communication course, and another way is to integrate communication skills into content area courses. (Hay 1)
Communication Across the Curriculum at Baruch is certainly part of this lineage of CAC programs which emphasize communication as a business skill. However, since Baruch’s Communication Intensive Courses are in Theater and other humanities departments, they represent more than just communication for business. Depending on the class and the instructor, the emphasis might be communication as effective performance, communication as the transmission of cultural understanding, or communication as a means of displaying academic knowledge. For a rich background on the development of Communication Intensive Courses at Baruch, this 2008 Change article is required reading (Warner).
The 1990s witnessed a surge of articles on the assessment of Communication Across the Curriculum courses (Cronin and Grice) as well as on the applications of new technologies (Reiss, Selfe, and Young). Email, the web, and presentation software helped to increase the relevance of CAC and CIC. This seems fitting, since (as I showed in my last post) the original idea of Communication Courses came out of training in the use of communication technologies such as the typewriter.
Despite the spread of CAC and CIC, the basic Communication Course still exists within Communication Departments Across the country, though of course it has evolved through the decades (Morreale, Worley, and Hugenberg). Alongside the notion of Writing in the Disciplines, discipline specific definitions of communication have spread through Communication in the Disciplines movements (Dannels and Gaffney).
The first decade of this century witnessed articles demanding an even greater standardization of CAC, even while acknowledging that standards of communication are developing within each discipline as much as without (Dannels and Gaffney). Articles in this decade appear to be just as likely to survey the field of CAC as they are to pose discipline-specific (CID) questions (Hyavarinen et al.). Many writers also focus on questions of practical pedagogy (Dannels, Gaffney, and Martin).
The question, then, is what is CAC today? One of the issues that CAC faces is how to balance general communication practices with discipline specific standards (Garside). New communication platforms will likely also stimulate scholarly inquiry.
I personally am interested in the ethics and human purposes of communication, but these questions are generally not addressed by authors writing about CAC; I imagine this is because moral or ethical questions are seen as disconnected from “objective” standards of communication. However, looking at our Cacophony posts from this semester, it seems as though we are continually returning to questions of how communication relates to power dynamics and identity. I wonder whether these are questions that are being asked by CAC participants in other parts of the US.
Zucotti Park, October 2011. Source: emilydickinsonridesabmx‘s Flikr photostream
Works Cited
Cronin, Michael W. and George L. Grice. “Oral Communication across the Curriculum: Designing, Implementing, and Assessing a University-Wide Program.” 77th Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association. Atlanta, GA. Oct. 31-Nov. 3 1991. Conference Report.
Dannels, Deanna P., and Amy L. Housley Gaffney. “Communication Across The Curriculum And In The Disciplines: A Call For Scholarly Cross-Curricular Advocacy.” Communication Education 58.1 (2009): 124-153. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 5 Dec. 2011.
Dannels, Deanna P., Amy L. Housley Gaffney, and Kelly Norris Martin. “Students’ Talk About The Climate Of Feedback Interventions In The Critique.” Communication Education 60.1 (2011): 95-114. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 5 Dec. 2011.
Garside, Colleen. “Seeing The Forest Through The Trees: A Challenge Facing Communication Across The Curriculum Programs.” Communication Education 51.1 (2002): 51. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 5 Dec. 2011.
Hay, Ellen A. “Communication across the Curriculum.” 73rd Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association. Boston, MA. 5-8 November 1987. Conference Presentation.
Hyavarinen, Marja-Leena, Paavo Tanskanen, Nina Katajavuori, and Pekka Isotalus. “A Method For Teaching Communication In Pharmacy In Authentic Work Situations.” Communication Education 59.2 (2010): 124-145. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 5 Dec. 2011.
Morreale, Sherwyn P., David W. Worley, and Barbara Hugenberg. “The Basic Communication Course At Two- And Four-Year U.S. Colleges And Universities: Study VIII-The 40Th Anniversary.” Communication Education 59.4 (2010): 405-430. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 5 Dec. 2011.
Reiss, Donna, Dickie Selfe, and Art Young, Eds. Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum. ERIC Database. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers, 1998. Web. 4 Dec. 2011.
Warner, Fara. “Improving Communication is Everyone’s Responsibility.” Change Nov. 2008. Web. 4 Dec. 2011.











Recent Comments