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COMMUNICATION
Honors
PROGRAM
Overview
The Communication
Honors Program is designed to give advanced students an opportunity
to explore
an area of Communication Studies in more depth, to gain research
experience, and to explore and prepare for possible graduate study.
Acceptance and participation in the Communication Honors Program
enables students to list "Communication Major with Honors" on
their resume. Communication honors students also receive invitations
to meet visiting campus speakers and faculty candidates and attend special
off-campus events.
Eligibility
requirements
- Declared
communication major
- Completion
of Comm 260: Rhetoric and Public Culture, and Comm 280:
Research Methods as well as a reasonable number of your Communication
major requirements
- Junior
or Senior status as of fall semester for which you are applying
- Major
GPA of 3.5 or above
- Submission
of application by deadline
Program
information
Participants
in the Communication Honors Program will take Comm 395:
Communication Honors Course during fall semester. Topics
will change each fall. This course is over and above the
regular 300-level requirements for the major; in other words,
to graduate with honors in
Communication requires an additional 4-hour course.
The Communication
Honors Course will provide an opportunity to engage in a discussion
seminar with a small group of students to address a particular Communication
topic in depth. Honors students, as part of this course, will develop
an individual research project and submit an abstract (150 word summary) of this project to the National Conference for Undergraduate
Research. If your project is selected for presentation at this prestigious
conference, you will have the opportunity to travel (expenses paid!)
with a group of Hope Students to the conference, held each spring,
to present your research.
Honors
Course topics
2009: New Media and Digital
Culture taught by Prof. Spielvogel
Whether it
be "online dating," social networking, or virtual workplaces,
new forms of digital media have changed the way we live, work,
and interact. This course will examine the implications of new
social and virtual media applications on our relational, familial,
communal, and religious lives and commitments. Students in this
honors course will, through course readings and direct use of new
digital technologies, theorize the potential and limitations of
virtual worlds, social networking, and online communities for creating
vibrant and morally responsible communication systems.
If Dr. Spielvogel is on research leave fall semester, Dr. Herrick
will be teaching the Honors Seminar on the topic of "Spiritual
and Religious Themes in Pop Culture." Communication Honors
Students will be notified of the final topic and professor for
the Honors Seminar prior to registration. We will not be certain
of the topic and professor for the course before your application
for the honors program is due, March 12. |
2008: Global Communication taught by Prof. Johnston
Global communication is a complex process, and our ability to
negotiate that process effectively and ethically is essential for
world stability and human welfare. Global communication has the
potential to promote human rights and social justice, to unite
people around shared values and interests, to allow freedom of
expression, and to produce quality information. Or, as some scholars
are predicting, global communication may lead to fragmentation
and a loss of meaning. Globalization may promote restrictions on
human rights, segregate people into special-interest groups, promote
censorship, and spread inaccurate information.
You and your generation will play a critical role in whether the new technology
that allows us to engage in global communication serves the world well or ill.
Our future success depends upon our ability to ethically and effectively speak
through the cultural ideologies and identities that define us, yet respect
and engage those with cultural ideologies and identities different than our
own. These are the cutting edge issues we will be examining in the Honors Course
on Global Communication. |
2007: The Spirituality of Popular Culture taught by Prof. Herrick
This course explores the spiritual themes evident in various texts
of popular culture such as film, music, books and Internet sources
such as online gaming communities. We will seek to isolate and examine
elements of what are sometimes called New Spiritualities that emerge
from such texts, and contrast these to more traditional belief systems.
The course will also introduce students to critical approaches well
suited to the analysis of religious themes in a wide range of artifacts
and texts. |
Application Form
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