The Department of Communication Studies is a group of teachers/scholars dedicated to several distinct purposes within the university and in various communities.  Housed primarily in the social sciences, the department also recognizes, embraces, and represents the humanities and liberal arts roots and foundations of its discipline.  Above all, our primary purpose is to provide our majors an undergraduate degree program in which the philosophy, practice, criticism, and study of communication are emphasized and balanced.  Specifically, we seek to integrate application with theory.  Such integration makes our program well suited to preparing our students for both graduate education and professional careers.

  Our commitment is to undergraduate education, 
  and to an involvement with our students that is
  dynamic and interactive.  We wish to serve as
  models of the subjects we teach.  As educators, the
  department values reasoned advocacy, artistic
  expression, and pragmatic success.  We consider
  our students potentially responsible consumers of
  communication who can use, analyze, and create it
  effectively.  

  Because communication studies is a broad 
  discipline, we expose our students to the variety of contexts in which communication takes place.  Across the four primary areas of intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, and public communication, we investigate numerous styles and modes of interaction.  The department covers the spectrum of applied communication, ranging from rhetoric, public address and performance studies to communication technologies, including media production and computer-assisted interaction.  

As a group, we are committed to scholarly and artistic endeavors germane to the courses we teach.  We explore all viable research and creative venues that afford scholarly expression.  These include texts, articles, broadcast artifacts, digital media products, scripts, performances, convention/conference presentations, workshops, and seminars.  

Service to our discipline, college, university, community, and region is also a vital part of our mission.  Sharing communication expertise with these publics enhances the department’s visibility and credibility, and helps promote our program as well as the university’s general directive.  In addition to faculty pursuits, students combine academic enrichment and service initiatives through course practicum obligations, directed individual study, internships, and through participation in the Communication Studies Society, Lambda Pi Eta Honor Society, Public Relations Student Network, Storytelling in the Community, and UNCW Advertising Chapter.