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Temple University’s Board of Trustees has approved significant curricular changes in four of the School of Communications and Theater’s departments and programs that reflect an increased focus on student academics, media convergence and industry trends.

The Communications program will be renamed Communication Studies starting in Fall 2011. Communication Studies will offer students an academic perspective of the history and theories behind the various disciplines taught within the school. An analytical and critical exploration of communications will be the basis of this major.

Along with two introductory classes, each student in the Communication Studies program will be required to take one course from the following categories: sophomore seminar, communication theory, research methods, analysis and cross-cultural communication. Students will also be required to select a track for their upper-level coursework: policy, regulation and advocacy; contemporary media environments; global civil society; arts in the public sphere; and Communication Studies thesis. The Communication Studies thesis will be reserved for the most exceptional students who, in collaboration with an advisor, will construct their own track. It will require the completion of the equivalent of three semesters of a foreign language and will culminate in a thesis.

“The focus of the new Communication Studies degree will on be the academic (aesthetic, analytical, critical, historical, theoretical) and interdisciplinary study of communications. The major represents the School of Communications and Theater’s commitment to building increased student interest in communication and media studies, in addition to students’ current interest in practice-based degrees. A major focus on the new degree is also on accentuating the global, intercultural aspect of communication studies,” says Program Director Scott Gratson.

The Communication Studies program was created through the collaborative effort of Gratson, the chairs of the SCT’s academic departments and the dean’s office.

The Journalism Department will eliminate the tracks in its undergraduate program beginning Fall 2010 to better reflect the media convergence in the professional world. Instead, students will be able to create their own areas of specialization, in addition to those connected to more traditional news media.

“Writing and reporting remain critical skills for journalists, but now, across all mediums, they need to have multimedia skills,” said Andrew Mendelson, chair of the Journalism Department. “Magazines and newspapers need people who can shoot and edit video, and broadcast outlets need those who can write for the web. Moreover, students need to be able to envision and create new forms of journalism.”

All journalism majors will be required to take eight core courses that build a solid foundation of journalistic skills, including the department capstone, PhiladelphiaNeighborhoods.com. This is a real time news operation, founded in 2005, where students produce and publish online, multimedia enterprise pieces focused on various underreported Philadelphia communities.

In addition to the 25 credits of core courses, journalism majors will be required to take 18 credits of electives, through which students can specialize in more traditional areas of journalism, such as broadcast, magazine, photojournalism or news-editorial. Students also may create emphases in other areas including visual journalism, arts and music journalism, sports journalism, entrepreneurial journalism, news editing, long form journalism and journalism studies.

“We want our students to be able to experiment and be capable of working in an ever-changing media environment,” said Mendelson. “We want them to think about what journalism can be, not just what it is now.”

In Fall 2011, the Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Mass Media Department will institute a new curriculum that offers a better balance between theory and practice.

“We stress the importance of strong production skills to our students, as well as a solid understanding of the theory behind their training,” says BTMM Chair Patrick Murphy. “The new curriculum will better enable our students to develop the capacity to transform the field in some positive ways.”

The overhaul of the BTMM program includes adding 15 new courses, eliminating 16 courses and altering 39 others. Some of the new courses will include Mobile Media; Video Game Industry and Game Culture; Introduction to Internet Studies and Web Authoring; and Media and the Environment.

Student will select one of four professional tracks: emergent media; media analysis; media business and entrepreneurship; or media production. All four tracks will require the same core courses, but will diverge when students begin selecting upper level electives.

Additionally, the BTMM Department, in collaboration with the Computer and Information Sciences Department within the College of Science and Technology, will offer a new minor in Fall 2010 in digital media technologies. Students will be required to take two courses from each department: Intro to Cybermedia and Cybermedia Workshop from BTMM and Intro to Web Technology and Programming and Programming for the WWW from CIS. Several electives from both departments will round out the required 21 to 23 credits.

Murphy says CIS students in the minor will gain a more critical and theoretical background of the technology and software they study, while BTMM students will gain a better sense of the computer technology behind their work.

The Department of Strategic and Organizational Communication will be renamed the Department of Strategic Communication beginning Fall 2010, a name that captures the intent of the curriculum in a more concise fashion.

In addition to the name change this fall, the department will begin offering an academic minor in leadership. The 18-credit minor will require the following courses: Public Speaking, Communicating Leadership, Introduction to Organizational Communication and Leading Groups and Team Building. Students will also select either Global Communication or Diverse Communication, as well as either Collaborative Advocacy or Special Topics in Organizational Leadership.

These courses will help students understand that leadership is about communication and relationships.

“Leadership has become an important focus in communication within companies and organizations,” says Department Chair Deborah Cai. “Having the knowledge of what it means to be a leader and the skills to lead has become more of a focus in the professional world, so this is a very timely minor to offer at Temple.”

In addition to students from SCT, Cai says the minor would be a natural fit to those majoring areas such as business, political science, tourism and hospitality, or education.