by Hannah Hanson

Over the course of any Communication Studies student’s college career, a pivotal moment happens when they begin the process of their senior research project. All seniors, from both concentrations, start the fall semester in Communications Research Methods and Prospectus class to brainstorm their year-long research project.

Students are given the freedom to choose their own topic that is related to communication studies, and they are highly encouraged to choose topics that interest them. Over the course of the semester, students spend hours researching and developing their topic. Once the spring semester starts all students are separated into their Senior Seminar course based on the type of research method they have chosen to pursue: qualitative or quantitative.

Olivia Robinson and Victoria Belviso have been planning out their project since their freshman year when they first joined the #COMMunity. Olivia and Victoria
spent several sleepless nights watching horror films together. From this they decided to turn their love for horror films into a research project. They are questioning how horror films affect the everyday lives of millennials by showing the movie “Lights Out” and performing focus groups with a group of men and a group of women.

Deanna Carwile wants to understand how millennials perceive Facebook statuses that are “too much information.” Over the course of her time on social media, Deanna said, “I have read a lot of statuses that made me think, why is that a good idea to post and share with the online community?” Deanna wants to perform a focus group on millennial Facebook users in order to have an open conversation about the process of oversharing.

Students Meghan Enzinna and Richie Kamtchoum chose their topic based off of their love for music. They are trying to discover whether or not there is a political presence within popular songs from two separate eras. Their research is going to consist of a content analysis of top charting song lyrics from songs during the Anti-Vietnam war protests and #blacklivesmatter movement. Meghan and Richie will code several different variables to help identify whether or not the songs are politically charged, as well as determining which era has more of a presence.

Another quantitative project by Drew Pelkey and Michael Castanon focuses on the differences in communication on dating apps between gay and straight people. They chose their topic because of how prevalent technology is within millennial’s love life. They began to notice the differences  in the dating apps when it came to communicating with other gays versus straight people and depending on which app was being used. In order to do this Drew and Michael will be giving out surveys and collecting data to see which differences occur most often.

Over the next few months all of the Communication Studies seniors will be performing their research and presenting their findings during a poster session to the Longwood community on April 26^th, 2017.

By Hannah Hanson

Four years ago the Communication Studies faculty began the process of revising the curriculum requirements for the major. The development of the new curriculum all began with some of the original professors from the department: Dr. Pam Tracy, Dr. Naomi Johnson, Professor Jeff Halliday and the late Dr. Bill Stewart. Since then, the faculty has expanded and the project has continued to advance.

The work began with Dr. Johnson and Professor Halliday going to the Richmond and Lynchburg markets and asking leaders in public relations, journalism, radio, social media, and marketing what knowledge and qualities they were looking for in interns and recent graduates. Over a year’s worth of research took place to gather as much information as possible in order to start the process. Research included giving out surveys and conducting focus groups with the Longwood Communication Studies alumni, as well as, environmental surveys of other colleges programs.

Within the public relations concentration, courses like Public Relations Research, Public Relations Writing, and Public Relations Campaigns were added and some classes were eliminated from the curriculum. These decisions were based off of faculty research as well as what the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) recommends undergraduate programs teach. When it comes to digital media, production based classes, like Digital Storytelling and Digital Editing were added. Giving students more experience using the technology that the French studio has to offer. In addition to the courses changing within each concentration, the title of them changed as well: from organizational communication and public relations to public relations and mass media to digital media.

After the new curriculum was implemented, the next step was to do curricular mapping. According to Dr. Tracy the start of this process is to ask the question, “What do we want our students to know at the end?” The answer to that question is learning outcomes, which is what specifically needs to be taught for each concentration within the major. In order to make sure these learning outcomes were fulfilled within the curriculum a subgroup of professors, including Dr. Tracy, Dr. Ryan Stouffer, and Dr. Laura Farrell, all came together to represent both of the concentrations. From there the team developed a strategy to make sure material within the courses were bridging theory and practice. They made sure all of the courses fit into one of the three distinct levels: introduce, reinforce, and master.

All of these new changes will benefit students because they will now be able to recognize how all the courses work together. The strategic planning done by the faculty was thought out meticulously so that connections between different level courses would stand out to the students. Not only will students benefit from this, but the professors will be able to recognize skill improvements between the different levels of courses and make modifications to their teachings, if needed.

Hundreds of hours of work went into mapping out the curriculum for the department. However, Dr. Stouffer knows that for the long term, the whole process was very beneficial: “Things are slow moving in academia because we are committed to making sure students graduate in four years, when we change the curriculum we still have to make sure everyone else that came in with a different expectation graduates as well… It is very slow and that is frustrating, but that is the nature of the beast and it is worth it. It’s like cooking a big dinner, the process of making it has lots of steps, but the end result tastes very good.”

The new curriculum began in the 2015 academic year and has been implemented for new students within the major. By 2019 every student within the major will be going through the program with the updated curriculum.

By Hannah Hanson

It’s always a time for celebration when anyone new joins the #COMMunity! The Communication Studies department would like to recognize Dr. Isabel Fay and Clint Wright as newest additions to the department this year.

Dr. Isabel Fay is a new Lecturer for the department and will be teaching public speaking and intercultural communication classes this year. Fay was raised in Berlin, Germany and came to the United States as an international student to get the chance to experience a liberal arts school. After her undergraduate program was finished, she attended Virginia Tech for grad school and the University of Georgia to receive her PhD in Rhetoric.

Fay has wanted to become a teacher since she was an undergrad. She chose Longwood because she was familiar with the area and loved the teaching methods used within the department. Fay said she was, “drawn to Longwood because it was a small, liberal arts school; similar to my undergraduate school in southern West Virginia.” She hopes to be able to give students an intercultural experience during their years at Longwood, just like she got to experience.

Check out the video below about Dr. Fay and how she is getting accustomed to Longwood!

Clint Wright has been a staff member at Longwood for six years and has been involved with four different departments on campus. His position within the #COMMunity is the Broadcast Studio Manager engineer for the French Hall studio. Wright is in charge of making sure the studio, and all the technology that comes with it, is functioning properly. He also helps with student training within the studio and always encourages extracurricular usage of the studio.

Wright started at Longwood after he graduating from Chadron State College in Nebraska. Wright studied theater with specialization in technical theater, which meant he spent a lot of time working with lighting, sound, and video. Wright said, “I am one of the fortunate people who turned their hobby into a career.” At Longwood, Wright has a lot of creative freedom that he would not have been able to do at other job positions in his field.

Please help welcome our new faculty and staff to the #COMMunity!