BA Communication Studies

Overview

Communication Studies focuses on improving your writing, speaking, and interpersonal skills—skills most sought by employers—as well as self-knowledge, or intrapersonal communication. You will have a good understanding of who you are and what you want to do post-graduation.

Courses focus on:

  • Media criticism: Who produces media, what messages are they sending, and how should we interpret them
  • Media professions: Journalism, public relations and advertising, video production, and radio programming and production
  • Media practices: Social media, writing for journalism and public relations, website design, video production, radio broadcasting, and audio production and podcasting

Consistent with our liberal arts foundation, a range of core and elective courses are offered to assure that you are broadly and deeply educated, including Freedom of Speech, Sports Communication, Learning to Look: Art and Media, Film: History and Criticism, and The Voice of Nature.

Program Details

  • Live What You Learn

    • Contribute to the college newspaper and website, The New Englander, practicing and honing design, editing, photo, public relations and advertising, social media, and writing skills. The newspaper, in a broadsheet format, comes out at the end of each semester and in special editions, and the website is continually updated with articles shared via social media. A bi-weekly student-focused digital zine is also produced and shared with the community.
    • Practice a variety of on-air and behind-the-scenes audio production and broadcasting skills at WNEC, the College’s radio station. WNEC is run by students with internships and supported by faculty, staff, and passionate WNEC alumni. Students create studio-based shows and May broadcast remote events, including play-by-play announcing for NEC sports.
    • All students majoring in Communication Studies either get internships, often in nearby Concord or Manchester and set up by our Career and Life Planning office, or take an on-campus Practical Experience course.
    • If you are interested in public relations and advertising, project opportunities include promotional work for campus organizations, like NEC Athletics, as well as gathering spaces like the campus pub. Students also promote events and do public relations work for their own (hypothetical or real) small business or nonprofit. Many get internships for a variety of non-profit and for-profit organizations.
  • Career Opportunities

    • Public Relations
    • Advertising
    • Nonprofit Advocacy
    • Journalism—newspaper, magazine
    • Radio production
    • Social Media
    • Management
    • Marketing
    • Sales

Faculty

  • Andrew Morgan

    Professor of Creative Writing
    Office: Spaulding 301, Henniker Campus
    Phone: 603.428.2349
    Email amorgan@nec.edu

    Awards
    NEC Kilgore Faculty of the Year, 2019

    Educational Background
    MFA in Poetry, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
    BA in English/Writing, Plymouth State College

    Bio
    Andrew Morgan is a professor, writer, editor, and volunteer whose recent work can be found in magazines such as Conduit, Stride, Fairy Tale Review, Pleiades, Divine Magnet, Post Road, and New World Writing. He is the recipient of a Slovenian Writer’s Association Fellowship, which sponsored a month-long writing residency in the country’s capital city of Ljubljana and currently teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate Creative Writing programs at NEC. His first book, Month of Big Hands, was published by Natural History Press in 2013.

  • Bryan Partridge

    Professor, Writing
    Phone: 603.428.2388
    Email: bpartridge@nec.edu

    Educational Background
    PhD in Humanities from Union Institute and University
    MA in Creative Writing, Dartmouth College
    BA, The College of Wooster

    Research Interests

    • Nature writing
    • Travel writing
    • School climate
    • Choice theory

    Bio
    Bryan Partridge came to NEC in 2004 as the first professional mentor in NEC’s Mentoring program. After three years of developing the program, Bryan transitioned to an assistant professor in the Writing Department. Bryan has been a professor for 17 years and spent three academic years revamping and overseeing the Composition Program. He has also led students on Study Away trips to places like Cuba, India, Australia, the Galapagos Islands, Patagonia, the Dominican Republic, and Honduras.

    His professional career outside of academia includes doing extensive education consulting for the Center for School Climate and Learning—helping educators develop and implement data-driven action plans to improve school climate, prevent bullying and school violence, reduce dropouts, and re-engage disengaged learners. Bryan’s literary passions are travel and nature writing, but he also loves to write fiction and creative nonfiction.

    Outside of professional interests, he travels widely, spends weeks on New England’s lakes and hiking trails, writes, gardens, and enjoys living with his wife, Kt, and his family in Etna, New Hampshire.

  • James Johnson

    Visiting Assistant Professor of First-Year Writing
    Office: CEI 210B, Henniker Campus
    Phone: 603.428.2232
    Email: jljohnson@nec.edu

    Achievements
    Dissertation Sympathy for the Devil: Thawing the Ego and Fostering Empathy through a Theory of Lacanian Reader-response, nominated for 2018 Marvin B. Sussman Award

    Educational Background
    PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies, Union Institute & University
    MA in English Literature, Rutgers University
    BA in English Literature, Temple University

    Research Interests

    • Literature and empathy
    • Literature and linguistics
    • Comparative literature
    • Modern literature
    • Psychoanalytic and Lacanian Literary Criticism

    Bio
    Better known to family, friends, and students as JJ, James came to New England College after moving from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he taught at the University of the Sciences of Philadelphia. Having attended NEC for a short while, he fell in love with Henniker years ago and always planned to return.

    JJ teaches in NEC’s first-year writing program where he’s passionate about cultivating students’ writing, researching, and critical-thinking skills. His teaching philosophy focuses on individualized attention and meeting writing students where they are in order to help them embrace their unique literary voice. While at NEC, he has taught various literature courses, worked in academic support as a tutor, and been involved in initiatives such as the first-year learning-living community, which through a focus on experiential learning, aimed to bridge the gap between academic concepts in the classroom and their pragmatic significance outside classroom walls.

    His 2018 dissertation uses a psychoanalytic lens in order to explore the connection between the literary aesthetic and empathy and how empathic identification for traditionally marginalized groups can mitigate societal ills. He has even developed a course at NEC around his doctoral research in which students read, research, discuss, and write about the critical role empathy plays in a civic environment based upon democratic values.

    Although not particularly good at any single one of them, JJ plays a dozen or so instruments. He lives in Henniker with his partner, Melody, and their nine-pound shih tzu, Olive, who never leaves his side.

  • Mark Rowland

    Associate Professor/Distance Services and Instruction Librarian
    Phone: 603.428.2352
    Email: mrowland@nec.edu

    Educational Background
    MLIS, McGill University
    BA in English, Penn State University

  • William Homestead

    Associate Professor, Communication Studies
    Office: Spaulding 302, Henniker Campus
    Phone: 603.428.2336
    Email: whomestead@nec.edu

    Recent Press
    Books:

    • Not Till We Are Lost: Teaching and Learning in an Age of Climate Crisis: Thoreau, Education, and Spiritual Transformation (work-in-progress)
    • An Ecology of Communication: Response and Responsibility in an Age of Ecocrisis, Lexington Books, 2021
    • An Ecology of Communication: Response and Responsibility in an Age of Ecocrisis, 9781793618146 (rowman.com)
    • The Path of My Soul: Journey to the Center of Self, Acropolis Books, 1999

    Book Anthologies:
    “The Language that All Things Speak: Thoreau and the Voice of Nature,” Voice and Environmental Communication, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

    Journal Editor:
    Guest Editor, Special Edition on “Educating for Ecological Sustainability,” Ometeca, 2010

    Educational Background
    MA in Communication Studies, University of Montana
    MS in Environmental Studies, University of Montana
    MFA in Creative Writing, Goddard College
    BA in Communication Studies, Rutgers University

    Research Interests

    • Environmental communication
    • Intrapersonal communication/spirituality
    • Ecopsychology/ecophilosophy

    Bio
    William Homestead came to New England College in 2005 after stints at Purdue University and the University of Montana and teaches a wide range of courses, including Freedom of Speech, Advertising: History and Criticism, Principles of Public Relations, and The Voice of Nature. He also teaches journalism courses, and he is advisor for The New Englander, the student newspaper/website.

    Homestead has a long association with the Ometeca Institute, a nonprofit devoted to the integration of the sciences and the humanities. His work with Ometeca—along with his interdisciplinary degrees, study with a spiritual teacher, and hiking experiences—informs his teaching and writing. He is a member of the International Environmental Communication Association (IECA), the National Communication Association (NCA), and The Thoreau Society.

    Homestead’s pedagogical approach encourages learning in three interrelated areas—the development of a critical, creative, and eco-social awareness—and he has been teaching college students for over 20 years. He loves sports, played tennis in high school and college, and follows New York sports teams (the Mets, Nets, and Giants); his sports knowledge comes in handy when teaching Sports Communication.

    He lives in Vermont and spends much time walking in the woods with his dog, Snoopy, who was named by his three children.

Degree Requirements

Communication Studies, B.A.

Download Course Requirements

Requirements

(40 Credits)

Communication Core Courses
  • CO 1010 - Introduction to Communication Studies

  • CO 1240 (AR 1240) ( WS 1240) - Learning to Look: Contemporary Art and Media

  • CO 3410 - Freedom of Speech

  • CO 4430 - Senior Seminar

  • CO 4910 - Internship in Communication Studies

    or

  • CO 4920 - Practicum in Communication Studies

Communication Electives
  • A minimum of 20 elective credits with the CO designation.

Note:

Students wishing to incorporate relevant courses from other departments into their major should use the substitution waiver form.

Liberal Arts & Sciences Core Curriculum, Bachelor's Degree

  • LAS 1000 - Bridges to Learning

  • WR 1010 - Composition

    or approved LAS Writing Course.

  • MT 1100 - Quantitative Reasoning

    (MT courses numbered higher than 1100 are acceptable)

  • LAS 1 (LAS 1110) - The Natural Environment - Understanding Our Place in the Natural World

  • LAS 2 (LAS 1120) - The Civic Environment - Democratic Values

  • LAS 3 (LAS 2110) - Creative Arts

  • LAS 4 (LAS 2120) - Social Sciences

  • LAS 5 (LAS 2130) - Natural and Biological Sciences

  • LAS 6 (LAS 2140) - Humanities

  • LAS 7 (LAS 3110) - Global Perspectives

  • LAS Elective Credits: 4 (One additional course that meets any LAS requirement or combination of two 2-credit approved electives.)

Electives

Select additional electives to reach 120 credits for a Bachelor's degree.

Henniker Campus

98 Bridge Street
Henniker, NH 03242

Manchester Campus

148 Concord Street
Manchester, NH 03104

603.428.2000

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$40,178 Per Year

International student tuition fee

4 Years

Duration

Jan 2025

Start Month

Dec 2024

Application Deadline

Upcoming Intakes

  • January 2025
  • May 2025
  • January 2026
  • May 2026

Mode of Study

  • Full Time