Curriculum

The core curriculum is from both humanistic and social-science perspectives as practiced in communication technologies. The core seminars are:

Histories of Rhetorics • Cultural Research Methods • Empirical Research Methods • Visual Rhetorics • Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Technologies.

The cognate areas incorporated in transdisciplinary ways include seminar work from the interdisciplinary fields of Communication Studies, Literature, Writing, Technology and Communication, Professional Communication, Philosophy, Languages, and Art (history and studio), as well as from allied fields. The cognates are both standing and topics seminars:

Pedagogy, Administration, and Assessment • Perspectives in Information Designs • Cultural Critiques of Mechanical Reproductions • Selected Topics in Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design, drawn from student-faculty colloquia.

Most students take pedagogy workshops as well as seminars in the summer and fall terms in preparation for teaching undergraduate courses in the Advance Writing Program, Communication Studies, as well as other areas of the curriculum that focus on multimodal writing. The variety of teaching assignments that students are expected to participate in complement the RCID curriculum, allowing for the merging of both theory and practice.

Upon completion of the core and cognate seminars (two years), students begin their independent studies in two studios by specializing and studying for their exams, which prepare them for researching and writing their dissertation project (two years).

Students may take their exams in the early fall, third year. There are three written exams (one major area, two support areas) and an oral with multimedia presentation on the dissertation project. Or if additional work is recommended, students may take, prior to exams, up to three elective seminars within RCID or within other programs at the master's or Ph.D. level in support of their research project.

Throughout the four years, the seminar work as well as research is supplemented with standing scholarly colloquia that students are expected to participate in with faculty. The various colloquia, depending on the specific application of topics, may serve as informal seminars. Every attempt is made by the chairs of the colloquia to design the readings and discussions according to students' needs.