Communication Minor

Associate Professor of Communication Lorelle Jabs With Students
Are you interested in developing your communication skills while pursuing a major other than Communication? Regardless of your major, the Communication minor provides you with opportunities to develop your communication skills, explore your values, and acquire techniques of insight and critical reasoning.

Benefits

The Communication minor complements any major by providing you with the foundations of good and effective communication. If you decide to pursue graduate studies, the Communication minor will also serve you well as a strong framework in any number of fields of study.

Additionally, the skills you will hone as a Communication minor — self-knowledge, interpersonal communication, social interaction, presentation of self, personal discipline, risk-taking, cooperative group effort, sensitivity to others, and more — are important to any career or graduate school application.

Courses and Degree Requirements

In general, if you are a Communication minor, you are required to earn a minimum of 30 credits in Communication, with a minimum of 15 upper-division credits. Students majoring in Communication may not pursue a minor within the department.

View the Communication minor requirements.

Entering the Minor

You may enter the minor during your first quarter at SPU. Entrance after your first quarter requires only good academic standing (2.0 or higher SPU cumulative GPA). Consult the undergraduate catalog for complete information on how and when to enter and what you must do to complete the program.   


Faculty Contact

William Purcell

Professor of Communication; Chair of Communication and Journalism
PhD, Indiana University

Email: purcell@spu.edu
Phone: 206-281-2404
Office: Marston 208

Tod Rendleman

Why I Teach at SPU

Todd Rendleman, Professor of Communication

“Before his iconic role in Mad Men, Jon Hamm taught drama at John Burroughs High School in St. Louis. Before international stardom, Sting taught English, music, and soccer at St. Catherine's Convent School in Newcastle. Faye Dunaway says that if she hadn’t become an actress, she would have been a teacher. 

“Why do people who achieve the highest honors in their professions often think of themselves, at heart, as teachers? I think that on some level, they understand that teaching changes lives. I love teaching because it allows me to share my ideas with others — and to be changed through the exchange.”