OSU is reimagining its General Education (GE) requirements, which describe the courses that every student must complete to graduate, no matter what degree they are pursuing. Think writing, quantitative skills, literature, natural science, and so on. Over the past five years, the university has been rebuilding the GE from the ground up. The last time this happened was over thirty years ago.
As the university explains, the new GE “reduces the number of required GE credit hours, provides undergraduate students more flexibility in scheduling, streamlines time to degree, and better prepares them for the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century.” The new program is structured around foundations, themes, and a pair of bookend courses, which are nicely summarized in the figure shown here.
This transformation has important implications for the School of Communication. Our classes have long attracted students from all across the university, who have for decades turned to us to find GE courses that are engaging and relevant to their lives—including their future careers. From introductory survey courses, like History of Communication, to applied courses such as Persuasive Communication and Strategic Communication Principles, to upper-level courses like International Perspectives on Communication and Media and Terrorism, our GE courses have been in demand.
As the GE changes, we need to change with it. Our faculty have been hard at work re-envisioning our courses to align with the new GE so that we can continue to serve students from all over campus. We’ve created new courses, like Media and Citizenship, which provides an overview of media’s role in a well functioning democracy. And we’re in the process of redesigning many of our existing courses to be better aligned with the new GE themes. Getting these updated courses approved for inclusion in the new GE is no small feat, but this important work is underway. For example, in our updated Introduction to the Communication of Science, Health, Environment, & Risk course, which we hope will be accepted into the Sustainability theme, students learn to use theories and research to address real-world challenges when communicating about these important topics to diverse audiences. In Violence in Society and Violence in the Media, which belongs to the Health and Well-being theme, students can examine the causes, consequences, and solutions to human aggression and violence, with a particular focus on how to reduce anger, aggression, and other effects of violent media. And in a pair of Health Communication classes, both of which were recently approved for inclusion in the Health and Well-being theme, students can learn about health communication campaigns, communication between doctors and patients, online health communication, and much more. These courses cover a wide variety of health domains and settings, and students who complete them will have science-based tools for facilitating effective health communication both interpersonally and when it is mediated by technology.
In short, the new GE gives the School of Communication an opportunity to reach even more students. And, it should go without saying, these courses complement courses that are specific to our two majors, Communication and Journalism, and our three specializations: Communication Analysis and Engagement, Communication Technology, and Strategic Communication.
There has never been a better time to study communication at the Ohio State University.
Kelly Garrett
Director, School of Communication
