Communication: A Degree for Wherever You’re Going
Communication is at the heart of our relationships, workplaces, communities, and media. In the Communication Studies Program at Hollins, students strengthen their interpersonal and public communication skills while learning to critically examine the messages, media, and technologies that shape everyday life.
Students who complete the major:
- will understand the centrality of communication to our everyday personal and professional lives;
- develop expertise in traditional academic skills of research, analysis, application, and critical reflection;
- master specific practical and professional communication skills, e.g., writing, public speaking, and digital production;
- gain direct professional experience through internships;
- will be prepared for lives as ethical leaders, professionals, and involved citizens.
Communication Studies degrees
Communication Studies Major
Working with their advisor, students tailor their major to prepare for professional or graduate school. Or, they pursue careers in media, organizational communication, public relations, or another field with a communications degree in hand.
Communication Studies Minor
Students wishing to integrate communication skills into their major discipline and profession will benefit greatly from this option. The minor requires five courses and will give you a firm foundation in communication.
Internships are required and guaranteed for communication studies majors.
Courses and Curriculum
From public speaking and media criticism to social activism and AI, our curriculum prepares students to understand and shape how the world communicates. Students gain practical experience creating content, analyzing media, developing strategic campaigns, and communicating effectively across relationships, organizations, cultures, and communities.
Through an emphasis on two skillsets, human communication and media studies, students will learn how to turn their interests into careers. Students can choose from a wide range of upper-level electives including:
Friendship in Media: COMM 237
While much early- and mid-twentieth-century film and media naturalized the importance of romantic relationships, this course will explore a recent tendency to frame friendship as a primary relationship. As we analyze American media from the late-twentieth century to today, we will ask the following questions: What are the representational strategies used to center friendship and community in film and media? How do film and media negotiate the place of friendship and community in American culture? Do American screen texts deem friendship more appropriate at certain times of life, compared to others? How are stories about friends legitimized for a culture that emphasizes the importance of romance and the nuclear family? Upon completion of the course, students will be acquainted with textual analysis and some major modes of thought from cultural studies and media theory, with an ability to apply this knowledge to visual media they encounter both in and outside the classroom.
Social Media and Social Activism: COMM 248
This course explores the history and development of social media activism, focusing on the opportunities and challenges of this new phenomenon. Students will examine case studies of social media activism during the last presidential elections, the Arab Spring, the WikiLeaks affair, the Black Lives Matter movement, and other recent cases. Additionally, each student will complete a research project about a current social activism effort.
Digital Production and Content Creation: COMM 325
This course is a workshop for students who have a deep interest in interrogating, crafting, and placing first-person nonfiction content. In it, we will consider how different genres—specifically memoir, cultural criticism, and celebrity profiles—shape our expectations for a piece of work. Through our discussion of nonfiction, by both our peers and professional writers, we will consider the politics of representation, the ethics of nonfiction narrative, and the complications of first-person stories today, in an internet-dominated world.
Communication and Technology: From Cave Paintings to AI: COMM 327
Social influences on the emergence of new communication technologies, and the way such technologies impact society, are studied in this course. The course begins with consideration of the history of technologies such as the telegraph, telephone, and broadcasting. Insights from historical study are then applied in critical analysis of current and emergent communication technologies.
Health Communications: COMM 344
Health communication is an emerging specialty in the field of communication. This course is a survey of some of the concepts and theories in health communication and explores several areas, including the social construction of health and illness, patient-provider interaction, the development of health care promotion messages, and an overview of health care models and organizational structures in the U.S. Also listed and described as PH 344. Prerequisite: sophomore standing.
Meet our Communication Studies Faculty
Learn more about our Communication Studies professors. Reach out to ask about our major and minor as well as to learn more about our program.
Jessica Baty-McMillan
Assistant Teaching Professor of Communication Studies and Communication Across the Curriculum Coordinator
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