Class Examples
Using your Voice to Make a Difference!
In Advanced Public Speaking, students’ semester speech project is to use their public spoken
words to make an actual difference in an arena of personal passion. Once a topic is selected,
students must develop their expertise in that area, find an actual audience to whom they can
speak on that topic, conduct an audience analysis, work with a peer team to craft and rehearse
their speech, present their persuasive speech to the audience, and collect feedback after the
speech to determine listener response. Student presentations have included raising money for
ALS research, challenging high school students to avoid the affects of binge drinking, motivating
first-year students to become Communication Studies majors, and speaking to tribal peers about
respect that will span seven generations.
Bringing Literature to Life!
In Oral Interpretation, groups of students together select themes and community group
audiences. Together, with the assistance of their professor-coach, they analyze their audience,
select literature related to their theme and relevant for their audience, craft the literature into
scripts that can be performed by their group, rehearse and perfect their performances, create
marketing materials for their performance event, and perform – usually to thunderous applause.
Students have performed holiday stories and poems for elementary children, literature about the
darker side of life for a coffee shop open mic night, animal voice prose and poetry in conjunction
with an animal art exhibit at a downtown Oshkosh artwalk, a modern adaptation of the biblical
book of Mark for a church supper; and a literary journey through the stages of life at the Senior
Center.
Exploring Difference through Experience
Students in Intercultural Communication are challenged to experience life with people who differ
from them in some significant way, using course concepts to describe that learning opportunity
in a speech and a paper. Examples? A peace activist student participated in ROTC activities for
a week; a Lutheran young woman spent Thanksgiving weekend with an Amish family; and an
upper-middle class student spent a weekend in a homeless shelter in Milwaukee. Learning goals
include decreasing ethnocentrism and increasing both empathy and cognitive complexity.
State of the Union Speeches
In “History of American Public Address” (COMM 422) students compose and deliver a “State of
the Union” speech using argumentation and persuasion techniques found in great speeches of the
past and present. To become more proficient at mastering the context in which such speeches
typically occur, students deliver their State of the Union in the Frederic March Theater or Reeve
Union Ballroom.
Corporate Training Programs
In the spring 2010 semester, twelve Communication majors in the Training & Development
(T&D) class developed a one-hour training session for Oshkosh Corporation’s new branding
initiative to be delivered to all new employees worldwide as part of the company’s orientation
program. Structured as an action learning project, students worked as an external training
development team to meet the client’s real-world challenge. After being given the goal and
information about the initiative, students worked through the nine steps of T&D from needs
assessment to developing an evaluation tool for the final product. During the semester students
met with members of Oshkosh Corporation, presented multiple progress reports and proposals
for client review and feedback, then made their final presentation onsite at the organization. The
client reported that students greatly exceeded the client’s expectations, the training would be
incorporated into the orientation program, and several students received outstanding letters of
recommendation from the client praising the exemplary work that was accomplished.
Volunteer Experiences
Have you ever thought about a career in a nonprofit organization? Have you ever found yourself
really frustrated by a problem in your community and wondered how you could organize a group
of people to do something about it? In Communication and Nonprofit Organizations, each
student gets a chance to answer these questions by listening to guest speakers from local
community organizations and developing their own individualized research project exploring
some aspect of nonprofit organizing. As part of their course work, students have hosted
fundraisers, volunteered at local homeless shelters, mentored children at the Boys and Girls
Club, built houses with Habitat for Humanity and coached youth sporting events.