The School of Communications dedicated new facilities in 2017, providing students with a learning-centered environment and the latest technological resources.

More than 70 full-time teacher-scholars support the school’s multiplatform majors in journalism, strategic communications, cinema and television arts, communication design, media analytics and sport management.

Engaged Learning

  • Jump right into our courses in your first year
  • All classes between 10 and 33 students for close student-faculty interactions
  • A philosophy of ‘learn, then experience’
  • Personal advising by faculty each semester
  • Publishes one of the nation’s only undergraduate research journals in communications
  • Operates Los Angeles program with 80 students in residence during spring and summer terms
  • An internship and career development staff for School of Communications majors

High-Impact Practices

One of Elon University’s distinctions is its leadership in the area of “high-impact” educational practices. These practices are seen as particularly beneficial for the development of undergraduate students. Each year U.S. News & World Report issues a “Programs that Enhance Student Experience” ranking of key programs that enrich the college experience. Elon is the only university in the nation identified as a leader in eight high-impact practices:

  1. Study abroad
  2. Internships
  3. Senior capstone experiences
  4. First-year experiences
  5. Learning communities
  6. Service learning
  7. Undergraduate research/creative projects
  8. Writing in the disciplines

The faculty and staff in the School of Communications are strongly committed to having students engage in these high-impact practices.

School of Communications Strategic Plan, 2023-2028

Adopted by faculty November 2022

In fall 2021, the School of Communications faculty, staff and advisory board began thinking about the goals we might set in our next five-year strategic plan.  At the fall 2021 advance, faculty were asked to use sticky notes to write headlines of what they thought the School of Communications should accomplish under the four Boldly Elon themes: Learn, Thrive, Connect and Rise.

These headlines were compiled into a Google document, and faculty were asked over the next six months to add more headlines while the school’s focus shifted toward its ongoing curriculum revision. Headlines from the Google document were shared with the School’s National Advisory Board at its May 2022 meeting and with the school’s Student Advisory Board in its April 2022 meeting. Both Boards were asked to identify their top five headlines.

At the May 2022 Board of Trustees meeting, the top headlines from Both Boards, built on faculty input from the Google document, were presented to Trustees, organized under the Boldly Elon themes.

At the fall 2022 retreat, faculty were asked to identify their goals in writing for the coming year across four areas: personal, department, school, and university. These were all collected and time was spent at the retreat for faculty to express some of their goals.

Goals identified by faculty and staff at the fall 2022 retreat were typed into a word document, providing two comprehensive documents of faculty feedback from both the 2021 and 2022 retreats.

At the October 2022 faculty meeting, faculty and staff discussed the draft plan and provided comments, and additional input was invited through early November. At the November 2022 meeting, faculty voted to adopt this plan.

To formalize this document, all feedback from faculty, staff, and the student and professional advisory boards were analyzed for key themes, or “codes.” Those codes were then aggregated into general strategic areas. Those areas were then given a broad term or name and then matched within the framework of the Boldly Elon strategic plan. Because the school’s strategic direction might not fully match Boldly Elon, the plan below includes each Boldly Elon theme with an associated category that emerged from the School of Communications strategic planning process. This process ensures some relationship – even if tenuous – to the university strategic plan while codifying feedback into a plan that is both consonant with and divergent from Boldly Elon.