Elon has the 12th largest undergraduate communications program among private colleges and universities in the United States.
The School of Communications at Elon had 838 undergraduate students in fall 2005 when the Cox Center at the University of Georgia conducted its annual survey. Results were published in the fall 2006 issue of Journalism & Mass Communication Educator.
The two giants in undergraduate communications enrollment were Boston University (1965 students) and Syracuse (1835). Others in the top dozen in fall 2005 were Ithaca (1250), Howard (1125), Quinnipiac (1084), Marquette (1013), Emerson (1000), Marist (918), Webster (902), DePaul (900) and St. John’s (900).
“We do not aspire to great size,” said Paul Parsons, dean of Elon’s School of Communications. “Instead, we emphasize small classes, engaged learning and close student-faculty interactions. That said, when a program is sizable enough to have 30 or more full-time faculty as we do, students benefit from curricular depth and student opportunities, so we are pleased to have size as well as quality.”
Undergraduate enrollments in other communication programs at other private universities were listed as Miami (818), Fordham (800), American (766), Northwestern (663), Texas Christian (587), New York University (567), Brigham Young (562), Pepperdine (557), Hofstra (549) and Southern California (505).