Course Description
Focuses on the practice of communication for students' success in their academic and professional careers. Specific communication skills will be practiced within the following contexts: public speaking/presentations, managing conflict, and business writing.
Athena Title
Comm for Business Effective
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in BUSN 4900, BUSN 4900E
Non-Traditional Format
Students will attend class to practice oral presentation skills; to analyze interpersonal/team conflict scenarios in order to develop and deliver optimal response strategies; and to strengthen business writing skills for clarity, tone, impact, and brevity. Approximately 60% lecture/discussion and 40% in-class presentations, writing, and interpersonal role-plays.
This version of the course will be taught as writing intensive, which means that the course will include substantial and ongoing writing assignments that a) relate clearly to course learning; b) teach the communication values of a discipline—for example, its practices of argument, evidence, credibility, and format; and c) prepare students for further writing in their academic work, in graduate school, and in professional life. The written assignments will result in a significant and diverse body of written work (the equivalent of 6000 words or 25 pages) and the instructor (and/or the teaching assistant assigned to the course) will be closely involved in student writing, providing opportunities for feedback and substantive revision.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
- This course is designed to help each student – regardless of skill level or prior knowledge – acquire and improve communication skills over his/her academic and work careers. Research strongly supports a positive correlation between adept student communication behaviors (clear, concise, persuasive, inclusive language), top skills sought by employers, and quality job offers. Moreover, employers consistently report that communication skills are lacking in a significant number of hires across the country.
- The goal of this course is to assist each student in the development of his/her communication skills, including opportunities that call for public speaking, resolving interpersonal conflict and crafting effective written communiques.
Topical Outline
- Topics for oral presentations
-Audience analysis
-Message content and design
-Preparing for resistance
-Storytelling with data; importance of logic and emotional balance for call to action
-Choosing media
-Thinking like a designer
-Practice
- Topics for Conflict Management
-Conflict as bacteria: We need it; how to tell the productive from the unproductive
-Various conflict “styles” as tendencies or habits
-How to discern a potentially “crucial” or critical conflict that needs attention, intervention, and who owns it
-Mastering the power of dialogue
- Topics for Business Writing
-Why are you writing? (Importance of/when to use various communication channels)
-Using the MACJ model for reports – madman, architect, carpenter, judge
-5 C’s: clarity, conciseness, continuity, completeness, clean (error-free) – these work together as career accelerators or limiters
-How to organize material
-Tone/voice – your writing is part of your identity
-Writing assignments include group and individual reflections, a business writing portfolio, group contracts, discussion posts, one pagers, leadership profiles, Slidedocs, and presentations
