Overview

• The College of Communication enrolled 1,382 undergraduate students and 209 graduate students for the 2009-2010 academic year.

• The college offers four distinct graduate programs and five distinct undergraduate majors. The College of Communication is the fourth-largest provider of bachelor’s degrees in communication in Illinois and second in the Chicago area. It is the second largest provider of master’s degrees in communication in the state. Fall 2008 enrollment was up 28.5 percent in the college over fall 2007 enrollment.

• Undergraduate programs include communication studies; journalism; media and cinema studies; public relations and advertising; and communication and media.

• Graduate programs include journalism; public relations and advertising; media, culture and society; and organizational and multicultural communication.

• College of Communication graduates are securing jobs as producers, marketing managers, paralegals, Web site content producers, community affairs specialists, teachers, copywriters, software trainers and  promotion managers for companies such as Weber Shandwick, WGN Radio, CBS Corp., Cypress Communications, Chicago Magazine, WLS Radio, Style Chicago and Edelman. More than 90 percent of DePaul’s graduates are employed in fields related to their degree, according to a 2006-07 career outcomes report from the DePaul Career Center.

• With years of industry experience in the world’s leading media markets, faculty members in the College of Communication  are recognized for their research and scholarly books and articles. The college’s 38 full-time faculty members have created dynamic classroom experiences to prepare students for communication jobs in the future.

• A number of media professionals teach in the College of Communication, including noted reporter and columnist Laura Washington, DePaul’s Ida B. Wells-Barnett University professor; former longtime Chicago Tribune reporter and columnist Mike Conklin;  award-winning journalist Joe Cappo, longtime editor, writer, columnist and publisher for Crain’s Chicago Business, Chicago Daily News and Advertising Age; and Marla Krause, former 22-year Chicago Tribune editor and the first woman to work in the paper’s sports department. Carol Marin and Don Moseley, the award-winning news team for WMAQ-TV Channel 5, head the DePaul Documentary Project.

• The college  embraces the digital technologies that are changing the face and pace of communication with a set of labs on the concourse level of the DePaul Center in Chicago’s thriving South Loop. The  Communication and Digital Cinema Center (CDCC) includes a broadcast facility with a state-of-the-art green screen studio and control room converged to a Mac Lab, several high-end editing suites, a PC lab and two multimedia “smart” classrooms.

• Located in the third-largest media market in the United States, the colleges provides its students with nearly  900 internship opportunities at network, radio and television outlets; public relations and advertising agencies; corporations and nonprofits; independent film companies; local and national political offices; entertainment venues; and sports franchises.. A partial list includes SONY/BMG Music, Alzheimer’s Association, WBBM-AM 780, WTTW Channel 11, WXRT-FM 93.1, Chicago Cubs, WLSChannel 7, WMAQChannel 5, WBBMChannel 2, Chicago Children’s Museum, Skirt Public Relations, The Associated Press, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Walgreens, Museum of Contemporary Art, Bloomingdale’s, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office, Ebert and Roeper, and Metromix.com.

• A Dean’s Advisory Council consisting of 30 distinguished leaders in the fields of journalism, advertising, public relations, corporate communications, new media and higher education bring an experienced and pragmatic perspective to help guide the college in its future decisions and directions. Among its members are Emily Barr, president and general manager of WLS-Channel 7; Vicky Gordon, founder and CEO of The Gordon Group; John Gehron, general manager of Harpo Radio; Warner Saunders, news anchor at WMAQChannel 5; and 1997 DePaul alumnus Jeff Levick, director of global industry development and marketing at Google.

• The college announced its first endowed scholarship in 2008. The Joe and Mary Anne Cappo Endowed Scholarship will be awarded to an eligible College of Communication junior or senior who is the first in his or her family to attend college, reinforcing DePaul’s commitment to first-generation college students. Eligible applicants must be enrolled in the college in good academic standing and exhibit financial need.

• Three College of Communication faculty members received awards at DePaul’s annual convocation ceremony in September 2008. Associate Professor Barbara Willard received the Excellence in Teaching Award; Associate Professor Alexandra Murphy received the Excellence in Public Service Award; and Professor Xing “Lucy” Lu received the Spirit of Inquiry Award.

Distinctions

• Karen Roloff, director of internships for the College of Communication, received a national award for her distinguished work in the field of experiential education in 2008. Roloff was the inaugural recipient of the Michael Steuerman Award for Distinguished Service from the National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) for demonstrating truly exceptional dedication and leadership to the organization over a significant period of time.

• At the 2007  National Student Production Awards, a College of Communication student won the grand prize for Best Promotion. Students from the College of Communication also were grand prize finalists in three categories in the College Broadcasters’ 2006 National Student Production Awards: Best Newscast, Best Public Service Announcement and Best Regularly Scheduled Program.

• In 2008, The DePaulia student newspaper won three prestigious  Illinois Collegiate Press Association awards in addition to producing a professionally acclaimed 16-page special section on Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.

• WRDP Radio DePaul is one of the few college radio stations to be hosted on iTunes, eaching listeners around the world. The radio station is streamed on the Web 24 hours a day seven days a week.

About the Dean

• Jacqueline Taylor was appointed the inaugural dean of the college in March 2007. A performance studies scholar, Taylor has written two books and numerous articles and essays on performance studies. Her memoir, “Waiting for the Call,” was a finalist for a 2008 Lambda Literary Foundation Award. She was awarded the National Communication Association Lilla A. Heston Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation/Performance Studies in 2007. She received a bachelor’s degree in English and communication arts from Georgetown College in Kentucky, and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.     

The College of Communication’s Web site is communication.depaul.edu.