March 21, 2025
Dear Campus Community,
With an enthusiastic endorsement from the College’s faculty, we are pleased to announce the addition of a new Communications Studies major and minor starting in the 2025-26 academic year. Students may declare the major and minor as early as this fall semester. Graduates of the program will receive a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies.
The program is designed to explore the dynamic relationship between communication and society, specifically how messages shape and are shaped by individuals, institutions, and cultural forces. Students will develop key career skills in creating, exchanging, and interpreting messages across mediums, including through writing, public speaking, digital content creation, and interpersonal communication.
Our Communication Studies curriculum is tailored to graduate students who are career-ready from Day 1. The curriculum will investigate the social, cultural, historical, political, institutional, and rhetorical contexts that impact communication processes and outcomes, covering areas such as media studies, interpersonal communication, and rhetoric.
Students of the program will also step into a vibrant and supportive network of communications alumni upon graduation. In fact, nearly 700 Gettysburgians—about two percent of the College’s global network—are in communications positions at a wide range of organizations, including Google, Walt Disney World Resort, TIME, Major League Baseball, Meta, Pfizer, Prada, Forbes, Ernst & Young, IBM, HelloFresh, NFL Films, NBC, and many others.
We would like to offer our special thanks to Prof. James Udden, Chair of Cinema and Media Studies, and Prof. Melissa Forbes, Director of the Writing Center and First-Year Writing and Lecturer of English, who thoughtfully designed the program.
We also want to express our gratitude to the faculty for their leadership and support of this new program, and for their spirited partnership in making it a truly interdisciplinary offering. We look forward to the impact Communication Studies will have on our campus and in the lives and careers of our students in the years ahead.
Sincerely,
Bob Iuliano
President
Jamila Bookwala
Provost