Michael Sanchez

Dr. Rohler

Speech Writing

November 29, 2008

Communications Studies Day Address

Good morning and welcome to our third annual communications studies day celebration. My name is Richard Olsen, Department Chair of the communication studies program at UNCW. I would like to thank Chancellor Rosemary Depalo as well as Vice Chancellor Patricia Leonard for the opportunity to continue our tradition on this day. Albert Einstein, a famous metaphysician, once offered a quote dispelling the ideas we use as a foundation for our work here in the department. His quote read, “Problems can not be solved by the same level of awareness that created them.” In our small corner of campus, within side the walls of Luetze Hall, we strive to provide an education for our students that will give them a unique perspective and the knowledge to continuously challenge it. This platform affords our students the opportunity to rise above problems and create solutions. It is this mission that guides us on a daily basis throughout the year.

Communication studies day is the time of the year that the entire department comes together to celebrate this aligned mission of our program and I am honored to give the toast. But before everything gets started, I’d like to take just a few minutes of your time to discuss our Communications Studies Department, and its roots as well.

I would like to start off my celebratory toast with an excerpt from our mission statement. “Our commitment is to undergraduate education, and to an involvement with our students that is dynamic and interactive. We wish to serve as models of the subjects we teach. As educators, the department values reasoned advocacy, artistic expression, and pragmatic success. We consider our students potentially responsible consumers of communication who can use, analyze, and create it effectively.”

Everyone always comes up to me and asks, “So what is a communications major anyway?” However, because Communication Studies is such a broad discipline, it is difficult to provide a sufficient five minute answer.

Our goal is to expose our students to the variety of contexts in which communication takes place. Within the major, we focus on four primary areas of communication: intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, and public communication. In addition, we explore the various styles and modes of interaction as well.

The department attempts to cover areas such as applied communication, ranging from rhetoric, public address and performance studies to communication technologies, including media production and computer-assisted interaction. A student might find themselves in a class having a pointed conversation on the public speaking tactics of Socrates, or in another class learning about the discrepancies between the ways in which males and females communicate.

In recent years, the Communications Studies major has become extremely popular.  The Communications Studies Department is one of the largest undergraduate departments at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and each year we are nearing the enrollment of 600 students in our major.  We had one of our most substantial changes, when in August of 2001, our department headquarters moved into Leutze Hall to accommodate the exponential growth of the major. Although the number of students did increase, it did not hinder our student-to-teacher ratios. Currently, the Communications Studies Department has eighteen full time professors, and nine part time professors, along with a few staff members as well.  One way we control the flow of class sizes is through the gateway course, Communication Research Methods, known to students as, “COM 200.”

This is one of the courses I teach. A gateway course is essential to give students a glimpse of the major. It is also designed to be more challenging, offering an elevated level of thinking intended to facilitate the maturation process of our student body.

Once they have completed this course and received a grade of a B or higher, they are then accepted into the Communications Studies Department. 

After becoming a communication studies major, students are able to become part of something larger than they have ever experienced before in academia. Students have the opportunity to join organizations and clubs specifically designed to improve the quality of our program’s offerings. Lambda Pi Eta Honor Society is one of the many clubs which students are encouraged to join. Lambda Pi Eta is the group comprised of communication studies scholars eager to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by the communication studies department. In addition, it is a compilation of the brightest students within the major. There are several other groups that a student can join regardless of grade point average qualifications. A student may join the Storytelling in the community group if they are interested in improving their public speaking ability. Or another student may join the Public Relations Student Network if they are interested in pursuing a career in public relations. In addition, the UNCW Advertising chapter is an extremely valuable avenue for students intrigued by the art of communication as it applies to the field of advertising in the professional world.

However, joining groups is not for everyone and we understand that. In fact, we have provided other avenues for students to get professional experience outside of the classroom and academic organizations. All students have the opportunity to participate in an internship for academic credit, working for a UNCW qualified agency. Internships are a valuable aspect of education. They allow a student to get a glimpse of what life will be like after college and in the workforce. A student must hold a grade-point-average of 2.5 or higher, and have junior or senior standing. The department has worked with hundreds of businesses, from globally recognized names like Ogilvy Public Relations to smaller local companies like Ward and Scott Law Firm. Students can complete up to 12 credit-hours worth of internships in which 3 hours are dedicated to the major and the other nine counts as electives credits. Some students use this as a tool to gain work experience, beef up their resumes, and graduate early with an edge on the competition.

Now I would like to direct my comments toward a group of students who know all about the things I have been discussing throughout this speech, the graduating seniors. The past four years have seemed to fly right by us. It has been a time of exploring within ourselves as well as our community. These students have learned about the values we preach within the walls of Luetze, and are ready to apply them in the working world. When I look at this group of seniors, I see a class of individuals who are exceedingly prepared to conquer whatever they set their minds to. I want you all to remember, there are two types of thinkers in this world—possibilities thinkers and probabilities thinkers. We have coached you to be the former. When you are presented with challenging opportunities, focus on the possibilities of what could be, not the probabilities that you will fail. You must positively seek out your future, don’t passively let your destiny take its course. On this campus in the past four years you have demonstrated leadership abilities competitively matched by your peers at other institutions. You are in the right position to succeed and it is up to you to continue living with confidence in the next phase of your life.

    Remember, at the end of the day relationships are all there is. There is no hot without cold, no bright without dark, no wet without dry. People need each other, and the rest of the world outside of UNCW needs you! Take this perspective, and leave here with the audacity to face challenges, the courage to see things through, and the wisdom to pick your battles. When you walk across that stage, we will give you a handshake and piece of paper that means we believe in you, but it remains to be seen whether you believe in yourself. Do it for your friends, do it for your family, do it for us, but most importantly do it for yourself.
Collectively, we are committed to the pursuit of liberal arts endeavors, and it is proven in the courses we teach. Consequently, the challenge of our work often lies in establishing credibility and validity for what we do.
Robert Maynard Hutchins once said, “A liberal education... frees a man from the prison-house of his class, race, time, place, background, family and even his nation.”  This quote exemplifies the way in which we approach our departmental teaching philosophy. It is essential for young minds to be nurtured with the proper ingredients to cultivate good, moral, and educated individuals. In our department, we aim to teach our students about the power of communication and its central role in both citizenship and personal development. I personally stress to each and every one of my colleagues in the department a piece of advice from a well known philosopher. He presented a point which resonates within the philosophy of our teachings when he explained, “. . .because there has been implanted in us the power to persuade each other and to make clear to each other whatever we desire, not only have we escaped the life of wild beasts, but we have come together and founded cities and made laws and invented arts; and, generally speaking, there is no institution devised by man which the power of speech has not helped us to establish.” Here, Isocrates explains the value of communication. If we have the ability to collectively, as citizens of the world, coordinate and manage the meaning of life—it is our duty to be able to masterfully articulate in order to avoid confusion or deception.

In every course pack, every curriculum, and in every classroom we stress the core values of our departments philosophy. Because it is our belief that it is these very values that create upstanding citizens of the world in every factory, every retail shop, every office space, and every lecture hall.

Communications studies day, is the one chance during the year where we are able to celebrate these central values our department thrives off of everyday. As you can see, it is essential for us to hold this celebration, because it serves as the heartbeat of our organization.

Today, we will have a panel featuring communication studies alumni discussing their current positions in the workforce. Then our annual Dress for Success fashion show will be held at 1:00pm followed by another recent graduates question and answer panel. 

Although the fashion show serves as a break between the panels in the morning and afternoon, it serves a purpose as well. In this show, students are exposed to the various styles of dress, from casual, to business professional. It is paramount for our students to learn about the image of a professional in addition to the work he or she does. Banana Republic will provide all of the looks for the modern professional both male and female.

The fashion show will be followed by another guest panel of communication studies alumni, who will share their valuable insight on career fields and securing jobs. These panels offer students a way to realize their degree is valid in the work world. Students come back from New York, Los Angeles, D.C., as well as other areas in North Carolina to share their unique journeys and provide inspiration to the future graduates of the program. We will then host an after party at Wilson’s restaurant at 8:00pm which will conclude communications studies day.

Before I finish I would like to leave you with some food for thought. I had a good friend once tell me a story about his five-year hiatus in Florence, Italy. Rich was an extremely well traveled man who seemed to find something more intriguing about Florence than any other city he had traveled to in his journeys. Florence is a city rich with history, flooded with ancient buildings boasting flawless designs. It has a little bit of everything, so it was perfect for well-rounded individuals like Rich. At this point in time I was completely consumed by papers and was starting to grow tired of my overwhelming workload, so I decided to spend some time in a distant place. I found myself hopping on a plane to visit Rich and see how he was doing. As soon as I landed he picked me up and started showing me the city. He found one building particularly special and asked me to get out the car. As we walked up to the intricately designed building, he told me about the way in which perspective can change your life. He said, “You know Rick, when Americans see a historic building, they ask how old it is. But did you know, when Italians see a historic building, they ask how many years of life are in the building.” Although it was just a subtlety of language, it indicated a lot to me and my mission as a professor. After thinking about it, I began to realize how important my job was, as I provided young minds with perspective on how to approach life in an open-minded fashion. Education should be used to open our eyes to all the wonders of the world, not to know everything about a few details. It is meant to free us from the shackles that imprison the mind. In our department, even though it is just one of the many buildings on campus, we remove the shackles from the entrapped and unexposed minds of the youth. And it is this goal, this vision, that gives me the drive to work hard each and every day for each and every kid that walks through those doors.

By the end of this day, we hope you have found something special about our programs. We hope you have explored the various offerings we provide. But most importantly we hope you find perspective in the way we approach our teachings. We are thankful for your participation in this day, as it means a great deal to our programs future. Enjoy communications studies day, we hope you learn something today.