School of Communication M.A. Program Ranks on Top
The SDSU School of Communication has received important accolades from both the National Communication Association (NCA) and Eduniversal for their Master’s of Arts program. NCA’s Master’s Education Section named the program the Outstanding Master's Program for 2019. Eduniversal ranked the program 8th in North America for Corporate Communication Master’s programs for 2019.
According to the Eduniversal award letter, the three main criteria for this award are the notoriety of the programs, the salary of the first employment after graduation, and student’s satisfaction with the program. Recent alumni of the program completed a survey about their experiences and the School Director submitted information about faculty and the curriculum.
“I am proud on a different level because we are being nationally recognized in comparison with other programs,” said Heather Canary, Director of the School of Communication.
“We are the outstanding program.”
Canary feels that one of the unique aspects of the program is that there are not any artificial separations between research, teaching and community service/engagement. Rather, our faculty embrace the teacher-scholar model.
“We bring our research into our teaching, we bring our teaching into our research and find ways to have both impact the community,” said Canary.
The NCA Outstanding Master’s Degree Program Award nomination included letters of support from alumni and lists of presentations and publications co-authored by faculty and graduate students. Canary believes that what made the SDSU program stand out is all of the outcomes and publications generated from the students.
“Had it not been for SDSU’s master’s program, I would not be where I am today. I would not be even close. I was admitted to several doctoral programs because of the strength of training SDSU provided,” said Dr. Craig R. Scott, Chair and Professor of the Department of Communication at Rutgers University. “I was able to succeed in my doctoral program because of the foundational training I received as a master’s student. I also discovered my passion for issues of anonymity and organizing while at SDSU—and that would launch a program of research about issues of anonymity and identification in organizational and other contexts that still anchors my work today.”
For more information on the SDSU Masters in Communication Masters program visit https://communication.sdsu.edu/academics/graduate
In addition, the school also has a new center for Dialogue for Social Justice, read more here https://communication.sdsu.edu/research/institute-for-dialogue-and-social-justice.
The content within this article has been edited by Lizbeth Persons.