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The Northwestern University School of Communication is an undergraduate and graduate institution devoted to the academic study of communication arts and sciences, located on
Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Chart ...
's campus in Evanston,
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockfo ...
, United States, about 12 miles north of downtown Chicago. The School also has a campus in
Education City Education City is a development in Al Rayyan, Qatar. Developed by the Qatar Foundation, the property houses various educational facilities, including satellite campuses of eight international universities. History Education City was launched by ...
in
Doha, Qatar Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the count ...
, as part of Northwestern's Qatar Campus. The school's mission is to "advance the arts, sciences, and practices of human communication through every appropriate means, and especially through education, scholarship, artistic work, policy analysis, and advocacy." The school offers 6 major degrees, 2 dual degree programs, 5 minor degrees, and 16 module certifications for undergraduates, as well as 10 masters programs, 4 masters/doctorate programs, and 5 doctorate programs for graduates. It consists of five departments: the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Department of Communication Studies, Department of Performance Studies, Department of Radio/Television/Film, and Department of Theatre. Many School of Communication alumni who have made their mark in film and television include
Ann-Margret Ann-Margret Olsson (born April 28, 1941) is a Swedish–American actress, singer, and dancer. As an actress and singer, she is credited as Ann-Margret. She is known for her roles in '' Pocketful of Miracles'' (1961), ''State Fair'' (1962), '' ...
,
Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty ( né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director ...
,
David Schwimmer David Lawrence Schwimmer (born November 2, 1966) is an American actor, director and producer. He gained worldwide recognition for portraying Ross Geller in the sitcom ''Friends'', for which he received a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Primetim ...
,
Heather Headley Heather Headley (born October 5, 1974) is a Trinidadian-born American singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. She won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the titular role of ''Aida''. She also won the 2010 Grammy A ...
,
Stephen Colbert Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program ''The Colbert Report'' from 2005 to ...
, and
Julia Louis-Dreyfus Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus ( ; born January 13, 1961) is an American actress, comedian, and producer who worked on the comedy television series ''Saturday Night Live'' (1982–1985), ''Seinfeld'' (1989–1998), ''The New Adventures ...
.


History

The school can be traced back to 1878, when the Department of
Elocution Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone as well as the idea and practice of effective speech and its forms. It stems from the idea that while communication is symbolic, sounds are final and compelli ...
was established at Northwestern University by Robert McClean Cumnock. Initially, classes were offered as part of a two-year certificate program, but as courses grew increasingly popular, the university established the School of Oratory in 1891. In 1895, Annie May Swift Hall was opened to house the school, a purpose it continues to fulfill today. The School of Oratory was subsequently renamed to the School of Speech in 1921, and later became the School of Communication in 2002 to reflect the school's expanding offerings. In 2008, Northwestern opened their Qatar campus, part of the Education City initiative, offering programs of study in both the School of Communication as well as the
Medill School of Journalism The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is a constituent school of Northwestern University that offers both undergraduate and graduate programs. It frequently ranks as the top school of journalism in the Unite ...
.


Programs of study

The School of Communication is divided into five departments, each of which offers Undergraduate and Graduate degree programs. Certain programs, such as the MS in Leadership for Creative Enterprises and the MA in Sound Arts and Industries are cross-departmental, while
dual degree A double degree program, sometimes called a dual degree, combined degree, conjoint degree, joint degree or double graduation program, involves a student's working for two university degrees in parallel—either at the same institution or at diffe ...
programs are also offered in Communication and Engineering, in partnership with the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Music and Communication, in partnership with the
Bienen School of Music The Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music is the music and performance arts school of Northwestern University. It is located on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, United States. The school was previously known as the North ...
. In 2011, the school introduced modular curriculum options for undergraduate students, involving "modules" which require in-depth completion of courses and projects related to a specific topic. Current modules include
Digital Media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...
,
Playwriting A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...
, and
Health Communication Health communication is the study and practice of communicating promotional health information, such as in public health campaigns, health education, and between doctor and patient. The purpose of disseminating health information is to influence ...
.


Facilities


Performance venues

The Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts houses four performance venues for the Departments of Theatre and Performance Studies. The Ethel M. Barber Theater, the Josephine Louis Theater, the Hal and Martha Hyer Wallis Theater, and the Mussetter-Struble Theater are all located in this center. The Wirtz Center also includes two dance and rehearsal studios called the South Rehearsal Room and the Bergen. In addition to these performance and rehearsal spaces, the Wirtz Center houses a costume shop, a scene shop, and computer labs for design purposes. The Wirtz Center directly adjoins the Marjorie Ward Marshall Dance Center, which houses two dance studios (the Ballroom and the Cellar) for rehearsals and performances for the Dance Program. These venues are all located on the southern end of the university's Evanston Campus, on the shore of
Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of ...
. Cahn Auditorium, the largest venue on Northwestern's campus, has a seating capacity of 1,000, including balcony seating, and has an orchestra pit. Cahn Auditorium hosts the annual Waa-Mu Show, as well as many other student and professional productions.


Class buildings

Annie May Swift Hall houses faculty offices, classrooms, and the film library for the Department of Radio/Television/Film (RTVF). It also features the Peggy Dow Helmerich Auditorium and the Alvina Krause Studio, a black box theater named for a former theater and performance studies professor. John J. Louis Hall is the center for production and post-production for the RTVF Department. This building includes classroom spaces, editing studios, sound production studios, a black-box theater, the radio station facilities for WNUR-FM, and the Barbara and Garry Marshall Studio stage. The Fisk Digital Media Studio is an editing lab for the RTVF Department, otherwise occupied by the Medill School of Journalism. The lab hosts 20 Mac computers with an editing and design software like Avid Media Composer,
DaVinci Resolve DaVinci Resolve (originally known as da Vinci Resolve) is a color grading, color correction, visual effects, and audio post-production video editing application for macOS, Windows, and Linux, originally developed by da Vinci Systems, and now dev ...
, Pro Tools, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe After Effects. The Northwestern University Center for Audiology, Speech, Language, and Learning (NUCASLL) houses classroom facilities for the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders in addition to a health clinic for the local community. This clinic includes a Developmental Diagnostic Program as a joint project with the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and an Aphasia Center. The clinic at NUCASLL provides free screenings for speech and hearing for the public. The Frances Searle Building houses classroom and office spaces for the Departments of Communication Sciences and Disorders and Communication Studies. The MA in Sound Arts & Industries recently added the SoundTank space to Frances Searle's facilities in 2016.


Administration building

The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Center for the Musical Arts is home to the School of Communication's Dean's office and administration for several of its departments (Theatre, Performance Studies, and Dance). The facility also houses performance venues and classroom space for the
Bienen School of Music The Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music is the music and performance arts school of Northwestern University. It is located on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, United States. The school was previously known as the North ...
. The building was awarded LEED Gold status.


Notable faculty

Source: * Noshir Contractor, authority on
social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for an ...
s and Web science * Peter Dallos, expert on the
molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...
of the
cochlea The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.75 turns around its axis, the modiolus. A core component of the cochlea is the Organ of Corti, the sensory org ...
* Leslie DeChurch, authority on
leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets view ...
and multiteam systems * Frank Galati,
Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
-winning director and professor of performance studies * Dilip Gaonkar, authority on rhetorical theory * Darren Gergle, expert on human-computer interaction and
social computing Social computing is an area of computer science that is concerned with the intersection of social behavior and computational systems. It is based on creating or recreating social conventions and social contexts through the use of software and tech ...
*
Robert Hariman Robert Hariman (born June 17, 1951) is an American scholar of rhetoric and public culture. He received his BA from Macalester College in 1973, and received his MA in 1975 and PhD in 1979 from the University of Minnesota. He was a member of the facul ...
, scholar of public culture and the rhetoric of
photojournalism Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...
* E. Patrick Johnson, professor of performance studies * Viorica Marian, professor and expert on
multilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Eu ...
* Daniel O’Keefe, authority on
argumentation theory Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be supported or undermined by premises through logical reasoning. With historical origins in logic, dialectic, and rhetoric, argumentation theory, inclu ...
and
persuasion Persuasion or persuasion arts is an umbrella term for influence. Persuasion can influence a person's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviours. Persuasion is studied in many disciplines. Rhetoric studies modes of persuasio ...
* Eric Patrick, professor of radio/television/film, experimental filmmaker, and 2006
Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
* Janice Radway, American literary and cultural studies scholar * Todd Rosenthal,
Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
-winning scenic designer * Anna Shapiro, professor and director at the
Steppenwolf Theatre Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Unitarian church on Half Day Road in Deerfield, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood ...
* Lynn Spigel, scholar of television and American culture * Ellen Wartella, expert on the role media plays in child development * James Webster, authority on
audience theory Audience theory offers explanations of how people encounter media, how they use it, and how it affects them. Although the concept of an audience predates media, most audience theory is concerned with people’s relationship to various forms of media ...
and
measurement Measurement is the quantification of attributes of an object or event, which can be used to compare with other objects or events. In other words, measurement is a process of determining how large or small a physical quantity is as compared ...
* David Zarefsky, authority on
rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate partic ...
and
forensics Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...
* Mary Zimmerman,
Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
-winning director and professor of performance studies


Notable alumni

Source:


Theater


Film


Television


References


External links


Northwestern University School of Communication, official website
{{Coord, 42, 3, 6.7, N, 87, 40, 17.8, W, region:US-IL_type:edu, display=title Northwestern University Educational institutions established in 1878 1878 establishments in Illinois Film schools in Illinois