Project Team
- Aisha Ravindran, Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of English and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies (Lead Applicant)
- Anita Chaudhuri, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Department of English and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies
- Jordan Stouck, Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of English and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies
- Marie Loughlin, Associate Professor, Department of English and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies
Themes
- Interdisciplinary
- Professional Skills and Competencies
- Program Development and Transformation
Year
2020
About the Project
This project will develop both a Credit Certificate (anticipated launch date: Fall 2021) and a Minor (anticipated launch date: Fall 2023) in Communications and Rhetoric (CORH). These programs will build upon UBC Okanagan’s interdisciplinary expertise to offer unique learning pathways that will help students develop the academic, professional and cross-cultural communication skills crucial to active citizenship in our increasingly interconnected world.
The 15-credit CORH Certificate structure contains four thematic interdisciplinary clusters, with the learning outcomes for each cluster of courses focusing on a specific conceptual aspect of communications, and a final capstone project. The tentative titles for the thematic clusters are: The Self, The Individual and Others, The Community, and The Media. Based on their interests, students will select one course from each cluster. Courses from other programs that fulfill the learning outcomes of each cluster will be included to enable at least two courses that students have already completed as part of their program requirements to count towards the Certificate. The course design will have an experiential learning focus, and the program will have a final capstone to combine different disciplinary strands in a research-centric collaborative project.
The 30-credit Minor will align with the communications needs of students across the disciplines at UBC Okanagan. The suite of 10 courses will combine communication skills with discipline-specific content, and broader interdisciplinary and professional applicability in real-world contexts.
The program goals anticipate that students will (i) efficiently navigate academic, professional and diverse sociocultural contexts, (ii) use rhetoric in oral, written, visual, and digital discourse, and (iii) produce multimodal texts and creative artefacts in professional, intercultural and community settings to enhance career opportunities.
Additional Information
Note: this project also includes a 13-person program advisory committee with representation from the Faculty of Creative & Critical Studies, Faculty of Health and Social Development, Faculty of Management, Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences, Okanagan School of Education, School of Engineering and the UBC Okanagan Library.