Every WCU student has to take an introductory communication course or have transfer credits equivalent to the course to graduate. The Introduction to Communication course, commonly known as COMM 201, is one of the most offered classes at the university, offering 40 sections of the course a semester.
The course aims to introduce students to fundamental forms of communication that they will use throughout college.
“We want students to be able to orally express their viewpoints,” Russell said. “Being able to argue rationally and deliver presentations competently. Being able to speak well with others is essential to thinking,” said Vincent Russell, the Communication Department Liberal Studies Program Coordinator and assistant professor.
The skills taught in the course also aim to teach students to communicate effectively once students graduate and enter the workforce.
“There is a broader, sort of, civic social purpose for that as well which is that those same skills that help student succeed in class are also ones that help for the workplace, managing conflict with team members, being able to give presentations in the workplace sometimes applies,” Russell said.
A common problem is the COMM 201 sections filling up very quickly. Currently there are six full time professors that teach the course in person and seven adjunct professors who teach the course online.
In fall 2023, WCU had 2,082 incoming freshmen compared to the previous semester of 1,913 for fall 2022 semester. Most of those 2,000 students are required to take COMM 201 but there were only 875 seats offered during the 2023 fall semester.
A solution raised to solve the demand issue is to raise the course caps, number of students in the classes. Currently the cap for the course is 25 students which follows the upper limits of communication discipline guidelines.
The National Communication Association recommends that performance based communication classes should not have a student to teacher ratio more than 25:1 with the preferred being 15:1.
The introductory course, like every 100 or 200 level courses, serves as a gateway for students to be introduced to the communication discipline and potentially pick up a communication major or minor.
Grace Cheshire, a human communication instructor, has exclusively taught the introductory course up until this semester.
“We try to get to those students within the first year before they marry themselves to their degree in case a communication major would be a good benefit, or a communication minor,” Cheshire said.
Since the push for communication classes to go online, the department has seen a significant drop in communication majors declared. From fall of 2016 to fall of 2023, there was a 74.6% drop in number of majors declared.
Despite the drop in declared majors, the COMM 201 class remains in high demand every semester. For instructors that are hired to teach the course exclusively the workload cast becomes repetitive and demanding.
“There are both benefits and challenges [to teaching COMM 201],” Cheshire said. “The benefit is that you only have to prep for one class, you’re teaching the same thing … One of the hard parts for us that teach 201 is that we know our students don’t necessarily choose to be there. It wears on you after a while to feel a lot of passion about the subject and to realize not everyone shares the same passion as I do.”
Russell believes, along with general communication discipline standards, that larger class limit the effectiveness of a class.
Full time instructors’ pay is based on how many classes they teach a semester, not the number of students. Meaning, when class limits are increased, work for instructors increases with no adjustment in compensation.
Ten students do not seem like much of an increase until the course curriculum is taken into consideration.
COMM 201 classes cover topics like perception, self and identity, gender and culture, mediated communication, public speaking, interpersonal communication and conflict management among others.
“I think the biggest challenge in teaching 201 is it is a lot to cover in one semester,” Cheshire said. “So, when you really try and sit down and look at that when you’re planning a semester it’s impossible.”
“It may seem small but when you look at full time instructors are teaching eight to 10 additional students which is eight to 10 additional speeches, eight to 10 additional papers to grade. It adds up,” Russell said.
The next solution would be to hire more instructors for the COMM 201 courses.
Scott Eldredge, the head of the Communication Department, has continuously advocated for the addition of new instructors.
“I am continually pestering the dean and the provost about how I need more faculty to do the things that I need to do to support our liberal studies program,” Eldredge said. “We try to be consistent and anticipate what we can do from one year to the next. That makes it difficult to say ‘oh, we want to take on another salaried position that I’m going to have to be paying for a long time.’”
The university has turned to hiring adjunct instructors to teach the courses. Adjuncts are contracted to teach no more than 6 credits a semester and are paid between $1,200 to $1,300 per class.
“Because the demand for courses continues to increase but we are not given permission to hire more people we have had to turn to hiring adjuncts, part time instructors,” Russell said. “Part time instructors are certainly qualified. Where we run into problems though is because they are part time instructors the turnover rate among them is much higher.”
Most of the adjunct professors teach COMM 201 online. For the fall 2024 semester, 17 sections of COMM 201 were offered online. Over the summer, all courses are taught online.
“Communication skills, particularly interpersonal skills, being practiced in person are really important. To make COMM 201 better I think that lower class size is important as well as in person,” Eldredge said. “I don’t like these classes being online. I don’t think they are as effective online. They can be taught online, but I think we lose something in doing that.”
Dave Kinner, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, believes that courses should be taught in person but still values online courses as a time saver for students as well as a relief of workload for in person instructor.
“If students want to get through faster, we do have summer classes of COMM 201,” Kinner said. “In general, I’m a pretty big believer in traditional students who are here taking those classes in person. There is a lot of value to getting to see people on a regular basis.”
Interpersonal communication skills took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many people became accustomed to communicating through technology due to quarantines and social distancing thus impacting the way people interacted with each other in person.
“I think 201 is a vital class post pandemic,” Cheshire said. “Something I’ve observed, and it’s not just me but others in the department, students used to be really terrified of public speaking, and they’re still not cool with it, but they are really terrified of interpersonal communication. If I was to ask my students to go and talk with a stranger, many of them would probably have a small panic attack over that.”
Communication is the cumulation of centuries of work and research that COMM 201 aims to introduce students to.
“The professors in this department, we are the inheritors of a thousand-year legacy of teaching people how to speak well publicly, how to persuade others, how to listen well to others,” Russell said.
