By Matthew Sotlar / The Jambar
The Department of Communications is set to transition from the Williamson College of Business Administration to the Beeghly College of Liberal Arts, Social Sciences and Education by fall 2025.
BCLASSE Dean Charles Howell said the move would not affect any students or faculty currently involved with the communications department.
“We’ve only had very preliminary discussions, but I don’t believe it’s going to be a difficult transition at all,” Howell said. “[The communications department is] staying in their present quarters, they have access to their specialized equipment. So there will be no physical move, they will just join us organizationally. There will be a fifth department in our college.”
Howell said the merge is still in the early stages, but BCLASSE is actively working with the communications department.
“Right now we’ve already engaged in preliminary talks, and our colleagues from communications are going to join us in our all-college meetings, in our chair’s meetings and also in our Dean’s Advisory Council meetings,” Howell said.
Courses for incoming communications majors will not be affected. Howell said most BCLASSE-based majors have introductory courses similar to those in communications.
“The advising structure for our college … is really in three parts,” Howell said. “The first is YSU 1500. Communications has its own YSU 1500, so they’ll continue to do so. After 1500, for sophomore year, that’s done by college advisers, and we have college advisers who would handle those responsibilities.”
Howell said juniors and seniors would remain relatively unaffected by the transition.
“The faculty typically advise students in junior and senior year,” Howell said. “That would continue to be the same for communications.”
Howell said the move was suggested to Jennifer Pintar, provost and vice president of academic affairs. He said the faculty and staff of BCLASSE were highly receptive to the move.
“As I understand it, [communications] approached the provost, and the provost wanted to make sure everybody was on board with it, in communications and [BCLASSE]. So I consulted with my colleagues and ascertained that this would be a harmonious relationship,” Howell said.
Howell added that he keeps in contact with the communications department.
“I went over there and had a conversation with their faculty and it was really interesting,” Howell said. “Pretty soon I’m going to go over there and have a tour of their facilities. I’ve discussed it with the Dean’s Advisory Council and there were a number of good suggestions for helping us get integrated.”
Along with the addition of communications, BCLASSE has added several new courses.
“Another area in which we’re going to be working together involves scientific communication,” Howell said. “We have a new data literacy minor that we’re proposing … and one of the courses is a communications course which is called ‘scientific communication,’ which we believe will be a great asset to our undergraduate majors.”
Howell said he felt communications worked well with BCLASSE.
“With communications, it’s a really good fit,” Howell said. “Partly because journalism, The Jambar and the English department will be working together … the other thing is, we promote co-teaching, so we really like pairing instructors in different disciplines to teach together and develop courses together.”
The communications department is set to join BCLASSE on July 1, 2025.
