Why a School of Communication?

One of the questions I've gotten from people over the last few weeks has been... "Why a School of Communication"?

My responses have been relatively consistent, or at least I hope they have been. I respond in a few ways...

Well, first, a "school" structure fits the program at Purdue pretty well. The notion of "school" suggests a broader structure than "a department" which is a unit often found within schools. There is the question of breadth. At Purdue we cover a very broad array of topics, from mass communcation to rhetoric, to video production, org com and PR. Most departments of communication are much more narrowly focused.

Second, free standing "Schools" or in some cases "colleges" of communication have become common on our academic horizon and when you look at our peers and direct competitors... most of them are schools or colleges. So, when benchmarking our competitors this is the landscape we see.

I also think that the notion of a "school" creates a bit more visibility and sets us apart from smaller units and as a department we were rather large. Schools are very often free standing units and operate differently from departments.

Finally, for many years "schools" in academe were units that were perceived to be "more professional in orientation"... this has clearly changed in the last two decades and it's now clear that a school is more often perceived as a unit that is larger and broader than a department although it may still have at least a bit of a professional orientation.

So, school it is... why a "named" school...OK, that's the next post...