Strategies for the Communications Unit: How Can We Become Central to the University and Its Mission?

This article presents the author\u27s comments on reasons for the perception that communication units are not central to the University and its mission. First, our name itself is a problem. This can mean that one studies mass media, as I do, or it may refer to scholars of interpersonal communication, rhetorical analysis, cultural studies, organizational studies, or a variety of other subspecialties. Second, this lack of unity and intellectual diversity, often poses special political problems. The political battles across communication programs on campuses is only one of our on-campus political problems. Finally, perhaps at the root of our battles about centrality to the mission of the university is the sense that our curriculum and our literature is not addressing the public questions about communication practice in the world