Communication Centers and Oral Communication Programs in Higher Education

Advantages, Challenges, and New Directions

By (author) Eunkyong Lee Yook, Wendy Atkins-Sayre

Publication date:

16 April 2013

Length of book:

308 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739184622

Communication Centers and Oral Communication Programs in Higher Education, edited by Eunkyong L. Yook and Wendy Atkins-Sayre, is a collection that examines the centers that support communication departments or across-the-curriculum programs as higher education focuses more attention on the communication field. The authors in this text address theoretical issues covering topics such as the importance of communication centers to higher education, the effects of communication centers on retention, critical thinking in the center, ethics, and more. These essays also explore ideas about center’s set-up and use of space, staff training, technology applications, and campus advertising and outreach. Communication Centers organizes cutting-edge knowledge of the theory and empirical research so as to serve practical use to peer tutors and directors, those who are new to the study of communication centers and to those who are seasoned experts. Furthermore, this collection introduces administrators and those interested in higher education to the potential value of communication centers to higher education.

Part 1. Benefits to Higher Education
Chapter 1. Communication Centers and Retention in Higher Education: Is There a Link?
Chapter 2. Speaking Our Minds: Communication Centers and Critical Thinking
Chapter 3. Communication Centers and Liberal Arts Education: Problems and Possibilities Associated with Cross-Disciplinary Engagements
Chapter 4. The Communication Center: A Critical Site of Intervention for Student Empowerment
Chapter 5. The Role Becomes Them: Examining Communication Center Alumni Experiences
Part 2. Challenges to Today's Centers
Chapter 6. Ethics and the Communication Center: Chameleon or Tortoise?
Chapter 7. The Blind Leading the Blind? An Ethnographic Heuristic for Communication Centers
Chapter 8. Learning to Tell What You Know: A Communication Intervention for Biology Students
Chapter 9. Using Theory and Research to Increase Student Use of Communication Center Services
Chapter 10. Focusing on Faculty: The Importance of Faculty Support to Communication Center Success
Part 3. Alternative Models for Communication Centers
Chapter 11. Communication Center Ethos: Remediating Space, Encouraging Collaboration
Chapter 12. The Combined Centers Approach: How Speaking and Writing Centers Can Work Together
Chapter 13. Course Management Systems: Creating Alternative Avenues for Student Access of Communication Centers
Chapter 14. Virtual Communication Centers: A Resource for Building Oral Competency
Chapter 15. The Implementation of Computer-Mediated Communication in Communication Centers
Part 4. New Directions in Consultant Training
Chapter 16. Technology Tutoring: Communication Centers Take the Lead
Chapter 17. Using Empathetic Listening to Build Client Relationships at the Center
Chapter 18. Best Practices in Communication Center Training and Training Assessment

“Publication of findings pointing to the value of communication centers and speaking-intensive across-the-curriculum programs in higher education has, until now, failed to keep pace with the success of these endeavors. Professors Yook and Atkins-Sayre have assembled the finest minds and energies in this compilation to demonstrate the long-term and wide-ranging advantages available to schools that have embraced such learning enhancements. The wisdom shared in each of these essays reflects decades of experience, relentless testing of theory and revising practices to make possible the advancement of these initiatives so future practitioners will be better equipped to meet the particular needs of the institutions they serve. As enriching and long-overdue as this scholarship may be, the voices behind it would surely agree, that the difference revealed by students who have participated in these programs will be the finest legacy of the pioneering contributors to this essential text.”