Communication Studies Department, 1929-1985
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Administrative/Biographical History
The Communication Studies Department was created in 1972 out of the Communication Department (1967-72). Twenty years before, in 1952, a speech major and a Speech Department were formally established. The curriculum was designed for students interested in teaching speech, pursuing graduate study or entering professions associated with public address, theater arts, or speech therapy. (Paul H. Boase, et al., "A Word Fitly Spoken," Alumni Magazine, February 1964: 10-15)
From its founding, Oberlin was preoccupied with how learned men and women came to appreciate the classical foundations of rhetoric. Later on the emphasis was on content, organization and style as well as on the delivery of speeches. Oberlin was a school for ministers, teachers and social reformers, all callings that revolved around effective communication skills. The pioneering work of 19th century faculty, such as Oberlin's James Monroe and William Benton Chamberlin, in the field of rhetoric and belles-lettres is significant. In the 20th century the banner to communicate effectively was carried forward by Professors J. Jeffrey Auer and Robert G. Gunderson. The Speech Department, a natural outgrowth of this interest, followed. The Department's offerings in Speech pathology also had historic precedent in the nationally renowned work of Oberlin Professor R.H. Stetson. Stetson's 1927 work, Motor Phonetics, laid much of the groundwork for the modern discipline of Speech Pathology.
The mission of the Speech Department was to offer a broad array of courses to majors, speech training to students majoring in other disciplines, and to supervise extracurricular activities in debate, public speaking and theater performance. Consisting of four faculty members, the Speech Department offered three major areas of study: Public Speaking, Drama, and Speech Pathology. The interest in professional training in theater lead to expanding the program by creating a new Theater Arts Program in 1965. The latter became the Dance and Theater program in 1974. Neither program had any more campus support than did the Speech Department. Thus, by the time the Communication Department was organized in 1967 under the leadership of Daniel Goulding, drama was dropped from the curriculum. Instead, the new department decided to take a new direction (e.g., embrace the burgeoning forms of media, develop classes in "Mass Communication" and "Theories of Film").
The Communication Department, consisting of three and then four faculty, continued to offer Speech Department classes in two areas of emphasis: public speaking and speech pathology. The extracurricular activities of the antecedent department were also continued, namely the Forensic Union and the Speech Clinic. The Communication Studies Department (1972) expanded the areas of emphases so that by the early 80s they included Intrapersonal, Interpersonal and Mass Communication, Technologies of Information Management, and Transmission. The Department offered an average of 18 courses, plus four seminars and senior honors. Winter Term courses were also offered.
The most important extracurricular activity of both the Speech and Communication Studies Department was the Forensic Union. Intercollegiate debate officially began at Oberlin in 1897 when the contests went from intramural to intercollegiate. In 1927 the Forensic Union was founded. In a 1977 memo from the student director of the Union to the College Long Range Planning Committee, the purpose of Forensics was described as:
" ... an opportunity for students to develop and perfect their communicative abilities through participation at various tournaments; to elect working on forensics as a Winter Term project; to qualify for membership in a nationally recognized honorary society; and to provide an avenue for Oberlin College to compete intellectually with other universities/colleges ..."
The Forensic Union was open to all Oberlin students. In addition to the intercollegiate competition, Forensic Union members presented programs to campus and community groups and participated in two college-sponsored competitions. The two competitions were known as the Class of 1915 Discussion Contest and the Grove Patterson Public Speaking Contest. Campus-wide budget cuts in the mid 1970s made it necessary for the Union to go from a departmentally funded group to a student club. The Forensics Union ceased to exist after academic year 1978-1979 when it was disbanded for lack of student participation.
In 1962, Oberlin College, with leadership from Paul Boase, created a Clinic to diagnose and treat speech and hearing disorders. Known as the Oberlin Speech Clinic, it was a joint effort of Oberlin College and the Oberlin Public School's Board of Education. Lecturer Ronald Williams, an African-American, was the first head of the Clinic. He also acted as the Speech Therapist for the town's public schools. In 1964, the department started a speech and hearing screening for all incoming freshman. Williams left in 1966 and was replaced by Wallace Dean Wolfe, who directed the Clinic for the duration of the Communication Studies Department existence.
Out of the Speech Pathology curricula initiative grew the student exchange program between Oberlin and Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C. At the time, Gallaudet College was the only liberal arts college for the deaf in the United States. The Exchange Program started in 1974, following the Winter Term project of two Oberlin students. Students from Oberlin went to Gallaudet and students from Gallaudet came to Oberlin for one semester during their sophomore or junior year. The program was open to majors and non-majors.
In order to remain relevant, the department developed other special programs. For example, in 1975, Internship opportunities were added as a part of the Communication Studies curricula. The internships were work-study programs in film and video production, broadcasting, cable television, community action programs and Urban Studies. These were offered during the first or second semester of the junior year. Seven years later, in 1982, the department organized the Communications Laboratory. This gave majors and non-majors access to state of the art electronic computing equipment and instruments to tap into the growing field of electronic communication and to study language development and disorders. In the same year, though less vital, was the initiation of a Semiotic and Film Studies in Paris program. Conducted through the Paris Inter-University Center for Critical and Film Studies, under the sponsorship of the University of California, Oberlin was a member of this consortium of colleges. Other campus-wide programs were offered, including: Winter Term projects, honors work, Senior Scholars status, and a minor as well as a major in the department's fields of emphases.
In the early 1980s, the faculty acted on the disbandment of the department. President S. Frederick Starr and Arts and Sciences Dean Robert Longsworth were approached, and they were agreeable to allowing the process of review to go forward. A very strategically planned disbandment procedure was adopted. This allowed all majors time to complete their degrees, and all faculty members to find suitable places in new departments. By unanimous vote of the faculty, and by approval from the EPPC and GF, the major was suspended in 1985 and the department disbanded in 1986. Neither student dissatisfaction nor administrative pressure led to the break up. Rather, it was a decision made by faculty members who recognized their tenuous place in the College community and worked to leave the department before it disintegrated into something none of the current faculty members wanted to be a part of. All of the faculty members recognized the problematic disparity of the department's course offerings and their differing fields of interest. Although attempts were made to rectify this problem, no real advances were made over time, since the size of the teaching faculty never adequately met the demands placed by such a large number of focuses. They also recognized that some of the students sought a more hands-on approach to Communication Studies, which was in direct opposition to Oberlin's liberal arts ideal and the mission of the department. These issues, added to the lack of academic respect the faculty argued they received from many of their peers (who without reason questioned the rigor of the department's course offerings), led them to this decision.
Note: In 1986 the Communications Studies Department faculty was: Daniel J. Goulding, transferred to the Theater Arts Department; Wallace Dean Wolfe Director of the Speech Clinic, transferred to head the Summer Teachers Academy; Christian Koch, transferred into the Computer Science Department; and Judith Beinstein Miller, transferred into the Psychology Department.
Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative InformationFor material relating to the Speech Department’s Summer Music Theater (1964-95) see RG 10 Conservatory of Music, Series VIII, subseries 2; and Series XIV, subseries 1.
See 19/3/4 Student Life: Literary Organizations for additional Forensic Union Records.
See R.H. Stetson Papers (30/13).
The records of the Communication Studies Department contain materials from its predecessors, the Communication Department (1967-1972) and the Speech Department (1952-1967), as well as some early records from the Forensic Union, a student organization founded in 1927. Consisting of three accessions, as reported on the title page, the third accession followed the suspension of the Department in academic year 1986. The material transferred is an incomplete record of this once well known Oberlin academic program.
The Record Group is arranged into two Subgroups: I. Administrative Files of the Department, 1929-1985 (6.25 l.f.); II. Faculty Records, 1950-1985 (1.8 l.f.). The first two Subgroups are further arranged into Records Series.
Subgroup I. Administrative Files consists of 21 Series as follows: I. Annual Reports; II. Budgets; III. Committees (Internal); IV. Correspondence Files (Speech Department); V. Course Evaluations by Students; VI. Curricula Files (by Course Number); VII. Curricula Proposals; VIII. Equipment Inventories; IX. Evaluation and Program Review; X. Forensic Union; XI. Guide to Majors; XII. Letters from and Memoranda; XIII. Letters of Recommendation; XIV. Lists of Department Majors; XV. Miscellaneous Department Files; XVI. Miscellaneous Program Files; XVII. Newsletters of the Department; XVIII. Reports Files; XIX. Speech Clinic; XX. Surveys and Questionnaires; and XXI. Forensic Union Cups and Plaques.
Subgroup II. Faculty Records consists of five Series: I. Judith Beinstein Miller; II. Daniel Joseph Goulding; III. Christian Koch; IV. Wallace Dean Wolfe; and V. Other Faculty Records.
The first two records series offer only partial documentation on the business of the Communication and Communication Studies Department. No annual reports or financial records exist for the Speech Department. Further, the Department's extracurricular programs are unevenly covered in the annual reports. Of particular importance, is Series IX., the Evaluation and Program Review records which provides users with a clearer picture of the history of the Department and its programs over time.
The internal Committee files are primarily report on the Department's Faculty and Majors Committee. They are fairly complete for the years 1974 through 1984. Included in these records are adgendas and minutes of meetings, correspondence with student representatives to the Committee, and numerous handwritten notes from the Department Chairs. (Over the same decade, the period spans the chairpersonships of Dean Wolfe, Christian Koch and Judith Beinstein Miller.) Course Evaluations by students can be found in quantity for the years 1974, 1975, and 1976; but this record does not exist for all of the Department's courses. Three other years, 1978, 1979 and 1982, have very sparse records.
The largest records series within this Subgroup is the record of the 55 courses consisting of 182 files offered by the Department. Most, but not all, courses are represented by a course syllabus, a reading list, handouts, assignment sheets, study guides and examination questions. Only a few sets include photocopied texts of assigned readings. In some cases, course numbers were assigned to different classes over the years. Through this pattern it is possible to see the evolution of certain courses as new research became available or teaching priorities changed.
Two records series, VII, Curricula Proposals and VIII, Equipment Inventories, provide some insight into the development of the program over time. The Department expansion plans preceded its transformation first from the Department of Speech to the Department of Communication, and later into Communication Studies. The records offer a view of an energetic and optimistic faculty and a state of the art facility.
Series X., Forensic Union, covers the longest span of years and is the oldest program associated with the three Departments. Regrettably, not all of its activity has been preserved through this record. A researcher will need to consult other sources to confirm many of the debate schedules and student participants. Four "Annual Reports" exist: one single page report from 1948-49 and three printed booklets from 1966-67, 1967-68, and 1968-69. These help to verify the very active and competitive nature of the organization. Of additional interest is the file of Forensic Union Newsletters that survives from September, 1949 to May, 1961.
The Guides to Majors in records series XI. expand upon the college catalog description of course offerings and requirements. Little new information about the direction of the program can be found.
The records series containing records series XII., contain the correspondence of the office, especially of the chair. Within each year's folder, a sizable number of letters are invitations to graduates and their families to department sponsored commencement celebrations. These are augmented by the Miscellaneous Business Files of records series XV., and Miscellaneous Program Files in records series XVI. The latter records give evidence of the activity engaged in over the life of the department that was outside the classroom. From these records series, the place of the Communication Studies Department within the larger context of the Oberlin College community.
Newsletters of the department are of interest for the detail they give on programs and developments within the years for which the newsletter exists. These can be found in records series XVII.
The reports contained in record series XVIII. are not reports of the department but rather are reports of studies conducted by a faculty member of the department.
According to Dean Wolfe (August 6, 1994), records of the Speech Clinic other than those that survive in records series XIX. were probably destroyed by the department owing to their confidential nature.
Records series XX. contains five surveys and questionnaires designed and/or conducted by the department. Of particular interest is the raw data from the 1973 opinion survey of student's reaction to the efficacy of the Mudd Learning Resources Center.
The only records series to contain non-textual material is the records series XXI. which contains nine cups and plaques won by the Forensic Union. The disposition of the entire collection of cups and plaques of this much decorated student organization is unknown.
Subgroup II. is comprised of the files relating to the academic and scholarly work of members of the department of Communication Studies. These records were received as part of the department's records transfer. It is for this reason the these files were left to stand within the overall record group of the department. The faculty members include: Daniel J. Goulding, Christian Koch, Judith Beinstein Miller and W. Dean Wolfe. The College Archives does not hold any personal papers for any of the above named faculty. For the four above named faculty, the records series reports on their teaching, service to the college, and research or scholarship. Single files exist for three other short term faculty and two graduate students. There are incomplete files on the department's process of filling sabbatical leave vacancies.