Communications & Rhetoric
How can Communications & Rhetoric courses be used?
- Add a minor to any major in the BA degree
- Electives to complement your degree
- Expand the scope of your major and/or minor
- Develop academic, professional and cross-cultural communication skills
- Complete a 15 credit Certificate
Courses in Communications and Rhetoric develop advanced level communication and research skills in specific disciplines: humanities, sciences, and social sciences.
Students will gain interdisciplinary knowledge in a range of communication and rhetoric concepts, theories, and skills, to help them work efficiently in academic, professional, and diverse sociocultural contexts.
Rhetoric is embedded in every act of communication through the purpose and persuasive strategy that we weave into our verbal, non-verbal, and creative acts. Communications and Rhetoric provides additional ways of knowing, learning, and producing collaborative research through different pathways of experiencing communication concepts: through literary and cultural studies, the creative arts, world literature and languages, as well as management, the sciences and social sciences.
Courses offered in this area will prepare students for the vital role of written, oral and digital communications in the 21st century workplace. They will produce a variety of texts and creative artefacts in professional, intercultural and community settings to enhance career opportunities.
Minor in Communications & Rhetoric
Students in the BA degree can now complete a minor in Communications & Rhetoric.
The 30-credit Minor aligns with the communications needs of students across the disciplines at UBC Okanagan. The suite of 10 courses will combine communication skills with discipline-specific content, and broader interdisciplinary and professional applicability in real-world contexts. These requirements can include 6 credits from approved courses that double count with students’ Major program. View the Academic Calendar for more information and the list of courses.
The program advisory team includes faculty from the Faculty of Creative & Critical Studies, Faculty of Health and Social Development, Faculty of Management , Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Okanagan School of Education, School of Engineering and the UBC Okanagan Library.
Certificate in Communications and Rhetoric
The Certificate in Communications and Rhetoric is distinct in addressing an identified need for a more diverse, inclusive and laddered approach to developing students’ skills in communication and rhetoric, including oral, written, performative, digital, and creative communications.
Students will engage in the design and creation of diverse multimodal artefacts, digital, textual, audio, and/or other visual forms of communication, the creation of online blogs and e-portfolios, and participation in digital platforms such as UBC Blogs. Community service learning and collaborations with community and industry partners in the profession, and project-based collaborations, will grant opportunities to apply conceptual knowledge through professional practice.
To receive a CORH certificate, students must complete 15 credits through courses from four thematic interdisciplinary and relational clusters, and a final capstone project. See the list of classes to choose from below.
View the Academic Calendar for requirements for the certificate.
Choose three (3) credits from the following courses:
- CORH 216 Communication and Media
- ANTH 252 Visual Anthropology and New Media
- ARTH 323/CULT 320 Creative Activism: Art Media and Social Justice
- ARTH 390 Indigenous Art and Visual Culture, and Culture
- ARTH 411/DIHU 411 Digital Media for Interpretive Centres
- ARTH 451 Politics of Exhibition and Representation
- COSC 247 Networks and Social Media
- COSC 341 Human Computer Interaction
- CRWR 474 Writing with Media
- CULT 315/ENGL 376 Television Studies
- CULT 316/FILM 303/THTR 303 Narrative Film Production
- CULT 317/FILM 371 Digital Documentary Production
- CULT 325 Media and the Politics of Identity
- ECON 310 Writing Economics for the Media
- HES 433 Knowledge Translation in Health and Exercise Sciences
- GWST 215 Gender and Popular Culture
- MGMT 220 Introduction to Marketing
- MGMT 440 Brands, Culture and Marketing
- MGMT 441 Marketing Strategy
- THTR 401 Live Art/New Media
- VISA 268 Strategies in Digital Art: Visual Communication
- VISA 269 Strategies in Digital Art: Virtual Worlds
Choose three (3) credits from the following courses:
- CORH 321 Personal and Professional Identity and Interpersonal Communication
- ANTH 230 Culture, Happiness, and Wellness
- CULT 375/ENGL 342 Auto/Biography Survey
- GWST 333 Perspectives on Gendered Bodies
- THTR 201 Performer/Creator Resources
- THTR 212 Creativity as Source and Resource
Choose three (3) credits from the following courses:
- CORH 331 Social Writing: Studies in Multimodal Communication
- ANTH 373 The Acquisition of Language and Cultural Practice
- ANTH 377 Sociolinguistics
- ANTH 474 Language Emergence: From Contact to Constructed Languages
- CRWR 472 Editing and Publishing
- CULT 230/ENGL 224 Foundations: Reading Across Borders
- CULT 346/ENGL 384 Human Rights, Literature, and Culture
- GWST 333 Perspectives on Gendered Bodies
- HES 231 Exercise Counseling and Behavioural Modification
- INDG 310 Indigenous Women’s Perspectives: Gender, Nation, State, Resistance
- MGMT 230 Introduction to Organizational Behaviour
- MGMT 410 Leadership in Complex Environments
- MGMT 411 Human Resource Management
- MGMT 412 Negotiations
- PHIL 425 Philosophy of Language
- SOCI 209 Foundations of Sociological Thought
- THTR 201 Performer/Creator Resources
- WRLD 382 Cross-Cultural Travel Narratives
Choose three (3) credits from the following courses:
- CORH 203 Communication in the Sciences
- CORH 204 Communications in the Humanities
- CORH 205 Communication in the Social Sciences
- CORH 206 Communicating Indigeneity
- ANTH 252 Visual Anthropology and New Media
- ANTH 277 Anthropology of Reading and Writing
- APSC 201 Technical Communication
- ARTH 202 The Critical Viewer
- CRWR 210 The Power of Story
- CRWR 310 The Power of Metaphor
- CRWR 472 Editing and Publishing
- CRWR 473 Writing and Community Learning
- CULT 360 Public Memory, Commemoration, and Identity
- DIHU 220 Research with Media in the Humanities
- ECON 310 Writing Economics for the Media
- ECON 351 Women in the Economy
- EESC 398 Technical Communications
- ENGL 203 Topics in Composition
- GEOG/ SUST 201 Introduction to Research in Sustainability and Geography
- GWST 323 Feminist Epistemologies: Gender, Science, and Knowledge
- HES 433 Knowledge Translation in Health and Exercise Sciences
- HINT 408 Cultural Safety in Health: Indigenous Perspectives
- INDG/ ENGL 202 Okanagan Syilx Literatures: Concepts and Frameworks
- INDG 301 Examining an Indigenous Methodology: En’owkinwixw
- INDG 310 Indigenous Women’s Perspectives: Gender, Nation, State, Resistance
- MGMT 220 Introduction to Marketing
- MGMT 230 Introduction to Organizational Behaviour
- MGMT 240 Introduction to Management Communications
- MGMT 410 Leadership in Complex Environments
- MGMT 411 Human Resource Management
- MGMT 414 Managing and Leading Non-Profit and Public Sector Organizations
- PSYO 270 Introduction to Research Methods and Design
- SOCI 209 Foundations of Sociological Thought
- SOCI 320 Cultural Studies in Sociology
- THTR 204/SUST 204 Creative Communication and Engagement
Communication Capstone: Combining different disciplinary strands in a research-centric collaborative project.
Students pursuing any undergraduate degree at UBC Okanagan can register to complete the CORH Certificate, and must have completed all the pre-requisites for the required courses. Students must register via the link below.
Students are expected to contact an academic advisor before enrolling in the Certificate program to assess their eligibility and academic progression. These 15 credits are included in the 120 credits a student is required to complete as part of their program. A student may be required to go above the 120 credits if they have not completed all of the pre-requisites prior to registering for this program.
Up to two courses (6 credits) used to satisfy a program requirement may also be used to satisfy the certificate requirements. They may also complete the Communications and Rhetoric courses to fulfill degree requirements or as electives, with permission from their home faculty/department.
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Student testimonials
COMMUNICATIONS & RHETORIC students at UBC Okanagan speak about the courses they took. They talk about the courses being elctives to complement their degrees, how they expand the scope of their Major and/or Minor, and how they develop academic, professional and cross-cultural communication skills.
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Communication in the Humanities
This is a practice-based course that develops advanced level communication and research skills in the humanities. Understanding expectations as they vary across academic domains can help writers more successfully participate in a range of conversations and communicate effectively within those disciplines.
Students will work on advanced writing skills, while also considering the topic of human migration as a starting point to recognize how different disciplines within the Humanities argue it differently to establish an awareness of audience and style. Research topics will change each year to address diverse academic conversations. (Course: CORH 204)
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Communication in the Sciences
This is a practice-based course that develops advanced level communication and research skills in the sciences.
This course will explore how knowledge is constructed in the physical and natural sciences and communicated through a broad range of genres and contexts within specialist communities in the scientific disciplines, and to non-specialist audiences.
Students will gain the skills necessary to navigate through a variety of genres and discursive modes in science writing, verbally, orally and digitally, and to present information precisely and persuasively.
(Course: CORH 203)
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Communication in the Social Sciences
This is a practice-based course that develops advanced level communication and research skills in the social sciences. In this course, students will gain an understanding of how to effectively communicate the issues pertaining to human and non-human communities, the environment, and sociocultural and sociolinguistic contexts to varied audiences.
Students will generate ways of engaging multiple approaches from a social science communication perspective to respond to these issues. (Course: CORH 205)
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Persuasive Rhetoric, Public Speaking, and Advocacy
Many people fear public speaking, but it is a vital skill in most workplaces and professional contexts. This course delves into the history of rhetoric in public speaking using multimodal platforms (audio, visual, textual, and digital), and historical as well as current contexts and resources. Students will build on their existing skills in public speaking and learn to communicate assertively, persuasively, and ethically within diverse professional and community settings. Recommended prerequisite: THTR 104. Prerequisite: Third-year standing or permission of the instructor.
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Why Communications & Rhetoric?
Communications is vital for talking about pressing social issues, and for thinking about how certain stories, ideas, and perspectives are shared. Rhetoric is embedded in every act of communication through the purpose and persuasive strategy that we weave into our verbal, non-verbal, and creative acts, explains English professor, Aisha Ravindran.
“Being aware of how language is used to persuade, and using it strategically and ethically to achieve your objectives, can make you more productive, confident, and highly respected as an efficient communicator.” She says.
Kerrie Charnley | Indigenous Epistemologies, Indigenous Literacies, Indigenous Land/Ocean-Based Pedagogies and Praxis, Indigenous Storywork, Indigenous Literatures, Indigenous Oral Traditions, Indigenous Languages, Coast/Salish Epistemologies, Multimodal and Multi-sensory Literacies, Cognitive Maps and Geography, Rhetoric, Discourse Analysis, A/r/tography and Arts-Based Research, Writing Education, Autoethnography and Memoir, Mixed Genre Writing, Critical and Transformative Literacy Education.
Anita Chaudhuri | Communication; Rhetoric and Composition; Second language writing; Critical Discourse Analysis.
Marie Loughlin | 16th-century poetry and prose; early modern women’s writing; early modern drama; women’s literature; 16th and 17th-century literature; spiritual autobiography; speculative fiction; feminist and queer theory.
Jordan Stouck | Composition studies; Canadian and Caribbean literature; postcolonial and decolonization studies; scholarship of teaching and learning.
Communication skills are highly valued in most industries and identified as essential employment skills by the Government of Canada, as well as a core expectation from a university degree by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
UBC Okanagan students have noted the value of communication both for their university studies and for their future careers (OPAIR, 2017).