This 100-level course introduces students to the communicative power of modern media and also equips them with the practical skills necessary to succeed as modern communicators in various contexts—interpersonal, mediated, and persuasive. Students compose and deliver multiple presentations. Likewise, students respond to multiple case studies in class focused on issues facing modern communicators, as well as critically analyze examples of both productive and unproductive instances of modern communication.

This course can be used to satisfy Eureka College’s general education requirement in Communication.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2025 semester. It will next be offered in the Fall 2025 semester.

This 100-level course introduces students to the complex relationship between media and culture. Multiple media are covered in detail: the Internet and social networking platforms; video games; music, podcasts, and other sonic media; television and film; and newspapers, magazines, and other print media. Students are also introduced to key terms and theories from cultural studies, broadly conceived, including identity and intersectionality; power and privilege; globalization; accessibility; and representation and visibility.

This course can be used to satisfy Eureka College’s general education requirement in Intercultural Understanding.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2025 semester. It will next be offered in the Spring 2026 semester.

This 200-level course invites students to explore, analyze, and reflect on how sports are depicted in contemporary media. Students critically consider the communicative intersections between sports and business, identity, regionalism and nationalism, politics, the environment, and entertainment. This is a seminar-style course that requires purposeful reading, in-class discussion, and analysis of contemporary case studies of sports communication; we focus on a diversity of sports, including football, soccer, basketball, baseball, hockey, and gymnastics (among others).

This course was last offered in the Spring 2025 semester.

This 200-level course introduces students to the cultural, technological, political, educational, health, and environmental impacts of social media and the Internet. Reflecting the lived experiences of students who have grown up in our so-called “social media age,” this course invites participants to think critically about how, and through what media, we communicate online. Specifically, students focus on core concepts such as “network,” “algorithm,” “information,” “circulation,” “digital activism,” and “attention” as means for better understanding the ways that social media function and how Internet culture(s) is/are formed.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2023 semester.

This 200-level course explores the complexities of interpersonal communication within human relationships, including those between families, friends, teammates, employees, and romantic and sexual partners. It introduces students to core theories of interpersonal communication and invites them to apply these theories to a variety of case studies, taken from both real life and from popular culture. Students, by semester’s end, are equipped with a robust understanding of the dexterity and elasticity of relational communication and will be better prepared to be effective communicators in modern society.

This course can be used to satisfy Eureka College’s general education requirement in Health, Fitness, and Well-being.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2022 semester. It will next be offered in the Spring 2026 semester.

Video games invite players to make difficult decisions in the face of myriad problems, including monumental challenges (e.g., preventing the destruction of the planet), community issues (e.g., how to save a village’s agricultural industry), and everyday concerns (e.g., how to find one’s missing keys). This 200-level course introduces students to interdisciplinary scholarship on both video games and problem solving. Students participate in a weekly video game lab that tasks them with facing, resolving, and reflecting on selected games’ simulated problems and their implications for contemporary society.

This course can be used to satisfy Eureka College’s general education requirement in Analytical Inquiry and Problem Solving.

This course was last offered in the Fall 2024 semester. It will next be offered in the Fall 2025 semester.

This 200-level course introduces students to the communicative theories and practices of organizations. Types of organizations covered in this course include, but are not limited to: companies, both small businesses and major corporations; churches, synagogues, mosques, and other faith institutions; athletic teams; and social movements and other community initiatives. Students leave this course with a more developed and refined skillset that allows them to more effectively communicate within diverse organizations and, in doing so, to also better negotiate the complex professional, ethical, relational, and other issues that regularly arise within organizational settings.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2023 semester.

Gender and sexuality are foundational aspects of the human experience. Both shape identity, inform the ways that we communicate, and are reflected in the media we consume. This 200-level course introduces students to core communication and media theories, terms, and events related to gender and sexuality, including those developed by feminist and queer scholars. Likewise, students review the histories of the feminist and LGBTQ+ social movements from a communication and media studies perspective and discuss their enduring relevance today. 

This course can be used to satisfy Eureka College’s general education requirement in Analytical Inquiry and Problem Solving.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2024 semester.

This upper-division, 300-level course offers an in-depth and intensive exploration of the breadth of communication and media theory. Primary topics include, but are not limited to: the interdisciplinary study of communication and media; the historical evolution of mass media; the relationship between communication, media, and culture; media structures and economics; globalization’s impact on communication and media; genres and audiences; media effects; and the future of communication and media studies. Attention is given to both social scientific and humanistic approaches.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2024 semester. It will next be offered in the Spring 2026 semester.

This upper-division, 300-level course offers students an advanced study of foundational theories, concepts, and case studies of communication and media ethics. Particular attention is given to classical and contemporary theories of argumentation and reasoning in the service of both refining their own practices as ethical communicators and developing their skillsets as rhetorical and media critics. Students are introduced to the work of Plato, Aristotle, Toulmin, Weaver, Burke, and others.

This course was last offered in the Fall 2024 semester. It will next be offered in the Fall 2026 semester.

This introductory, 100-level seminar course is the anchor course for a FIG (First-Year Interest Group) oriented around Healthcare and Leadership. While open to all interested first-year students, this course and FIG have been designed in particular for students interested in pursuing careers in healthcare. This course offers an introduction to health communication. It will cover core theories and practices related to interpersonal, intrapersonal, organizational, rhetorical, and digital communication within health contexts. Particular attention will be given to provider-patient communication as well as to analysis of healthcare messages in media. This course will also introduce students to life at Eureka College, including strategies for academic and professional success.

This course can be used to satisfy Eureka College’s general education requirement in Justice and Civic Responsibility.

This course will next be offered in the Fall 2025 semester.

This 400-level senior seminar offers an intensive consideration of ethics through a sustained focus on the complexities of time and attention. This course calls upon students to reflect on today’s society and it’s state of incessant and unrelenting “nowness.” Additional conversations attune to how time and attention have become subjected to new expectations in the workplace, new pressures in our interpersonal relationships, and a numbness wrought by a 24/7 news cycle. All of this, this course suggests, has led to a profound state of precarity and exhaustion. Students leave this course with a refined sense of the complexities of time and attention and, in particular, with a more nuanced understanding of the ethical issues raised by our era’s approach to both time and attention.

This course can be used to satisfy Eureka College’s general education requirement in Ethical Reasoning.

This course was last offered in the Fall 2024 semester.

This 100-level introductory course surveys leadership theories and practices. Particular attention is given to leadership styles, development of successful leadership skills, the construction of positive organizational climates, successful communication of vision, negotiation of power and bias, management of conflict, and avoidance of destructive leadership behaviors. Students are introduced to leaders from a diversity of cultural backgrounds and identities, including those of various nationalities, genders, sexual orientations, races, ages, and abilities.

This course can be used to satisfy Eureka College’s general education requirement in Intercultural Understanding.

This course was last offered in the Fall 2024 semester. It will next be offered in the Fall 2025 semester.

This 200-level course introduces students to core issues, theories, and practices of digital leadership, including the effective use of communication within digital platforms such as email, texting, and social media. Students also consider the successes and failures of multiple digital leaders and companies. This course takes seriously the role that digital media and technology play in leadership today. Students are invited to critically review their own use of such media and technologies in order to refine their leadership for the future. Multiple presentations are given, including analyses of students’ own digital leadership and that of others.

This course can be used to satisfy Eureka College’s general education requirement in Communication.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2024 semester. It will next be offered in the Spring 2026 semester.

This upper-division, 300-level course offers an intensive study of the complexities and challenges of diversity and inclusion for contemporary leaders. Students are introduced to and are asked to apply scholarship on identity, power, bias, and intersectionality to their work as leaders on and off campus. Particular attention is paid to the ways that leadership is informed and complicated by our racial and ethnic identities, genders, sexualities, religions, classes, ages, and dis/abilities. Students are invited to reflect on and analyze leadership through attention to media and leaders’ communication across varied languages, codes, and behaviors. Likewise, students are tasked with engaging the complexities of power structures, hierarchies, and ideologies.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2025 semester.

This capstone, 400-level course is designed to assist students in refining a portfolio of their work and utilizing that work to successfully position themselves as leaders while preparing to enter the job market, apply for and attend graduate school, join the military, or whatever alternative plans they have for life after Eureka College. Students meet weekly with the instructor to discuss their work, to prepare their portfolio, and to revise their professional documents (resume, cover letters, etc.) in light of their understanding of leadership theory and practice. Finally, this course provides students with opportunities for mock interviews, both via video conferencing technologies and in-person.

This course was last offered in the Spring 2025 semester. It will next be offered in the Spring 2026 semester.