Drawing from Mortimer J. Adler's "The Paideia Proposal" and from related publications, this paper identifies aspects of the proposal that relate to basic communication instruction. The first part of the paper summarizes "The Paideia Proposal," pointing out the major points in each of its four sections, which concern schooling…

Rather than relegating Aristotle's "Rhetoric" to history of rhetoric courses, where it is regarded with only an antiquarian interest, it can be used as a practical text for introductory public speaking courses. The advantages would be threefold: (1) its emphasis is essentially on rhetoric as a speaking art rather than an art of…

Recent surveys have shown that the basic speech communication course, designed to introduce students to the discipline and to meet their basic proficiency needs, is alive and growing rapidly. While this is generally good news, a more critical examination reveals a variety of issues in need of resolution. A significant amount of course time is…

Describes how the University of Florida communications arts department interacts with the humanities, social sciences, and business departments. (CRH)

Members of the English and speech faculty at Michigan Technological University combined and coordinated their ideas to find a way to introduce the basics of oral communication into the composition course. The course itself is structured according to the quarter system, in which basic composition is taught in the first term, research methods and…

The philosophy, objectives, and assignments and projects of Ohio University's introductory course in organizational communication and its practicum in organizational communication are described in this paper. After presenting a brief overview of the undergraduate curriculum at the university and its relation to organizational communications, the…