Baylor Offers Course in African-American Communication

Communication from the African-American perspective will be the subject of a new course offered at Baylor University.
The course is currently titled "Contemporary Issues in Public Affairs" but will be called "African-American Communication" in the fall of 1996. The course will be taught by Dr. Mark White, associate professor of communication studies, who is in his first year with the Baylor faculty.
The course focuses on the historical and cultural context of African-American communication, within the African-American church, the political arena and literary expression, White said. He said the unique content of the course makes it of great benefit to non-communications studies majors as well as communications studies majors.
"The distinctives of the African-American voice in history are very rich material and deserve a course of their own," White said. "It is a popular course and people who have taken it seem to feel they have gained something worth learning."
Students in the course analyze the speeches of well-known African-American orators of the 19th and 20th centuries including Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.
The course was created by White three years ago while he was teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before teaching there, White completed his doctorate in rhetoric at the University of California at Berkeley.
For more information, contact White at 755-1621.