Degree Details

From corporate leadership and fundraising to communications director, public information officer, or researcher, our fully online Master of Arts in Applied Communication will strengthen your skills and open doors to new opportunities. Our two-year program is meant to serve both working adults/professionals and the traditional student, as we invite students to participate in our mission to foster the co-creation of better social worlds through positive communication.

We engage in this mission by applying communication theory across interpersonal, organizational, and community contexts. Students learn to apply theory to everyday situations in order to improve communication within those situations, using various research methodologies, with an emphasis on qualitative and case study methods.

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At a Glance

Degree: Master of Arts (M.A.) in Applied Communication
Hours: 33
Format: Online
College: College of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, and Education (CHASSE)
Curriculum

Flexible Online Program

Courses are all online in uniquely synchronous and asynchronous formats. Many of our courses are offered synchronously over Zoom, while others are offered in an asynchronous format (completing assignments and watching lectures online in your own time). Required Zoom classes are offered on weekday evenings (after 6 PM) or weekends. Class times are listed in the US Central Time Zone. No matter where you live, or your day-time commitments, you can engage in a mission-driven program focused on practical application.

For international students, be sure to review our FAQS section. All of our courses in our program are offered online, and thus do not meet in-person course requirements for F-1. However, applicants can take online electives in our program if accepted into another face-to-face campus program, such as the MA in Mass Communication, Public Administration, or the NonProfit Leadership Certificate. 

Our program builds community by focusing on three questions:

  • What are we creating in our communication?
  • What do we want to create in our communication?
  • What communication practices will facilitate what we want to create?

Specifically, by the end of our program, we expect students are able to do the following:

  • Build healthy relationships through ethical communication
  • Manage conflict more constructively
  • Analyze how to improve communication within organizations
  • Make recommendations for improving ethical crisis responses within organizations
  • Design experiential training sessions
  • Articulate how to spread innovations to facilitate change

Future Career Opportunities

Our M.A. graduates work in numerous industries in Arkansas and across the country. Many of our graduates go into careers in leadership and management. To support your career development, we will aid you in connecting with our diverse alumni network. Students use our degree for moving into various corporate leadership roles as change agents, both inside organizations and within their communities. Others excel in public relations, fundraising, consulting, and government. Overall, we see our grads start or extend their careers working for local or national corporations, nonprofit organizations, universities, state government agencies, and more!

Early Entry

The Early Entry program allows our top undergraduate students working toward a major or minor in Applied Communication to earn up to 12 hours toward the M.A. while pursuing their B.A. This enables students to complete their graduate degree in a shorter amount of time than the traditional path, and will save up to 36% of the total cost of tuition.

To apply to the Early Entry program, students will need to have completed 75 or more hours of undergraduate coursework, have a 3.2 or higher overall GPA, and hold a 3.2 GPA across COMM 21073 (ACOM 2310), COMM 21173 (ACOM 2311), COMM 32073 (ACOM 3320), and at least one additional departmental elective. We offer only a few Early Entry spots per year and applicants are competitively chosen. If you’re interested in learning more or applying to the Early Entry program, please send the following to the graduate coordinator, Dr. Bailey Blackburn, at [email protected]: a writing sample from an applied communication course you successfully completed over the past year; and a 300-500 word Statement of Purpose that addresses 1) how you see the M.A. program as a good match for your professional and/or academic goals and 2) reflects on your readiness for graduate work (both in workload/time management and writing ability).

Graduate Certificates

Throughout our M.A. program, we identify ways to maximize coursework, electives, and the final project to fit a student’s career goals. Students may therefore concurrently complete a graduate certificate in the following areas alongside their M.A. in Applied Communication. One of these certificates, the Conflict Management Graduate Certificate, is housed within our department and only requires one or two additional courses to complete alongside our M.A.

Conflict Management Certificate – Prepares students to analyze, apply, and engage in constructive conflict management practices, including negotiation, conflict consulting, crisis communication, mediation, listening and civil dialogue, and more. Led by the Applied Communication Department, this program offers critical tools for anyone going into an organizational environment, working with teams, or those entering leadership positions as supervisors, managers, or directors. Email Dr. Bailey Blackburn at [email protected] if you have any questions. This is a fully online certificate program that it is offered as both a main campus program (CMGT-GC, where students have the option of taking courses in a variety of formats, including in-person, Zoom-based synchronous courses, or fully asynchronous courses) and as part of the eLearning online campus (CMOL-GC, where all courses are offered in a fully asynchronous format). If you plan to complete the M.A. in Applied Communication alongside the Conflict Management Graduate Certificate, you will need to apply to the main campus CMGT-GC program, although all of your coursework across both programs will be offered online in both asynchronous and Zoom-based synchronous modalities. 

Nonprofit Management Certificate – Equips executives, directors, and managers of nonprofit organizations with the tools they need to succeed, as well as students interested in the nonprofit sector. This program requires in-person coursework.

Human Resources and Organizational Communication Certificate – Gain specialized knowledge of effective interpersonal communication practices to apply to human resource functions and contexts. This program requires in person coursework.

Learn how to apply to our online MA in Applied Communication program. To begin the program in the Spring semester, applications must be submitted by December 10.  For a Summer start date, priority deadline for applications is April 1 and for a Fall start date, we encourage applicants to have their materials submitted by May 31. For each semester, we will review applications until all spots are filled. 

Learning Outcomes and Goals

Our graduates engage in the departmental mission of fostering the co-creation of better social worlds through positive communication by ethically:

Analyzing Messages to determine what we are creating in our communication. Students learn to apply theoretic models and research methods to better understand communication practices as they occur in real-life contexts.

Setting Communicative Goals to guide what we want to create in our communication. Students offer research-based and theoretically informed recommendations for both professional and personal contexts to better the communication in those contexts.

Influencing Discourse by advocating for communication best practices that will create what we want to be creating in our communication. Students model positive communication practices when productively responding to personal, local, national, and global issues.

Information About Courses