The College of Communications is the largest ACEJMC-accredited
program in the country. Established in 1985 as the School of Communications, the program was given college status in 1995 and remains one of the fastest-growing colleges at Penn State.

During 2005-2006, enrollment surged to nearly 3,500 system wide, with about 2,800 students at the University Park campus.

The College is home to four departments: Advertising/Public Relations;
Film-Video and Media Studies; Journalism; and Telecommunications. In addition, the College offers five undergraduate majors (advertising/public relations, film-video, journalism, media studies and telecommunications), master’s degree programs in media studies and telecommunications studies and a Ph.D. program in mass communications with four distinct and flexible tracks—international communication, media effects, communications law and policy and political/cultural communication studies.

The faculty of the College is noted for its strong blend of professional and academic backgrounds and is dedicated to excellence in teaching, research and service. Its strength is further enhanced by three endowed faculty positions: the Foster Professorship in Communications; the Pioneers Chair in Cable Telecommunications; and the Palmer Chair in Telecommunications Studies and Law.

Faculty and students explore social, cultural and policy issues through
programs and research conducted by the Center for Sports Journalism, Institute for Information Policy, Jimirro Center for the Study of Media Influence, Arthur Page Center, Media Effects Research Laboratory and the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment.

For four consecutive years, the College has earned top-10 finishes in both the intercollegiate writing and intercollegiate broadcast news portions of the annual William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program. Also, Penn State was tied for first nationally in 2005 with 11 students selected for the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund Internship Program. An on-campus training center for the program was established in 2004.

The College’s four-year graduation rate for the most recent cohort of students for whom statistics are available is 83 percent, the second-highest mark of any of the 11 colleges at the University Park campus. Incoming freshman for Fall 2005 averaged 1,211 on the SAT and a 3.94 GPA.

Carnegie Building

College Video
A look at the College, its
programs and its people.