A major in English or communication provides well-rounded preparation for a successful career in a variety of professions, including public relations, management, publishing, law, technical communication, and public service. Skills in oral and written communication, critical thinking, and logical reasoning are central to our professional, civic, and personal relationships and cultivated through study of these two disciplines.

Over the past 30 years, numerous scientific studies have confirmed the long understood central, pragmatic importance of these skills:

• A study by the Indiana Commission on Higher Education found that Indiana employers ranked communication first among employability skills of college graduates applying for positions in professional, technical, management, sales, clerical, and various other occupational categories and second for many other positions.
• In a study conducted by the Midwest College Placement Association, 83 percent of employers ranked oral communication first among the “very important skills and qualities” considered in hiring, with 8 of the remaining 10 involving other communication and reasoning skills.
• A survey published in the ADE Bulletin revealed that graduates from an engineering-oriented university identified writing and critical thinking as the most important workplace skills they had acquired as English majors.

Such studies reinforce the practical importance Greek and Roman thinkers and statesmen attributed to communication and reasoning skills over 2600 years ago.

Whether learned aesthetically from works of literature or conceptually in theories of communication, knowledge and understanding of the dynamics of human experience enhance an individual’s adaptability in a rapidly changing, increasingly diverse, and technologically demanding global economy. The study of English and communication fosters such adaptability in preparation for an exciting future.

Dr. Lisa Toner
Chair, Department of English & Communication
Tri-State University
1 University Avenue
Angola, IN 46703
260.665.4849
tonerl@tristate.edu