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College of Business
Copeland Hall
Athens, Ohio 45701
740.593.2000
800.833.0484
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Launch of new Center for Professional Communication fosters important skills for business students
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By Carly Bentz, Communications and Marketing Intern, and Julia Marino, Communications and Marketing GA
This fall quarter 2009 marks the launch of the new College of Business Center for Professional Communication, a multifaceted, workshop-based center with a mission to enrich students’ oral and written communication skills.
 The center, which is open to all College of Business undergraduate and graduate students, was developed by Catherine Penrod, director of the new center, and Dr. Theresa Moran, an instructor in the management systems department. Penrod and Moran, whom make up the center’s faculty team, started the center after the course PRCM 150, a business communication class, was removed from the College of Business core curriculum this academic school year. The new center will take a more integrated and hands-on approach to fostering important communication skills for students.
“…We identified a need for continued, intensive communication work with the students where they could get it throughout their whole College of Business career, as opposed to through just one course,” Penrod said.
This fall, the center has worked intensively with Business Cluster students who are currently seeking help improving their oral and written communication skills for their projects and presentations.
Cluster team members Patrick Ayers, a junior majoring in finance and MIS, and Maggie Bihn, junior majoring in accounting, said that they first heard about the center when Penrod and Moran came and spoke to the cluster class at the beginning of the quarter. Thus far, their team has met with Moran and Penrod throughout the completion of their first project, an analysis of the airline industry.
The appointments we’ve made at the center have been very helpful, Ayers said. “We had some questions about formatting and style that we needed to go over.”
“We’ll be going back for every project!” Bihn added.
In addition to offering assistance with class projects, the purpose of the center is to help students develop skills that will “provide them with competitive advantage” as they pursue their professional careers, Penrod said. “Written, oral and listening skills have been repeatedly identified in surveys with employers as the most desirable traits.”
With the help of the center’s two graduate assistants Kelsy Perry and Glen Tieder, Penrod and Moran are available for individual and team consultation. The Center for Professional Communication is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Friday. It is currently located in Copeland 532, but will be moving to a larger space in Copeland 301 in the near future. The center’s faculty team is also available to go into classes upon the request of the faculty to deliver specific modules related to writing and presenting.
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