School of Communication

 Northwestern University’s School of Communication began in 1878 as a single elocution course offered by Robert Cumnock, a visionary Scottish immigrant. Cumnock proceeded to develop this course into a school, originally named the School of Oratory, and became its first dean. The school grew so rapidly that by 1895 it occupied its own new building, Annie May Swift Hall.   

With expansion of its offerings, the school was renamed the School of Speech in 1921. That same year saw the establishment of a four-year bachelor’s degree program, and the following year a master’s program was added. Distinct curricular disciplines began to develop, eventually evolving into the school’s five departments: public speaking, now communication studies; theatre; interpretation, now performance studies; speech re-education, now communication sciences and disorders; and radio, now radio/television/film.

The school’s first speech clinic was founded in 1928 and, along with programs in theatre, children’s theatre, and debate, soon began to achieve national prominence. Beginning in the 1940s, the interpretation faculty developed new and widely influential approaches to dramatizing literature. The school’s student-run radio station, WNUR, debuted in 1950 and went on to become the largest such operation in the country.

In 1972 the Frances Searle Building united the school’s communication science and disorders clinics, classrooms, and research labs under one roof. Eight years later the Theatre and Interpretation Center was completed, housing four theaters as well as rehearsal rooms, costume and scene shops, and the Marjorie Ward Marshall Dance Center. John J. Louis Hall, a state-of-the-art media production facility, opened in 1991.

The school’s graduates have achieved prominence in a wide range of fields, from politics and broadcasting to medicine and law. Numerous Tony, Oscar, and Emmy awards and nominations testify to alumni success in acting, directing, and writing.

Recent decades have seen the advent of innovative academic programs, including undergraduate certificates in music theatre and creative writing for the media, the management-focused master of science in communication, the MFA in writing for the screen and stage, and the doctorate in audiology. With the curriculum expanding to encompass rapidly evolving 21st-century communication technologies, the school was renamed the School of Communication in 2002. Extending its reach halfway around the globe, in 2008 the school began offering a degree program at Northwestern’s new branch campus in Qatar.