Healing the disciplinary divide between communication and English to secure the future of communication education: a response to forum essays

Abstract

In 2014, the year of the centennial celebration of the National Communication Association (NCA), I (Cheri) facilitated a series of workshops for introductory communication course directors. At one of the workshops, a participant came up to me to ask for advice. He indicated that while he was the coordinator for the introductory communication course, he was housed in a department of English, had no hiring or supervisory authority, and did not have access to train his instructors (most of whom held degrees in English). And while I am not confident that my advice was of any help, I did try to let him know the circumstances were beyond his control. I related to him that as a first-year faculty member in the department of English, he was not in a position to fight a 100-year battle. For it was in 1914 that a group of speech teachers feeling isolated from the National Council of Teachers of English decided to form their own organization, specific to the teaching of speech communication (Braithwaite, 2014). Thus, the National Association of Academic Teachers of Public Speaking (now NCA) was founded. While we gain our disciplinary roots as teachers of public speaking, the interdisciplinary animosity lingers. This culture of isolation between communication and English was amplified by national educational reforms and the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (U.S. Public Law 107–110, 2002). Jennings (2010) highlighted how these mandates created unique challenges for the field of communication education. Jennings noted that as states and teacher-preparation programs moved to meet the requirements of NCLB, many states decided to reduce the number of certification programs by combining similar subject areas. As a result, communication education was subsumed with English Language Arts (ELA). Little did these lawmakers realize that, in essence, they were forcing two “divorced” disciplines to “get back together.” This forced reunion has yielded scant cooperation between English and communication education teacherpreparation programs. As a result of this combined certification, communication education programs were ultimately edged out of ELA as English education programs were not required to offer communication instruction. With the passage of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in 2010, ELA incorporated speaking, listening, and media literacy into the curriculum. Many in communication education were hopeful that the CCSS would revolutionize and renew the value of