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Why Major in Communication and Media at Allegheny College

Explore the ever-changing field of communication with developed cultural awareness. Working with faculty, you’ll engage with content, discover methods, and gain abilities that will expand your perspectives and prepare you for your career and future.

Unusual Combinations
Students often combine Communication and Media with:

Division

  • Values and Society

Program Type

  • Major
  • Minor

Number of Credits

46 for major24 for minor

Where Communication and Media Alumni Work Today

On Air Personality

CBS Radio

Maria D’Antonio ’10

Grants Management Specialist

Department of Behavioral Health

Yasir Shah ’03

Senior Vice President Development

ALS Association
Ryan Reczek ’03

Health Communications Specialist

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Jacqueline Petty ’03

Owner

Buzzy Photographer
Anita Buzzy Prentiss ’93

Deems, Marketing Lead

Accenture
Macae Lintelman ’10

Director of Leadership Philanthropy

Winchester Thurston School

Alex Neal ’15

Your Four-Year Journey

Communication and Media Overview

Year 1: Understanding

Engage in digital and live storytelling as a Communication and Media major. Try your hand at filmmaking, journalism, and theatre.

Year 2: New Approaches

Analyze how popular culture, civic life, media, politics, and technology shape our society. Ponder the influence of various media.

Year 3: Delving Deeper

Critically reflect on a concept and text of your choosing, whether written or performative, oral or visual, and live or mediated media. Advisors will guide you through different methodologies to reflect critically, which may be applied to your work.

Year 4: The Comp

A research-intensive course marks the final capstone, the Senior Comp. You will connect to historical, cultural, and political contexts for a richer understanding of the original work.

Research and Internships

Allegheny Communication and Media Learn by Doing

Communication and Media students will not only create their own media but analyze it by engaging critically and creatively with the wider culture that surrounds them by:

  • Performing in The Playshop Theatre
  • Creating media with industry-grade video and audio production equipment
  • Collaborating with others by joining a student organization
  • Learning about culture through research and internships

The Playshop Theatre

The Playshop Theatre at Allegheny College has produced over 500 plays, including classic works by Shakespeare to contemporary playwrights like Tom Stoppard or Wendy Wasserstein.

The season is performed in the state-of-the-art Gladys Mullenix Black Theatre in the Vukovich Center for Communication Arts.

Video and Audio Production

The Vukovich Center for Communication Arts boasts a fully equipped TV studio and two editing labs for students to develop their skills with on-sight teaching assistants.

From scriptwriting to directing, be it documentary or narrative, learn traditional production skills and how to take creative liberties so that you are fully prepared for a career beyond Allegheny.

Student Organizations

Get involved with creating and collaborating on media by joining student organizations:

  • AFTV- film/tv
  • Comedy Council- improv
  • Overkill- literary magazine
  • S.E.T.- theatre
  • The Campus- newspaper
  • USITT- theatre
  • WARC 90.3- radio station

Recent Internships

  • KDKA-TV- Broadcasting
  • Democratic National Committee- National political committee
  • UPMC- Medical center
  • Grey Advertising- Marketing agency

Recent Senior Comps

The Senior Comp is the culmination of four years of experience, imagination, and study. It is the moment when you demonstrate what you’ve learned by teaching us something new.

  • Food For Thought: A Documentary Film
  • The Awakening of Sign: An Argument for the Inclusion and Staging of American Sign Language, Deafness, and Signing Characters in Live Theater
  • Customer Experience in Coffee Stores in Vietnam: A Multidisciplinary Research Project
    The Americanized Narration of the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial
  • Museum: Memory Shaping Through Gamification
  • Lighting Design with MA2 Visualization Software
  • QAnon Conspiracies and Narrative Community Building on Social Media
  • Reproductive Exploitation: Abortion Discourse and Neoliberalism in a Post-Roe United States
  • Body Positivity: An Investigation into the (In)visibility of the Female Body
  • Trans Identity in Euphoria

Faculty and Staff

Courtney Bailey

Associate Professor

Ph.D., M.A., Indiana University; B.S.C., Ohio University

Ishita Sinha Roy

Professor

Ph.D., Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California; M.A., B.A., University of Bombay

Frequently Asked Questions About the Communication and Media Program

What type of degree is an Communication and Media major?

Students who major in Communication and Media at Allegheny College will earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Are there any clubs and activities available for Communication and Media students?

Allegheny College Television (ACTV) is the student-run television station within the Department of Communication Arts. Students organize the programming schedules, direct, produce, and host shows that showcase campus and community activities and college talent.

Allegheny Film and Television (AFTV) will provide opportunities for those with a passion or interest in film, movies, and/or the process to learn more about filming, editing, directing, script writing, acting, etc. AFTV will offer workshops, movie screenings, periodic meetings, and speakers. AFTV is committed to offering the students and faculty of Allegheny College a creative output.

Explore all Allegheny College clubs and organizations.

Program Contact

Jon Wiebel

Associate Professor of Communication and Media and Chair

Email814-332-4787