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Business Communication Program 
Mission Statement | Program Goals | Background

Mission Statement
The mission of the Business Communication Program is to develop the communication skills of CBA graduates. The program is an interdepartmental effort that begins the moment a student arrives at UNI as a pre-business major and extends across the curriculum to introduce, model, and coach the communication behaviors required for competence in the student’s chosen career.

Program Goals

  1. To increase students' motivation to develop their own communication skills.
    • Provide clear standards of communication competence in both general business and major/career specific terms.
    • Offer rewards for students who achieve targeted levels of competence.
    • Hold students accountable for college-wide standards of acceptable communication performance.

    program activities: marketing of website and workshops to student organizations, faculty and individual students with flyers and email

  2. Maximize student use of existing skill-development resources.

    • Insure that course activities are sufficiently requiring that students must utilize communication development resources for success.
    • Insure that students with communication deficiencies are notified and referred to appropriate resources.
    • Insure that faculty and staff advisors are familiar with communication development resources available to students.

    program activities: CBA skill standards and referral resources made available to UNI faculty

  3. Provide appropriate resources for students to engage in independent self-assessment and self-improvement.

    • Provide students with self-assessment opportunities across a full range of communication competencies.
    • Provide opportunities for experimentation and practice within coached environments.
    • Provide students with clear, accurate, directive feedback on developmental progress.
program activities: on-going website content development and development of comprehensive skill assessment center

Background

The CBA's Business Communication Program was established in 1997, making UNI one of very few universities with a business-specific communication program (1).  Both AACSB (2) and NBEA (3) recommend that communication be integrated throughout the business curriculum, and the program is thus designed primarily to support business faculty in their efforts to develop career-related skills in written, presentation, interpersonal, and team communication. 



For addition information contact 

Dale Cyphert, Ph.D., Program Coordinator   
College of Business Administration 
University of Northern Iowa 

1227 W. 27th Street

Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0125 
(319) 273-6150

Dale.Cyphert@uni.edu

(1) Kuiper, S. (1997). Business communication, WAC, and WID: What are the connections? Association for Business Communication, Washington DC.

(2) AACSB. (2001). Standards for accreditation: Business administration and accounting. St. Louis: AACSB.

(3) National Business Education Association. (2001). National standards for business education:  What America's students should know and be able to do in business. Reston, VA: NBEA.