UWM College of Letters and Science
College of Letters and Science Faculty Document No. 618
April 11, 2002

Recommedation of the Department of Communication and the Graduate Program Committee to Establish a Graduate Certificate in Rhetorical Leadership


  1. Program Identification


    2. 1.1   Title of Proposed Graduate Certificate: Rhetorical Leadership
    1.2 Department Sponsoring the Certificate: Communication
    1.3 School or College: Letters and Science/Graduate School
    1.4 Timetable for Initiation:
    2001 - Internal Department Proposal Development and Review
    2001-2 - Proposal/CARs forwarded to Graduate School and L&S
    2002-3 - Promotion and initial admissions to "Rhetorical Leadership" Graduate Certificate Program

    The proposed timeline involves using academic year 2001-2 for hiring into two already approved lines (one replacement hire and one new), ushering the certificate proposal through the approval process, and approval and development of three new graduate courses ("Rhetorical Leadership and Ethics;" "Argumentation in Theory and Practice;" and "Rhetorics of Constituting Community and Social Controversy"). At this point, the replacement hire has been made and the new position is on hold, but we anticipate that the search will be reactivated next year, if not again this year. This timeline makes it possible for the first certificate students to graduate in Spring 2004 (with or without M.A.s), without compromising our existing undergraduate and graduate curriculum.

  2. Rationale


    3. This certificate program assumes that most successful leaders are developed, not born. By systematically teaching aspiring leaders an integrated core of rhetorical knowledge, practices, and attitudes, it equips them for leading effectively in today's flexible civic, religious, social action, business, and educational contexts. The plan increases graduate enrollments, serves the larger community, and fulfills an urban research university's goals.

    "Leadership" is a highly valued, yet perpetually scarce phenomenon in all areas requiring coordinated action: civil society, professional work, profit and non-profit venues, religious and social action contexts. "Leadership inevitably requires using power to influence the thoughts and actions of other people," wrote Zaleznick (1977, p. 67). Athough every age claims that good leaders are in short supply, what constitutes good leadership changes with the social, political, and technical conditions. While commentators throughout history have lamented the relative lack of skillful leaders, leadership's importance is especially great in contexts that lack rigid hierarchical structures and information control. In such ambiguous contexts, catalyzing joint action depends on motivating and empowering others rather than on exercising established authority or selectively limiting information access. Under twenty-first century conditions, leadership is a function "that is everybody's business," and most individuals will be called upon to galvanize people toward common goals and actions in one arena or another of daily life (Morse, 1992, pp. 72-73). Contemporary circumstances require capable leaders "who may or may not have positions of authority, but who inspire and motivate followers through persuasion, example, and empowerment, not through command and control" (Bryson and Crosby, 1992, p. 21). In a world where no one organization or institution is "in charge," where power is shared, and where responsibility and information are diffused, the potential leader's challenge is to find ways to facilitate wise shared choices and coordinate joint action (Bryson and Crosby, 1992, pp. xi, 4). Training in rhetoric, the ways in which symbols influence people and so create and exercise power, is key to leading effectively in such circumstances.

    Critical management and analysis of meaning--and the preparation to recognize and seize the rhetorical moment--is the essence of leadership, argued Fairhurst and Sarr (1996, pp. 2, 10). The millennia-long rhetorical tradition theoretically grounds and pragmatically develops the demonstrable teachability of such skills. Comprehensive rhetorical training for responsible, effective leadership under current conditions grows from a humanistic heritage. Such leadership preparation cultivates understanding and facility through exemplars, practice, and an ever-broadening range of the symbolic possibilities that might cohere or be reconfigured when one faces future challenges. The rhetorical approach also is not wed to a single leadership arena (e.g., business, politics, religion). As renown scholar Thomas O. Sloane noted, rhetorical education at its best resists unjust "coercion through a liberalizing of the mind;" this liberalization is achieved in part "by teaching the willingness and the wit to argue both or for that matter all sides, never avoiding the advocacy of the very side the dogmatics would suppress." He concluded, "[T]he purpose of the humanities is not the pursuit of philosophical truth but skill in the liberalizing uses of rhetorical thought" (1989, p. 472). Contrary to lay perceptions, those without sustained, theoretically grounded rhetorical training are more likely to manipulate decision-making dogmatically than those with it.

    Recent leadership education models have tended to de-emphasize the humanities and a rounded practical view of both the negatives and positives of leadership (and its professional and civic embodiments) in favor of models rooted in social science, business, the professions, or one-dimensional, but "best-selling" how-to books. The proposed program offers a unique, exclusively humanities-centered alternative with an extensive, multi-faceted scholarly tradition related to practicing leadership. "Rhetoric" is the humanistic branch of Communication focused specifically, in Berlin's words, "on the ways in which language is involved in shaping all the features of our experience. The study of rhetoric is necessary, then, in order that we may intentionally direct this process rather than be unconsciously controlled by it" (1987, p. 166).

    Even today, many best-sellers that purportedly equip readers to lead fall into one of two broad categories. First, there are those that hit upon and present, as "new," some (renamed) fragment of the rhetorical tradition (e.g., critically "reading" rhetorical situations; establishing credibility through comportment rather than reputation). While somewhat useful, such popular treatments essentially re-invent the wheel, but without the larger theoretical grounding that would contextualize the notion and make it fully usable. Absent a working knowledge of rhetoric's rich history, all improvements on, qualifications or refutations of, and symbolic alternatives to that concept are ignored. Additionally, when isolated from its theoretical underpinnings, even the most well-explained fragment loses the very flexibility that makes rhetorical concepts valuable to potential leaders. Usually, these popular books reduce the notion to a "how to" list that does not vary by situation. Since effective leadership and rhetoric turn on both appreciation for situational variations and preparation to adapt repeatedly, this treatment inherently blunts the concept's effectiveness by generalizing to make it context-free. Aspiring leaders would be better prepared by learning these concepts within a systematic rhetorical program that includes practice, insists on attention to fluid situational contexts, and increases adaptability through familiarity with a range of time-tested alternatives.

    Second are the popular manuals that claim to teach "leadership," but instead promote "management" skills. By definition, "managers" are different than "leaders," though people holding managerial positions can be leaders. According to Harvard Business Review, while "managers" conserve and enable the present system, leaders are "active instead of reactive, shaping ideas instead of responding to them. ...Where managers act to limit choices, leaders work in the opposite direction, to develop fresh approaches to long-standing problems and to open issues for new options" (Zaleznik, 1977, pp. 71-72). Thus, managers act as technicians responsible for meshing discordant views in the service of the existing system. As Zaleznik declared, Machiavelli wrote for managers, not leaders (1977, p. 71). Via training in rhetorical theory and practice, potential leaders can develop vision, imagination, and ability to generate and evaluate as-yet-unrealized options.

    Prospective leaders venturing into today's socio-cultural environment would benefit from an understanding of rhetoric's philosophical and communicative theory grounding leadership-in-action. Effective leaders require many tools to lead as well as wisdom and practice to know when and how to apply those tools. This wisdom comes from a critical, reflective understanding of the practice and theory behind responsibly fostering agreement or coalition, where possible, and focusing productive disagreement, when needed, in a democratic society. Furthermore, good leadership is predicated on an understanding of the public, considered at all levels, within which leaders will seek to articulate mutual identification and shared interests. For nearly three thousand years, the academic discipline of rhetoric has taken as its province these very concerns, and it therefore is particularly well-suited for the pedagogical endeavor of teaching leadership. Just as the great democratic leaders of ancient Athens turned to the rhetorical arts for an understanding of how to lead wisely and well in their time, so can rhetoric, in the humanistic tradition, provide a course of study that equips contemporary students with the practical skills and critically reflective tendencies to become effective, considerate leaders for today's dynamic conditions.

    Rhetoric, a humanistic and practical art with an established tradition, is the academic focus most likely to develop effective leaders in practice. This 15-credit certificate program's tight, thoroughly rhetorical focus gives it both intellectual integrity and practical marketability. There is no comparable humanities program currently available to either degree-seeking or non-degree post-baccalaureate students. The "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate could be earned either independently or as part of a Communication graduate degree.

  3. Institutional Context


    4. 3.1   Relationship to Mission of Institution

    By better equipping potential leaders for today's variety of shared-power venues, the proposed "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate program serves individual students, Wisconsin's need for effective leaders in multiple sectors, and UWM's larger mission, as articulated in the "Milwaukee Idea." It fits UWM's commitment to provide the Milwaukee community and the state with practical, yet theoretically well-grounded, programs that are at once coherent and flexible.

    3.2   Impact on Other UWM Programs

    The proposed program will complement existing UWM programs. It offers leadership pedagogy from a humanities perspective that students in Education or Business leadership programs might find a useful supplement, but that does not duplicate anything currently offered. Conversely, degree-seeking students who earn the certificate as part of a Communication graduate degree might take a complementary leadership course from Education or Business or a complementary rhetoric course from English as an elective toward the Communication degree. Such cross-disciplinary traffic should contribute to graduate enrollments in these schools or departments without taxing their current resources or affecting their current curricula.

    The greatest potential impacts, both positive and negative, are on the existing Communication programs. If successful, the proposal puts additional demands on the existing rhetoric faculty by expanding the range of courses they need to offer regularly and the number of post-baccalaureate students they serve. The "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate will not replace, but supplement and enhance, the Communication Department's current graduate program in rhetoric. We will continue to prepare graduate students whose long-term objectives involve traditional doctoral study or rhetorical history. This commitment involves continuing to offer existing courses vital to such pursuits, but not part of the certificate's curriculum (e.g., Commun 667, "Great American Speakers and Issues," a U/G course that fulfills the L&S "Writing Intensive Course" requirement; Commun 640, "Freedom of Speech;" Commun 835, "Seminar in Public Address;" Commun 860, "Special Topics," often taught with a focus on an important theorist, such as Kenneth Burke, or how rhetoric interacts with larger strands of thought, like feminism or cultural studies).

    The nature of the rhetorical skills and attitudes taught in certificate program classes make them useful, but not sufficient, for the students planning to pursue traditional doctoral work. However, because of rhetoric's process orientation, many of the same classes could serve the overlapping needs of such distinct students, just as they simultaneously prepare leaders for a variety of different arenas. With the addition of three proposed graduate courses and hires that already have been approved (completed replacement hire Bill Keith and one approved Assistant-level line currently on hold), the Communication Department could serve: 1) non-degree students interested only in the 15-credit "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate; 2) M.A. students preparing for doctoral study in rhetoric, who want some but not all of the classes incorporated into the certificate program and who need other rhetoric courses not involved in the certificate; and 3) graduate students earning "Rhetorical Leadership" certification as part of their Communication degree.

    To maximize efficient resource use and to give the certificate its coherent focus, the Rhetorical Leadership program draws largely on established courses or those that already have CARs in process and can serve multiple constituencies: 1) a seminar entitled "Rhetorical Leadership and Ethics" (Commun 772); 2) an advanced seminar entitled "Rhetorics of Constituting Community and Social Controversy" (Commun 872); and 3) a seminar entitled "Argumentation in Theory and Practice" (Commun 762). (Unlike a typical graduate argumentation seminar, this last offering will integrate theory with practice through a performance component. Its existence does not preclude offering/students taking more traditional graduate seminars in argumentation nor could such coursework substitute for 762.) These new courses would be open and of interest to many students not enrolled in the certificate program, both within the department and beyond it (e.g., students from other departments and schools, including English, Anthropology, Political Science, Business and Education; special students taking just a few credits for personal growth; secondary school teachers fulfilling certification requirements). The result will be additional options for people who might not otherwise plan to return for post-baccalaureate coursework (either because they do not wish to complete an entire degree program or because existing UWM programs do not appeal strongly enough to their interests) and so generate a net increase in enrollments.

  4. Need


    5. Good leaders are always in short supply. As argued in the rationale section, contemporary trends regarding nearly unlimited information accessibility, diversity, mobility, and dissolving channels of authority mark the need for a particular type of leader: one thoroughly trained in rhetoric. In 1998, Astin also reported growing support on the part of public and private agencies for academe to play a larger role in cultivating wider civic engagement (1998, p. 18). As Wisconsin's largest urban area, Milwaukee needs well-trained leaders in many sectors: social action, business, non-profit, government, education, religion, politics, and civic life generally. This program will help develop new leaders and advance the skills of part-time post-baccalaureate students who already hold positions of responsibility. Because it can be pursued as a non-degree certificate or as part of a Communication M.A., this program is tailored to attract Milwaukee's non-traditional students as well as its traditional ones.

  5. Program Description and Evaluation

    6. 5.1   Description
    5.1.1   Brief Narrative Description

    The "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate program prepares leaders with humanistic knowledge, skills and attitudes through five graduate courses. "Rhetorical Leadership and Ethics" covers rhetoric's role in and potential for responsible leadership in multiple arenas; it is informed by the long history of debate over the legitimacy of studying rhetoric as a means of promoting joint action. "Theories of Rhetorical Communication" introduces certificate students to the nearly three milennia-long theoretical range in the rhetorical tradition. "Communication and Social Order" examines how existing institutions and values get established and "naturalized" using symbolic action and conversely how they can be challenged strategically through rhetoric. The more advanced "Rhetorics of Constituting Community and Social Controversy" addresses explicitly the rhetorical range available to leaders, whether their main goal is constituting communities or promoting change in ways that the existing decision-making channels cannot accommodate. "Argumentation in Theory and Practice" is designed to integrate argumentative theory and practice in ways that are useful for potential leaders; it involves some performance-based learning that requires students to test their preferred theory alternatives in action.

    It is likely the program will attract students with very diverse levels of experience in positions of responsibility. Those with little or no experience will gain some exposure to practical aspects of leadership training through course assignments with an applied focus. Such students also will be encouraged to participate in a relevant internship during the course of their studies. The program will assist student in identifying appropriate internship placements.

    5.1.2   Definition of the Nature of the Program

    "Rhetorical Leadership" is a disciplinary concentration that overlaps with, yet is distinct from, the Communication Department's existing specialty in "Rhetoric/Public Communication." The more specific goal of the certificate program is to bring rhetorical knowledge to bear particularly on the problems of contemporary leadership and to do so in a way that would allow post-baccalaureate students either to specialize without pursuing a full graduate degree or to study Rhetorical Leadership as a specialty within a Communication graduate degree.

    One existing undergraduate/graduate bridge course (Commun 672 "Communication and Social Order") is part of the certificate's 15-credit core. This class already requires that graduate students complete different assignments than undergraduates. Certificate students would have to take the course for graduate credit (or fulfill additional requirements if they previously had taken the course for undergraduate credit) to count toward the "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate. The other four classes in the certificate are graduate-only.

    5.1.3   Level of Program

    This 15-credit certificate will be available at all three possible levels under the following terms:

    1. Post-Baccalaureate - For students who have completed a bachelor's degree, are enrolled for graduate credit, but are not enrolled simultaneously in a graduate degree program. Professional members of the Milwaukee community may be interested in special training and certification in "Rhetorical Leadership" without pursuing a complete, rounded 30-credit graduate degree. Courses required for the certificate: Commun 672, 735, 762, 772, 872. Students may count credits toward a UWM post-baccalaureate certificate and a UWM graduate degree, subject to the Graduate School's transfer policy


    2. Graduate - For students enrolled simultaneously in a graduate degree program. For a Communication student earning the M.A. and the Rhetorical Leadership concentration simultaneously, a sample 30-credit curriculum would include: Commun 672, 735, 762, 772, 872 plus Commun 800 (required for M.A.), 701 (or one of the other two required methods courses required for M.A.) and 9 credits of electives, two of which must come from two Communication specialty areas other than Rhetoric/Public Communication (required for M.A.), and comprehensive exams. By contrast, a graduate student specializing in the Rhetoric/Public Communication specialty area of our department without the certificate concentration may choose some but not all of the certificate classes and select from among rhetoric offerings not included as part of the certificate (e.g., 640 - Freedom of Speech; 667 - Great American Speakers and Issues; 835 - Seminar in Public Address; 860 - Special Topics in Rhetoric, etc.). All degree students-with or without concurrent enrollment in the certificate program-must meet all Communication Department degree requirements. Students formally admitted to and enrolled as graduate students in UWM's Communication program may count all 15 certificate credits toward their UWM Communication graduate degree. Admission to the certificate program does not guarantee subsequent admission to the Communication M.A. program.


    3. Post-Graduate - For students who have completed a master's or doctoral degree, are enrolled for graduate credit, but are not enrolled simultaneously in a graduate degree program. It is conceivable that a student holding a graduate degree and seeking additional advanced training short of another full graduate degree may be interested in special training and certification in "Rhetorical Leadership." Courses required for the certificate: Commun 672, 735, 762, 772, 872. Students may count credits toward a UWM post-graduate certificate and a UWM graduate degree, subject to the Graduate School's transfer policy.

    5.1.4   Learning Objectives and Competencies

    Leading in these contexts requires fluency with a teachable set of rhetorical skills and attitudes, which apply regardless of the specific arena in which one leads (e.g., religion, politics, business, social advocacy, education). The set includes, but is not limited to, the ability to envision a range of plausible symbolic interpretations of an ambiguous situation and the implications of each for motivating a collective response; a curiosity and critical tools for analyzing others' persuasive discourse to gain insight into their larger, symbolically implied perspectives; an ability to create or reveal common ground among diverse interest groups and promote community; an understanding of how existing orders can be effectively maintained or challenged through symbols; a command of rhetorical sensitivity, judgment, and a ready repertoire of rhetorical approaches so that one can adapt "on the spot;" skills to responsibly advocate in a way comprehensible to non-specialists and diverse groups; an appreciation for conflict's intrinsic value in rigorously testing alternatives, promoting productive change, and inspiring united action (rather than as an ill to be "managed"); a respect for the long-term inseparability of ethics and effectiveness in advocacy. From its inception over 2500 years ago, the rhetorical tradition has cultivated the practical and theoretical base for teaching such "portable" leadership skills ("good people speaking well").

    5.1.5   Anticipated Alternative Instructional Mode in Required Integrative Course

    "Argumentation in Theory and Practice" (Communication 762) integrates argumentative theory and practice in ways that are useful for citizen scholars and potential leaders. It involves performance-based learning that requires students to test their preferred argumentation theory alternatives in practice.

    5.2   Curriculum - Courses and Credits

    Communication 672 - Communication and Social Order (existing course) - 3 credits
    The role of communication in both maintaining and challenging social structures and hierarchies.

    Communication 735 - Theories of Rhetorical Communication (existing course) - 3 credits
    Critical study of various humanistic theories of rhetorical communication. Major emphasis on contemporary theories, trends, and concepts.

    Communication 762 - Argumentation in Theory and Practice (new course; integrative course experience for certificate) - 3 credits
    Argumentation theories in a performance-based context to train citizen-scholars. Assumes no prior knowledge of argumentation. Not interchangeable with argumentation theory seminars.

    Communication 772     - Rhetorical Leadership and Ethics (new course) - 3 credits
    Examines the practice of responsible leadership from the humanities-based perspectives of rhetoric.

    Communication 872 - Rhetorics of Constituting Community and Social Controversy (new course) - 3 credits
    Analyzes advanced theories of promoting and disrupting identification or division and social conflict through rhetoric.

    5.3   Admission Requirements and Procedures

    Applicants must have completed a bachelor's degree prior to admission, must have a minimum 2.75 cumulative undergraduate grade point average, and must declare their intent to pursue the certificate before completion of six credits in the certificate sequence. An application or declaration of intent must be filed with the certificate program coordinator and a copy of the form must be sent to the Graduate School, confirming a student's admission to the certificate program. Applicants not already admitted to the Graduate School must file an application with Graduate Student Services. Successful admission to the certificate program does not guarantee admission to the Communication graduate program.

    5.4   Continuing and Exit Requirements

    A minimum cumulative 3.00 grade point average in certificate courses taken at UWM is required.

    For each student who completes the certificate program, the program coordinator will sign and send to the Graduate School a form listing the course number and title, grade and semester of enrollment for all courses that meet certificate program requirements. Certificate completion will be posted on a student's official transcript.

    Students pursuing a "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate without concurrent enrollment in the Communication degree program will have three years from initial enrollment in a certificate course to complete the certificate requirements. Students pursuing a "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate as part of their Communication degree will have the same time limit to complete the "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate requirements as they have for completing the degree program.

    5.5   Allowance for Transfer Credit

    A maximum of 3 credits may be transferred to count toward the certificate program's 15-credit requirements. Transfer credits will be considered only if the applicant can provide ample, acceptable evidence that the course taken is substantially the same as one of the five courses that constitute the certificate program. The Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Committee will make determinations of transferability, and its decision is final.

    5.6   Certificate Conferral

    The certificate will be awarded upon successful completion (i.e., once all grades for the certificate courses taken at UWM are officially recorded and show a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or more) of the certificate program requirements. The Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Coordinator will inform the Graduate School when a student has completed the certificate program and provide a program of study for each student certifying that the completed courses meet the certificate requirements.

    5.7   Program Administration

    The person responsible for the certificate program shall be called the Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Coordinator. The committee responsible for curricular development and review, student advising, transfer credit decisions, etc. shall be called the Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Committee. The Committee shall consist of the Communication Department graduate faculty members whose primary area of research and teaching is rhetoric.

    5.8   Participating Faculty

    Kathryn M. Olson, Associate Professor, Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Coordinator and Chair of the Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Committee

    John Jordan, Assistant Professor, Member of the Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Committee

    William Keith, Associate Professor, Member of the Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Committee

    Anticipated Communication hire (Assistant Professor), already approved for 2002-3 (but currently on hold) and designated within the department for a candidate whose primary area is rhetoric, Member of the Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Committee

  6. Resources


    7. With the one replacement hire already accomplished (Bill Keith, Associate Professor) and assuming that the assistant professor Communication line already approved for 2002-3 (but currently on hold) is reactivated in the next year or so, the certificate program will be feasible within the current resource allocations for the Communication Department. We anticipate that the program-building phase can be accomplished with the three faculty members already in place.

  7. Bulletin Copy


    8. Leadership is a highly valued, yet always scarce resource in all areas requiring coordinated action: civil society, professional work, profit and non-profit venues, religious and social action contexts. Although every age claims that good leaders are in short supply, what constitutes good leadership changes with the social, political, and technical conditions. Under twenty-first century U.S. conditions, leadership is an everyday function "that is everybody's business," and most individuals will be called upon to galvanize people toward common goals and actions in one arena or another of daily life (Morse, 1992, pp. 72-73). Contemporary circumstances require capable leaders who are not set apart or set above and "who may or may not have positions of authority, but who inspire and motivate followers through persuasion, example, and empowerment, not through command and control" (Bryson and Crosby, 1992, p. 21). In a world where no one organization or institution is "in charge," where power is shared, and where responsibility and information are diffused, the potential leader's challenge is to find ways to facilitate wise shared choices and coordinate joint action (Bryson and Crosby, 1992, pp. xi, 4). Training in rhetoric, the ways in which symbols influence people and so create and exercise power, is key to leading effectively in such circumstances.

    Effective leadership requires skill in influencing the thoughts and actions of others and in knowing how to promote change as well as to maintain stability. Critical management and analysis of meaning--and the preparation to recognize and seize the rhetorical moment--is the essence of leadership, argued Fairhurst and Sarr (1996, pp. 2, 10). Cultivating these skills is central to the art of rhetoric. The 2500-year-long rhetorical tradition theoretically grounds and pragmatically develops teachable and "portable" leadership skills. Successful rhetorical training grows from a humanistic heritage. It cultivates understanding and facility through exemplars, practice, and an ever-broadening range of the symbolic possibilities that might cohere or be reconfigured when one faces new challenges. Systematically teaching aspiring leaders an integrated core of rhetorical knowledge, practices, ethics, and attitudes equips them for effectively and responsibly leading in today's flexible civic, religious, social action, business, and educational contexts.

    Communication's "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate program prepares leaders with humanistic knowledge, skills and attitudes through five graduate courses. "Rhetorical Leadership and Ethics" covers rhetoric's role in and potential for responsible leadership in multiple arenas; it is informed by the long history of debate over the legitimacy of studying rhetoric as a means of promoting joint action. "Theories of Rhetorical Communication" introduces certificate students to the vast, nearly three milennia-long theoretical range of the rhetorical tradition. "Communication and Social Order" examines how existing institutions and values get established and "naturalized" using symbolic action and conversely how they can be challenged strategically through rhetoric. The more advanced "Rhetorics of Constituting Community and Social Controversy" addresses explicitly the rhetorical range available to leaders, whether their main goal is constituting communities or promoting change in ways that the existing decision-making channels cannot accommodate. "Argumentation in Theory and Practice" integrates argumentative theory and practice in ways that are useful for potential leaders; it involves some performance-based learning that requires students to test their preferred theory alternatives in action.

    Applicants must have completed a bachelor's degree prior to admission, must have a minimum 2.75 cumulative undergraduate grade point average, and must declare their intent to pursue the certificate before completion of six credits in the certificate sequence. An application or declaration of intent must be filed with the certificate program coordinator, and a copy of the form must be sent to the Graduate School, confirming a student's admission to the certificate program. Applicants not already admitted to the Graduate School must file an application with Graduate Student Services.

    Students must earn a minimum cumulative 3.00 grade point average in certificate courses taken at UWM. Five courses are required:

    Commun 672   Communication and Social Order, 3 cr
    Commun 735   Theories of Rhetorical Communication, 3 cr
    Commun 762   Argumentation in Theory and Practice (Integrative course), 3 cr
    Commun 772   Rhetorical Leadership and Ethics, 3 cr
    Commun 872   Rhetorics of Constituting Communities and Social Controversy, 3 cr
    Students who have little experience in positions of responsibility will be encouraged to participate in a relevant internship during the course of their studies. The program will assist students in identifying appropriate opportunities.

    For each student who completes the certificate program, the certificate program coordinator will sign and send to the Graduate School a form listing the course number and title, grade and semester of enrollment for all courses that meet certificate program requirements. Certificate completion will be posted on a student's official transcript.

    The certificate will be awarded upon successful completion (i.e., once all grades for the certificate courses taken at UWM are officially recorded and show a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or more) of the certificate program requirements. The Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Coordinator will inform the Graduate School when a student has completed the certificate program and provide a program of study for each student certifying that the courses meet the certificate requirements.

    Students pursuing a "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate without concurrent enrollment in the Communication degree program will have three years from initial enrollment in a certificate course to complete the certificate requirements. Students pursuing a "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate as part of their Communication degree will have the same time limit to complete the "Rhetorical Leadership" certificate requirements as they have for completing the degree program.

    A maximum of 3 credits may be transferred to count toward the certificate program's 15-credit requirements. Courses will be considered for transfer into the certificate program only if the applicant can provide ample, acceptable evidence that the course taken is substantially the same as one of the five courses that constitute the certificate program. The Rhetorical Leadership Committee will make such determinations, and its decision is final.

    The Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Coordinator shall be responsible for the day-to-day administration of the Program. Curricular development and review, student advising, transfer credit decisions, etc. shall be overseen by the Rhetorical Leadership Certificate Program Committee. The Committee shall consist of the Communication Department graduate faculty members whose primary area of research and teaching is rhetoric.

    For more information or to apply for the certificate program, please contact the program coordinator.



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