Vinita Agarwal
Communication Arts
CMAT 447: International Public Relations-- CMAT 447 Fall 2017 Syllabus
Course Description: International PR (CMAT 447) is one of the fastest growing sectors of public relations as corporations, institutions, and nongovernmental organizations globalize. CMAT 447 provides the knowledge frameworks and critical thinking and analytic skills necessary to prepare the advanced PR student in the successful research, design, implementation, and evaluation of international PR projects. Substantial academic and practical application and engagement is required.
CMAT 445: Digital Public Relations-- CMAT 445 Fall 2017 Syllabus
Course Description: CMAT 445—Digital Public Relations. Designed for the advanced student, the course will teach principles of digital communications management and their application to develop strategy, conduct analytic audience research, design messages and drive behavior, and select from a multitude of digital platforms in achieving their goals and objectives as a digital communications consultant. Students who successfully complete the course will demonstrate a fundamental understanding of leveraging digital communication principles and data-driven audience insight to achieve selected digital engagement goals. CMAT 445 is a web-enhanced course. Scheduled in-class meetings are supplemented as required with online and digitally mediated delivery of course content and assignments, as well as required and/or optional digitally engaged activities following a flipped classroom format. These require basic proficiency with word processing software, digital content management platforms (Wordpress), and an ability and willingness to navigate online modalities (e.g., Twitter, social networks) via desktop and mobile media (e.g., YouTube, Wordpress).
CMAT 465: Communication and Technology-- CMAT 465 Spring 2016 Syllabus
Course Website: https://communicationandtechnology.wordpress.com/
Offered with civic engagement enhancement: Spring 2016
Civic Engagement Assignment: "Technology in the Field". Assignment Link
Course Description:
Students worked in a team-based semester-long project with three community partners to conduct an in-depth observation and critique and evaluation of the utilization of technology in the organizational context of their field partners. As organizational/ community consultants in a field setting, each team was given the charge is to systematically observe technology (in relationship with communication), articulate a research question (to understand how this relationship can best meet organizational goals), identify gaps/need (e.g., which tasks are not being fulfilled optimally, what needs to be done), evaluate implementation of proposed technological solution (i.e., barriers, benefits), and suggest recommendations (i.e., present a technological alternative to address problem as identified). Community organization members visited the classroom at the start of the semester and team members interacted with them systematically through the semester. During the final week of the semester, team members and the community organizational representatives met again in the classroom to share and present their work. Read the student team final field papers in the links below:
Field Sample Paper 1: Wicomico County Library
Field Sample Paper 3: Wicomico County Fire Department
Agarwal's research on service-learning
Agarwal, V. (2016). Mainstreaming disaster-relief service-learning in communication departments: Integrating pedagogy, praxis, and engagement. Journal of the Association for Communication Administration, 35(1), 25–42.