Marketing Communication, MA
Director: Heather Harris, MFA
Email: hharris@sbu.edu
Website: https://www.sbu.edu/academics/master-of-arts-in-communication
Mission
We are committed to preparing students to be extraordinary and ethical gatherers, analyzers, designers, and communicators of information to diverse audiences. We value creativity and analysis equally, and prepare students to use symphonic thinking in the quest for creative solutions to communications problems. Operating with a reverence for freedom of expression, in an open web environment, we emphasize an understanding our social impact worldwide as professional communicators. We promote personal responsibility, accuracy, professional standards, diversity and ethical principles in all that we do.
Program Overview
The Jandoli School's Master of Arts in Marketing Communication graduate program is designed for people with a desire to master and lead the growing, dynamic, broad spectrum of contemporary marketing communication. It builds skill in integrating the development and management of all marketing communication tools across all mediums to build positive, ethical and lasting relationships with consumers, stakeholders and other audiences, with empathy and mindfulness of diversity of audience. The Jandoli School’s Master of Arts in Marketing Communication graduate program is both a creative and an analytical endeavor that is structured as: problem definition, problem solution, and execution. Students graduate with vision, skills and professionalism required to identify a communication problem, strategically plan a solution utilizing traditional, digital, and experiential marketing communication approaches, and the ability to measure and make meaning from data and analytics to assess the results.
Completion Time and Program Structure
Online Only
The Marketing Communication master's program is fully online and students work at their own pace to complete the program in a timeframe that best meets their individual needs. On average students complete the program in 18 - 24 months. Courses are offered over seven-week periods during the fall, spring and summer semesters.
Admission Requirements
To be admitted into the Master of Arts in Marketing Communication program students must present:
- Completed application for admission
- Undergraduate transcripts with a GPA of 2.8 or higher
- Two letters of recommendation (one from an employer or professor)
- Submission of an essay on specified topic
- Additional information, if requested by program director
Graduation Criteria
To be awarded the Master of Arts in Marketing Communication, a student will be evaluated on:
- A cumulative GPA of at least 3.0
- Completion of all 33 credits
- Successful defense of a comprehensive original Communications Campaign Plan focused on your area of specialization (submitted in lieu of a comprehensive exam or thesis.)
* At the conclusion of the problem definition phase culminating with COM 555 Embracing Research: Fieldwork - students must pass a mid-point review where they summarize their learning from the problem definition phase. Upon approval of the mid-point committee, students proceed to problem solution phase of the program.
Program Outcomes
Upon completion of the Master of Arts in Marketing Communication Program students should be able to:
Conceptual Thinking Skills
- Generate original ideas and solutions through multiple ideation processes that create high-interest content and high-impact consumer experiences
- Connect diverse and seemingly separate elements, discovered through empathetic research, to create something new
- Leverage evolutionary thinking to identify trends and opportunities to deliver communication objectives
- Design and execute projects with both traditional and digital media utilizing appropriate aesthetic choices and software applications.
Strategic Thinking Skills
- Utilize symphonic thinking to summarize communications problem(s) based on information gathered from multiple sources
- Identify, observe, gather, assess, and record relevant information, by methods appropriate to the communications profession, for a brand story/message that displays empathy for audience
- Apply strategic elements of communications, both traditional and digital mediums, focused on audience engagement
- Create media-rich communications plans that utilize goals, strategies, tactics approach to achieve objectives
- Develop appropriate measures/analytics to determine effectiveness of strategies
- Judge the effectiveness of primary data, secondary data and campaign performance measures/analytics and apply the meaning of the data in context to overall campaign objectives.
Visual & Written Communication Skills
- Create sensory (high touch) consumer experiences across all major consumer touch points
- Communicate concepts and ideas for a campaign using industry terminology, both verbally and in writing
- Visualize story/message ideas that displays empathy for target audiences
- Design, format and distribute content across all major media platforms with sensitivity to basic design principles
- Demonstrate an understanding of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and other forms of diversity in relation to mediated messages
Professional Readiness
- Clearly and confidently present and defend a communications plan before a panel of professionals
- Critically evaluate their own work and that of others for accuracy, fairness and clarity
- Demonstrate mastery of written and verbal persuasive communication skills using appropriate style and grammatical correctness
- Submit work according to professional presentation standards using appropriate tools and technologies for communication professions.
- Demonstrate and uphold professional ethical principles in communications conduct in pursuit of truth, accuracy, fairness and diversity in a free press environment.
The MA in Marketing Communication from St. Bonaventure was developed for students who come from an array of undergraduate backgrounds. Our curriculum is carefully designed to reflect the real world where information, data and communications interact, helping you cultivate interdisciplinary knowledge.
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Core Curriculum | 18 | |
| FINDING YOUR VOICE: INTRO TO MARKETING COMMUNICATION | ||
| EMBRACING ANALYSIS: MAKING MEANING FROM DATA | ||
| EMBRACING RESEARCH: MARKETING COMMUNICATION RESEARCH | ||
| EMBRACING THE AUDIENCE:EMPATHY & ETHICS | ||
| EMBRACING STRATEGIC THINKING:MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLANNING | ||
| INTEGRATING DIGITAL MEDIA, MOBILE & EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES | ||
| Custom Specialization - Pick any 4 courses | 12 | |
| EMBRACING THE BRAND: STRATEGY AND EXECUTION | ||
| INTEGRATING CREATIVE: STRATEGY & DESIGN | ||
| INTEGRATING PR IN A GLOBAL MARKET | ||
| INTEGRATING CONTENT CREATION: VISUAL, COPY & OPTIMIZATION | ||
| INTEGRATING VISUALS: COMMUNICATION DESIGN | ||
| LEADERSHIP AND VALUES | ||
| LEADERSHIP AND DIVERSITY | ||
| ETHICAL LEADERSHIP & INCLUSION | ||
| MARKETING MANAGEMENT | ||
| BUSINESS ETHICS | ||
| VISUAL COMMUNICATION | ||
| Capstone | 3 | |
| MASTERING THE RESEARCH: FIELDWORK | ||
| MASTERING THE FIELD: THESIS | ||
| MASTERING THE PROJECT: FINAL DEFENSE | ||
| Total Credits | 33 | |