Forum on Ethics & Communication

The Ripon College Forum on Ethics and Communication brings together undergraduate students and renowned scholars to collaboratively analyze the oratory of America’s greatest leaders and to consider unique challenges of communication in the contemporary world.

The College’s #1 ranked Department of Communication is noted for providing students with intensive experience in original research and writing as well as opportunities for outreach via service-learning. The Forum engages senior communication majors in both foci of the program.

Throughout the senior year, students analyze speeches, media and other forms of public discourse, working individually and collaboratively with departmental faculty and a featured guest scholar to refine their analyses. In addition to authoring original critical essays, many of which are accepted for presentation at professional conferences, the senior communication majors write essays designed to engage high school students in reflection on issues of ethics in communication. Their essays become the basis for The Ripon Journal of Ethics and Communication — A Resource for High Schools.

The forum challenges senior communication majors to emerge as leaders, to put lessons learned over four years of course work to practical effect as they interact intellectually with their own faculty and the visiting Forum Scholar, as they organize and produce an educational journal for younger students, and, thus, become role models for the next generation of young scholars.