Program Director:   Professor Deborah Sinnreich-Levi

The current economy and rapidly developing global community demand an increasingly refined set of communications skills from professionals. Clarity of expression has become more important than ever to managers, scientists, and engineers as the tools of communication have become ever more sophisticated and more is demanded of professionals at all levels. Communication is an enabling technology and is a critical core competence of all fields.

The Stevens Graduate Certificate in Professional Communications helps participants enhance and develop their skills to better serve their industries. Communication of all kinds—written, oral and web-based—is the sine qua non of today's professional's skill set.

Introductory Course Available

COMM 500: Foundations of Business & Professional Communications

Communications courses count across Institute curricula

• COMM 501 may be used as 960-research credit in any Ph.D. program at Stevens with no special permission.
• All COMM courses may be used as electives in all Institute masters programs with the permission of your advisor.

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To earn the graduate certificate, students will complete four courses:

• COMM 501: Foundations of Technical Communication
  
  
• Two of the following three courses:
  • COMM 502: Professional Presentations
  • COMM 503: Advanced Documentation Techniques
  • COMM 504: Foundations of Business Plan Writing
  
  
• A capstone course on the skills needed in specific industries.

Capstone courses include:

• COMM 530: Writing for Engineers
• COMM 535: Writing for International Marketing
• COMM 540: Foundations in Financial Writing
• COMM 545: Writing for the Health Care Professions
• COMM 550: Writing for the Web
• COMM 555: Writing for Project Management
• COMM 560: Writing for and about the Science Community
• COMM 565: Publicity Writing: Techniques of Packaging Information
• COMM 570: Proposal Writing

Successful completion of all four courses will lead to the graduate certificate. The advantage to our students and their employers to having the 4-course certificate program instead of a stand-alone course is the depth and breadth of expertise graduates will acquire. In today's market, one person must be able to fill the niches once occupied by several employees. Pedagogically, having students take a series of courses will ensure homogeneous class skills. Foundations of Technical Communications is a pre-requisite for the capstone courses. The next two courses have no pre-requisite although the Foundations of Technical Communication course would be useful. Corporate clients might elect to have their employees take a single course, in which case, pre-requisites will be waived.

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Courses are offered on the Stevens campus in Hoboken on weekdays and weekday evenings or on the web via Webcampus. Classes may also be offered at corporate locations: please contact us if you are interested in having a class taught at your company.

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Deborah Sinnreich-Levi, Associate Professor, Program Director Cassie Harris Saurer, Adjunct Lecturer Bronwyn Mills, Adjunct Lecturer Andrew Stein, Adjunct Lecturer Teresa Zigh, Adjunct Lecturer

Faculty who teach in the Graduate Certificate in Professional Communications Program bring an array of expertise to their classes. They hold advanced degrees in a broad spectrum of fields, have published numerous books and articles, and have both taught academia and worked in industry.

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Professor Sinnreich-Levi is the Director of WCI (Writing and Communications at the Institute) as well as of the Samuel, Minerva and David Lee Humanities Resource Center at Stevens Institute of Technology. She has taught all levels of writing for 29 years and been a writing program administrator for over 20 years.

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