Indiana University Department of Communication and Culture Chair's records, 1986-2010, bulk 2003-2010 (2024)

[Item], Indiana University Department of Communication and Culture Chair's records, Collection C476, Indiana University Archives, Bloomington.

Speech courses at Indiana University were originally taught in the Department of English. Professor Lee R. Norvelle took charge of speech education in 1925 when he introduced international debating to IUB, bringing teams from Cambridge, Oxford, and Sydney, Australia to IU. The university then joined the Big Ten debating conference in 1928. In 1931, the Division of Speech was created when faculty adopted new curriculum requirements, directed by Norvelle. In the newly designed curriculum, the Division allowed students to obtain a major or minor in speech, and included courses in dramatics, oral interpretation, public speaking, debating, and speech teacher training.

The Division of Speech first appears as the Department of Speech in the 1946 College of Arts and Sciences Bulletin, and by 1952 it became the Department of Speech and Theatre. Its name changed again in April 1971 when Theatre was dropped, and it again was called the Department of Speech. In 1975, the Department of Speech was divided into two separate departments -- the Department of Speech Communication and the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences. The name of the former was changed in 1998 to the Department of Communication and Culture.

From 1958-1971, Professor J. Jeffrey Auer served as Chair of the Department of Speech and Theatre; from 1971-1975 as the Chair of the Department of Speech; and from 1975-1978 as Chair of the Department of Speech Communication. He continued to teach in the department until 1983 when he retired. In 1978 Professor James R. Andrews was appointed Chair of the Department, and he served until 1993. Professor Robert L. Ivie then served as Chair of the Department from 1993- 2003, when Professor Richard Bauman was appointed Acting Chairperson of the Department of Communication and Culture for the first semester of the school year. Professor Gregory Waller was appointed to the position in 2003, a position he held until 2011. Alexander Doty presently serves as chairperson.

The collection consists of materials created or collected by Gregory Waller during his tenure as chair of the Department of Communication and Culture. The records span 1986-2010 and are organized into four series: Administrative files, Faculty files, Syllabi and Subject files.

The Administrative files series comprises minutes and materials from department meetings, budget planning meetings, and Dr. Waller's various committee responsibilities, including those both inside and outside the department. It contains department regulations, faculty retreats, materials related to the undergraduate and graduate programs, and the charter and promotional materials for the City Lights program, an initiative to provide a permanent venue for free 16mm film screenings of classical world cinema in Bloomington. Building and space plans related to the department's move to a new facility on East Third Street in 2006 are also included.

The Faculty files series includes faculty member files, correspondence relating to faculty research funds, and course and job descriptions along with resumes. Restricted files are indicated as such in the inventory, and are listed where they would fall in the intellectual arrangement of the collection; physically, however, they are located at the end of the collection.

The Syllabi series contains syllabi and a few course materials for courses on media analysis, business and professional speaking, and film studies.

Subject files consist of research notes regarding film and cinema-related holdings in both the Black Film Center/Archive and the Lilly Library at IUB, and notes about content and navigation within the CMCL website. It also includes materials for a proposed grant to restore downtown Bloomington's Buskirk-Chumley Theater in 2005, for which Waller was asked to write a letter of support.

Promotion and tenure dossiers were pulled and destroyed, as the Archives receives these from the Office of Academic Personnel.

Transfer from the Dept. of Communication and Culture, 2012.

Processed by Danielle Emerling.

Completed in 2012

Collection is organized into four series: Administrative files, Faculty files, Syllabi, and Subject files.

Additional records such as newsletters, annual reports, bulletins, and publications may be accessed in the Archives of Institutional Memory

Archived web sites for the Department of Communication and Culture may be included in Archive-It

Related photographs may be available in the University Archives Photographs Database