At the start of the fall 2014 semester, students at Loyola University New Orleans will be able to minor and environmental communications or social media, two new minors being added to the School of Mass Communication.

The minors, which are not open to mass communication majors, are designed to engage students from outside the school and provide them with skills they can use in any field of study.

“We believe that communication is at the core of what everyone does, and we wanted to give students more of an opportunity to learn those skills,” Sonya Duhe, director of the School of Mass Communication, said.

Both new minors will consist of 18 credit hours and are composed of courses that already exist, so no new faculty would need to be hired, Duhe said.

The social media minor will have an obvious focus on social media as well as the basics of multimedia, including courses like photography, videography, social media strategies and more.

The second minor, environmental communications, will have a focus on the communications aspect of environmental issues. The courses required include Covering the Environmental Beat and Environmental Communication.

According to the proposals Duhe submitted to the University Courses and Curriculum Committee, the minors will teach students how to hone their analytical thinking, improve creative communication and provide students with a better understanding of environmental issues and social media.

Duhe is not the only one excited about the new minors. Students, like English Writing Sophomore Niccole Rosell, have already begun expressing interest in the programs.

“I could see myself declaring a social media minor,” Rosell said.

While some students are ready to sign up for the new minors, other students are unsure about the field of social media as teachable material given its near constant state of change.

“An environmental communications minor could be helpful to those who are passionate about environmental issues and seek to combine that with their day job. However, social media is unpredictable,” Tim Nielsen, piano performance junior, said.

 The minors were chosen as a result of a visible rise in enrollment in the classes associated with the fields of study, Duhe said.

“The environmental area is hot. We know that the social media strategies class is filled every semester,” Duhe said. “We are very excited. We think that this is not only a good step for the School of Mass Communication but a great step for all of Loyola.”

Lauren Patton can be reached at [email protected]