Earn your Minor in Rhetoric

The General Education course Rhetoric (RHET:1030) helps develop basic skills in the effective use of language by having students engage with important social controversies and by asking them to analyze and describe the various perspectives on these controversies as well as to craft and advocate their own positions (Description, Analysis, Advocacy).

The Minor in Rhetoric and Persuasion educates students in the responsible, credible, and effective methods to empower them to take active leadership roles in engaging social issues in personal, professional, and communal settings. Conceived for students entering any discipline, field, or career, the vision behind the minor is to provide students with a way of looking at the world as a place open to change and receptive to influence. The minor also develops undergraduates’ skills in a way that helps them to look at themselves as agents capable of improving the world and their place in it.

Our minor aims to professionalize students—whether in their capacity as individual citizens, members of the community, or leaders in the workplace—by guiding them to understand audiences and situations, to use language responsibly and strategically, and to develop the integrity and authority of their own voice.

Requirements for the minor

The undergraduate minor in rhetoric and persuasion requires a minimum of 15 semester hours, including 12 semester hours earned in courses taken at the University of Iowa and at least 12 semester hours earned in Department of Rhetoric courses. Students must maintain a grade-point average (GPA) of at least 2.00 in all courses for the minor and in all UI courses for the minor. Course work in the minor may not be taken pass/nonpass.

The minor educates students in responsible, credible, and effective methods to take active leadership roles in engaging social issues in personal, professional, and communal settings. The program empowers students to look at the world as a place open to change and receptive to influence and to view themselves as agents capable of improving the world and their place in it. The minor aims to professionalize students—whether in their capacity as individual citizens, members of the community, or leaders in the workplace—by guiding them to understand audiences and situations, to use language responsibly and strategically, and to develop the integrity and authority of their own voice.

The minor in rhetoric and persuasion requires the following course work.