Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric and Media Studies

We study meaning-making and meaning-sharing through rhetoric and media. Our goal is to provide you with effective theoretical and methodological tools for understanding how public messages, images, texts, stories, conversations, and symbols work. Ours is one of the first programs in the country to offer a major that integrates training in film/television studies with training in media and rhetorical analysis.

As an RHMS major you will join an inclusive community that works collaboratively on a challenging curriculum, innovative research, and on applying the things we learn across campus and beyond. RHMS students intern and volunteer in Portland, take their skills into campus activities, and showcase their work at regional and national conferences and festivals.

Lewis & Clark is a private institution with a public conscience, a residential campus with global reach. Students and faculty throughout all three of Lewis & Clark’s schools—the undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Education and Counseling, and the School of Law—pursue new ways of knowing by combining classic liberal learning with pioneering collaboration.

Our students represent the next generation of global thinkers and leaders, unafraid to discard conventional thinking, civic complacency, and outmoded preconceptions. Yet they value what Lewis & Clark offers: an education built from the time-tested elements of careful study, original research, and spirited debate.

So what makes the experience of our students unique? How about the inspiring beauty of our natural setting, on 137 wooded acres in Portland’s southwest hills. Or our rich history and our diverse, multicultural present. Or our commitment to interdisciplinary academic learning, as well as community engagement here in Portland and around the world.