12-02-2024
The ability to communicate well in the workplace is an essential skill in today’s business world. Unfortunately, many people do not develop the skills necessary to be effective communicators, to the detriment of their careers and the organizations for which they work.
However, that is not the case at Purdue’s Mitch Daniels School of Business, where undergraduate students are learning how to become people-first communicators while also learning how to use the latest integration tools in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to know how to communicate ethically, effectively and efficiently. Students are learning these skills in MGMT 33500 Strategic Business Writing, a course developed in 2021 by Kasie Roberson, a clinical assistant professor of business communication and associate director of outreach and coaching for the Center for Working Well, who today was named a 2024 Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professor by Poets&Quants. In addition to Roberson’s Poets&Quants honor, her classroom excellence was recognized earlier this year with the 2024 Teaching Excellence Award from the Daniels School.
Roberson’s Strategic Business Writing started with a pilot course in Spring 2021 and has grown to 26 sections being offered across four faculty members this year. More growth is anticipated next year when the course will expand up to 35 sections taught by five faculty members. Since its inception, the class has explored the people-first skills of audience analysis, emotional intelligence, critical thinking and problem-solving, building connection and trust, and communication ethics. In 2023, students began learning how to use AI as a communication tool to help improve their own communication and critical thinking. By blending people-first communication skills and the benefits of AI, this course has become a flagship for how to teach business communication skills leaders and companies need to thrive.
Roberson’s important work is moving beyond Purdue University and is starting to be discussed on college campuses across the country through her new undergraduate textbook Strategic Business Writing: A People-First Approach, published in May 2024 by Kendall Hunt. In the book, Roberson captures some of the magic that started in the writing classroom back in 2021 and that continues today.
Building people-first communication skills and using AI is about blending core communication fundamentals with new technology that can expand the horizon of what it means to communicate and lead in the workplace. The Daniels School course aims to teach students to communicate well in the workplace. Good communicators make better leaders. Better leaders create better workplaces, boosting their companies' profits.
