New Harvard Chan School course: The Arts of Communication

This spring, the Center for Health Communication at Harvard Chan School is launching a new 2.5-credit course, SBS 213 | The Arts of Communication, in collaboration with Lawrence Quartana, who teaches a version of this class for the Harvard Kennedy School. We caught up with Dr. Quartana to find out more.

Tell me about your journey in the communication field.

My first job was as a high school science teacher.  Trying to teach adolescents physics and chemistry will force you to confront the complexities of communication.  As I moved on from secondary education to engineering and management consulting, the lessons of effective communication continually reasserted themselves.  I left the consulting world and joined the Communication Program at Wharton, where I designed and taught courses in public speaking for fifteen years.  Teaching MBA students brought me back to my roots in education, and with the help of my colleagues I was able to formalize what I had learned about effective communication from all my experiences.

You have taught “The Arts of Communication” at the Kennedy School for some time – what inspired you to bring it to the Harvard Chan School?

I had several cross-registrants from Chan in my courses at Kennedy.  They were all quite impressive students – eager, open to learning, and all had interesting perspectives from their backgrounds that enriched the course for everyone.  Since Chan students were signing up for my course at Kennedy, I made some inquiries about the possibility of convening the course at Chan and all agreed it was a good idea! Moreover, the pandemic and its aftermath have brought the challenges of public communication into high relief. Chan students will face these challenges directly, and it is critical that they are prepared to contend with them.

Who should consider taking your course?

Any student who anticipates having to persuade others to act or think in a way that is different from how they act and think now would benefit from the course.  This consideration makes the course beneficial to all, but I would add that the course is particularly designed for communication in a more public setting than a small meeting.  Addressing larger audiences introduces considerations of comportment, vocal delivery and verbal choices and composition – each of these items is addressed in the course.

What knowledge and skills should students expect to learn from taking this class?

Essentially, my goal for each student is that they will be able to speak publicly so that what they say will be heard, understood and acted upon. To this end, the course addresses storytelling, framing arguments, vocal delivery, and persuasion. All these elements of speaking will look different from student to student – each student is encouraged to discover the best version of themselves as a public speaker.

What sort of time commitment should students expect?

This will vary a bit from week to week depending on when a student is scheduled to speak, but 2-3 hours per week is a good benchmark. The challenge of the course is personal – speaking clearly requires one to think clearly first. Students will be challenged to examine and articulate their ideas and to face whatever discomfort they may have about speaking in public.