Student Resources & Opportunities

Toastmasters International is a non-profit educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of meeting locations. Headquartered in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, the organization has more than 280,000 memberships in 13,500 clubs in 116 countries. Since 1924, Toastmasters International has helped people of all backgrounds become more confident in front of an audience.

The International Communication Association (ICA) is an academic association for scholars interested in the study, teaching and application of all aspects of human and mediated communication. ICA began more than 60 years ago as a small association of U.S. researchers and is now a truly international association with more than 4300 members in over 80 countries. Since 2003, ICA has been officially associated with the United Nations as a nongovernmental association (NGO).

The National Communication Association (NCA) advances communication as the discipline that studies all forms, modes, media and consequences of communication through humanistic, social scientific and aesthetic inquiry. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, the NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems.

The American Communication Association (ACA) is a not-for-profit virtual professional association with actual presence in the world of communication scholars and practitioners. ACA is committed to enabling the effective use of new and evolving technologies to facilitate communication instruction, research, and criticism, and to offering a technologically-supportive venue for all who study the ways in which humans communicate.

The Western States Communication Association (WSCA) is a non-profit 501 c (3) organization. The Association's purpose is to unite people in the Western States who have an academic, lay or professional interest in communication and who want to promote their mutual educational interests. WSCA includes members from Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, and Hawaii as well as from the other 37 states and other countries. We welcome anyone with an interest in communication, academic or applied.

Central States Communication Association (CSCA) is a professional, academic organization of primary and secondary school teachers, students, college and university professors, and communication professionals. The association, which consists of the 13 Midwestern states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, is governed by an Executive Committee and is legislated by its constitution and by-laws. CSCA has 22 Interest Groups, Caucuses, and Sections that promote particular communication areas.

The Southern States Communication Association's (SSCA) purpose is to promote the study, criticism, research, teaching, and application of the artistic, humanistic, and scientific principles of communication. SSCA, a not-for-profit organization, exists for educational, scientific, and literary purposes only.

The Eastern Communication Association (ECA) is the oldest professional communication association in the United States. The organizations first groundbreaking meeting was in 1910 at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Under the title of the Eastern Public Speaking Conference, that first gathering brought together 15 college public speaking professors from five states. ECA continues to innovate as we welcome undergraduate and graduate students, faculty from K-12, and professors from community colleges through the largest universities in a convention that highlights both teaching and research.