Policies about GWAR Courses

Attention: The College of Liberal & Creative Arts (LCA) is providing services remotely for students, faculty and staff during the University's ongoing campus closure:

Contacts for Department of Communication Studies | University Updates on COVID-19

Students should be aware of the following department policies for taking GWAR courses:

GWAR is a pre-requisite course for upper division COMM classes meaning students will need to have taken or plan to enroll in a GWAR course before being eligible to take any further COMM classes.

If you are declared a COMM major prior to Fall 2017, you have within the first 8 units of becoming a COMM major to fulfill the GWAR requirement. 

  1. Majors are required to take and pass a GWAR designated course within their first eight upper-division units in the major unless they have already satisfied the upper division writing requirement by taking a GWAR course in another department. Failure to complete this within the first 8 units of becoming a major will result in a registration hold. Instructors can drop any student from their class roster who fails to comply with this policy.
  2. Students must have satisfied English 214 (or its equivalent) prior to taking a GWAR course in Communication Studies.
  3. Students must receive a "C or better" in order to pass a GWAR course.  Once a GWAR course is passed students may not take a second GWAR class in the major.  GWAR instructors can drop any student from their class roster who has already taken and passed a GWAR course, or who is enrolled in another GWAR course concurrently.
  4. Students may not receive credit for taking the same course number as a GWAR and non-GWAR.  For example, a student can not enroll in or receive credit for both COMM 321 and COMM 321-GW.