Professor writing on a glass wall

Student Opportunities


Beyond the Classroom

Besides encouraging students to study off-campus , the Rhetoric department offers a number of opportunities to learn outside the classroom, from service-learning units in classes to courses held entirely off-campus.

  • Communicating Common Ground: Students in Fundamentals of Public Speaking participate in a National Service Learning Initiative in Multicultural Education with local elementary schools.
  • Lakota Culture & Communication on the Reservation: Students travel to Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota during May Term and participate in tribal culture while working with children at the reservation’s elementary school.
  • Nature Writing: Taught during the summer at the college's Wilderness Field Station in Minnesota's Superior National Forest, this course investigates strategies for writing about the natural world in an informal workshop format.
  • Writers Colony: An intensive workshop taught off campus during May Term. Recent Writers Colonies have been held at Tybee Island, Georgia; Inner Mongolia; and the Lake District in England.
  • Professional Writing: Students in this fall-term class work with local nonprofit organizations to create or revise written materials.  
  • Speaking Center: The Speaking Center provides individual consultation for students interested in improving their speaking skills. Faculty and staff also use the center and participate in teaching and learning workshops that address how to integrate oral communication into any classroom.
  • Writing Center: The Coe Writing Center is a place for conversation and composition. Students can bring papers in any stage of writing, from assignment to final draft, to the Writing Center.

Student Publications

Coe writers have a wealth of opportunities to publish their work and be part of the editing process of a publication. See our list of student publications for more information.


Awards and Prizes

  • Young Essay Prizes: Annual prizes awarded by the Writing Committee each spring for academic and personal essays written for Coe courses.
  • Stephen Phelps Prizes: Awarded each year for student literary texts published in the Coe Review, The Pearl and Colere.
  • First-Year Seminar Outstanding Portfolio Award: Prizes for the best portfolios submitted by students in each year's First-Year Seminars.
  • The Pearl Prizes: Three prizes awarded by the editors of the Pearl for the best essays published in each edition of The Pearl.
  • Coetry Prizes: Three prizes awarded each term by members of the Alpha Nu Literary Society for poetry published in each edition of Coetry.