Originally published in ing Magazine

A COMmited relationship

The professors of COM 225 take on a personal approach to emphasize course

material

By Annie Perry

Professor Kelly Morrison’s brother sat next to one of her former COM 225 students on a plane

to California. Professor Steve McCornack’s parents met a COM 225 alum while checking into a

hotel in Minnesota. Morrison and McCornack were on vacation, sitting a dock with their kids

watching the Fourth of July boat parade, and suddenly heard, “Kelly! Steve! COM 225!”

Encounters like that, which Morrison and McCornack call the “COM 225 Phenomena,” are not

uncommon. The married couple teaches one section of COM 225, a communications course on

interpersonal relationships - one of the largest classes on campus.

Morrison said the class is in the university’s biggest classroom this semester, which seats

slightly more than 600 students and is usually filled to capacity. With that many students in a

class, the numbers quickly add up. During the years they’ve taught COM 225 together, Morrison

and McCornack have had more than 20,000 students.

While the number is impressive on its own, the professors have impacted the lives and hearts of

many students, which has made the class more than just popular; it’s beloved.

A Close Class

COM 225 is an introductory course in interpersonal relationships, and Morrison said each

professor who teaches it takes a slightly different focus that plays to his or her strengths.

Morrison and McCornack taught COM 225 individually before joining forces around 1998. In

teaching the class together, they play to their strength of a close, committed relationship. The

class teaches about conflict, family, and work relationships, but Morrison says the heart of their

course is on close relationships.

It is not uncommon for two professors to teach one course, but the way Morrison and

McCornack handle the class is rare. Instead of splitting the course by sections, they teach

together and feed off of each other during lectures. While in class together, Morrison and

McCornack take on different personas. McCornack described himself as the “goofy sidekick” to

Morrison’s “straight person.”

“She’s very good at taking relatively complex material and stating it really concisely in a way that

I’m not,” McCornack said. “She will offer the definition and punch home the implications. She’s

also a really good storyteller and she’ll tell these stories, and my role is often times jumping in

after that with some humorous story about my dating past or something.”

McCornack said his stories are told more frequently than Morrison’s - not because they’re any

better, but because she’s more private. When the pair teach classes alone, each takes on both

personas. McCornack said he is more serious and intense if he’s teaching COM 225 without

Morrison.

Originally published in ing Magazine

Interdisciplinary humanities junior Elise Grinbergs took COM 225 this past fall and said the

dynamics between McCornack and Morrison made the class interesting and memorable.

“They also provide a real-life example of a relationship; they do not hide their trials and their

hard times,” Grinbergs said. “They are honest about the hard work they put into their marriage

and try to encourage students to take a realistic approach to relationships, as opposed to one

influenced by pop culture.”

Morrison said the focus on relationships is one reason COM 225 is a popular class. The

professors said they are not trying to be role models for their students, but they know part of the

appeal of the class is seeing them interact with each other.

“It’s not just ‘learn about relationships,’ but learn it from people who are living it on stage, in front

of them, as we go through the content,” McCornack said.

McCornack added that storytelling is an important part of the class and helps students retain the

information.

“You won’t remember a definition, but you’ll remember a story about Kelly and Matt, and Steve

getting jealous,” McCornack said. “That’ll allow you both to remember the concepts involved in

jealousy but also then plug it into your own life when you’re in a similar situation.”

Elementary education and early childhood education sophomore Julia McLean said listening to

the two professors and hearing them bounce information and stories off each other helped her

stay focused and interested.

Because the class is about functional relationships, Morrison said COM 225 is life-specific

rather than major-specific. Special education sophomore Allison Rein, who is currently enrolled

in the course, said nearly every topic she’s learned can be related to students and their

relationships. Likewise, Grinbergs said she enjoyed how applicable she found the information

she was learning.

“I would think about how lecture related to my life every day after class, which is so much more

valuable than taking a class because it’s required and forgetting everything after the semester

ends,” she said.

The Phenomena

COM 225’s reputation extends from alumni to future Spartans. Elementary education

sophomore Ashley Chamberlain, who is taking COM 225 this semester, heard about the class

before her freshman year.

“The first person who recommended it to me was a student from AOP that was helping me

register for classes,” Chamberlain said. “He told me, ‘If you ever get a chance to take COM 225,

do it! But you have to take section one. That section’s taught by a married couple and they’re

the best!’ So ever since my very first day at MSU, COM 225 has been on my list.”

Originally published in ing Magazine

Grinbergs said COM 225 is not required in her major, but is the class she’s enjoyed the most at

MSU.

“COM 225 is a class about life—about your life—and what you can do to make your personal

relationships work, which I think is much more important than whether or not you remember

every date of the French Revolution,” she said. “In real life, you will have a manual available of

how the car is put together, of what muscles connect where. If nothing else, you have your old

textbooks. But you won’t have a ‘relationship manual,’ and that is why this class is so important.”

Morrison and McCornack call the COM 225 Phenomena “a numbers game,” but it’s also

reflective of the impact the course has on students’ lives. They’ve heard of students passing the

book McCornack wrote for the class around to family members and friends, and students have

told them stories about people using information from the book to help struggling marriages or

console friends going through breakups.

The professors know the potential their class material has to change students’ lives and

relationships, and McCornack said the mission of the class is to help students have that

experience.

“Not everyone engages in that, not everybody takes it seriously, not everybody pays attention.

Some people take it in a negative, mercenary way, some people just don’t like us, some get

offended or tune out,” he said. “But I think the people who really get into it and really embrace

the material realize that it has the potential to improve their relationships and bring about

happier lives as a result, and we recognize and respect that potential…everything we do,

teaching-wise, day-to-day, is targeted toward that.”