14.10: College of Arts & Sciences - Communication Department hosted a visit from the University of Pittsburg
The Communication Department recently hosted a visit from Dr. Dan Budny and Beth Newborg from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Budny is Director of Freshman Engineering at Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering and Beth Newborg, is the Director of Freshman Engineering Writing Program. They have worked for ten years to develop a highly successful program in which language and communication skills (particularly writing) are integrated across the engineering curriculum. The culmination of the programme is a student conference in which they present full academic papers having gone through submission of abstracts, peer review and the the rest of the standard international conference procedure. It is a highly impressive and evidentially successful programme. It is also the only one of its kind in the USA.
The Communication Department had approached these colleagues as potential candidates to audit and benchmark our current courses against an established world class and cutting edge program. The visit lasted a week during which time the Pittsburgh colleagues met with Communication faculty, attended classes, audited our materials and assessment procedures and discussed a range of mutual issues including possible joint research initiatives. Many points of commonality were found during the discussions which were at all time rich, stimulating and informative.
They also met with colleagues in STEPS, engineering programs and from the AUP, and presented a very instructive and interesting workshop on the approach used in their institute which stresses the relevance of reading and writing across the curriculum as a tool to develop cognition. They remarked a number of times that it was both very surprising, and also reassuring, that two institutes 8,000 miles apart, working in very different cultural environments had arrived at similar conclusions about providing effective and rounded education to engineering students and had come up with programs which have many similarities. The Communication team has similar feelings about this ‘coincidence’. However, given the obvious need for engineers to be effective communicators - and especially writers - it is perhaps not so unusual that educators in different institutes should develop similar thinking and similar programs. Obviously in our environment where students are working in a foreign language, communications and language across the curriculum takes on even greater importance.
The Pittsburgh colleagues will shortly be presenting us with an evaluation report of the Communication department courses, recommendations and hopefully a seal of approval. We jointly hope that we will be able to develop and maintain a partnership involving research, video conferencing, educational exchanges and other initiatives which will be of mutual benefit to both institutions.
