HOBOKEN, N.J. – Citing the importance of proper communication once graduates enter the workforce, Stevens Institute of Technology has received a grant that will strengthen the oral and written skills of undergraduate students.
Through a $25,000 grant from the Engineering Information Foundation, the Writing and Communications at the Institute (WCI) program at Stevens will offer a number of workshops to engineering students in their junior and senior years, said Deborah Sinnreich-Levi, Director of WCI, and Susan Metz, Senior Advisor, Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education.
"Employers increasingly demand that engineers be able to communicate their ideas, innovations and projects to an ever widening non-technical audience," said Professor Sinnreich-Levi. "Stevens' WCI program, already fostering the communications skills of student engineers, wanted to study and improve its existing initiative."
In recent years, a number of leading engineering associations have issued reports on the current state and future of communication in the workplace. The National Academy of Engineering, for example, said employees need "an ability to listen effectively as well as to communicate through oral, visual and written mechanisms. The increasing imperative for accountability will necessitate an ability to communicate convincingly and to shape the opinions and attitudes of other engineers and the public."
The WCI program will use the Engineering Information Foundation grant in a number of different ways, including evaluating and improving existing workshops. The program will also award a Communications Prize to the senior engineering design team whose presentation is most effective with technical and non-technical audiences.
"We believe this grant will help students gain and sharpen a set of skills that they will be able to apply throughout their careers," said Professor Sinnreich-Levi. "Students will be able to widen the reception for the innovative concepts and technologies they will develop in the workplace."
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value. Stevens offers baccalaureates, master's and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens' graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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