Most scientists and engineers know that their careers will require them to write and speak about what they do. But they don’t realize how important it will be to their jobs: how many e-mails they will send, presentations they will give, and papers and grants they will write.

Unfortunately, it shows. “Our candidacy exam used to require our students to write a grant, and often we couldn’t get around to evaluating the science because the writing was so poor,” says Kate Beckingham, professor of biochemistry and cell biology. Her department solved the problem by instituting a grant-writing course and working with the Cain Project, an innovative curriculum program that emphasizes the integration of communication activities into existing scientific course work.

In the four years since a grant from chemistry financier Gordon Cain established the program, the Cain Project has supported more than 46 courses, assisted hundreds of graduate students in writing their theses and creating scientific posters, and helped build communication-intensive curricula for a new major in bioengineering. More importantly, it’s turning Rice science and engineering grads into more savvy communicators without adding a single required course to their schedule.

That’s because most Cain Project activities simply add a communication element to traditional science and engineering assignments, says Linda Driskill, professor of English and director of the Cain Project. With a class they are already taking, students may be asked to write a technical report on laboratory findings, develop a technical poster to describe research results, or deliver a presentation to demonstrate their understanding of a scientific concept. “The assignments support the learning already occurring in the course, while simultaneously offering the chance to teach students how to structure an argument, organize their evidence, and make a convincing case to a third party in either oral or written form,” Driskill says.

For instance, the Cain Project lets John Polking, professor of mathematics and a Cain Project board member, demonstrate that math is about more than solving equations by rote. Four years ago, Polking began requiring the more than 250 students in MATH 211 to complete projects that apply the mathematical methods encountered in homework to larger-scale problems. He asks the class to solve the project problem and write up the answer in a technical report. Cain Project staff helped Polking develop Web-based student instructions on writing reports and a grading rubric for teaching assistants that maintains grading consistency from semester to semester.

Similarly, when plans for the new bioengineering major began, faculty consulted with the Cain Project from the outset to integrate communications activities into the course work. Lab courses require technical poster development, technical memos accompany the senior design project, and group projects undertaken in each year of course work mandate oral presentations. Even so, when one of the program’s first graduates returned to speak to bioengineering sophomores about her new career, she surprised Ann Saterbak, a lecturer in bioengineering and director of laboratory instruction. “She wished she’d taken more advantage of opportunities to improve her writing and presentation skills,” Saterbak reports. “Even our ramped up curriculum wasn’t enough.”

The Cain Project also works outside of existing curricula, developing and delivering targeted courses such as thesis writing workshops and the aforementioned biochemistry and cell biology grant writing course. Students also can receive individual coaching from Cain Project staff.
“I’m always amused by the reaction people have to the Cain Project,” says Polking. “Everybody tends to focus on just one aspect of what it does, but in reality, it operates across many areas.”