Improving The Ability Of Engineering Students To Communicate To Non Technical Audiences

The Engineer of 2020 identifies the ability to communicate as a key attribute of successful engineers. ABET requires engineering schools to ensure students’ ability to communicate effectively upon graduation. Yet traditionally, the ability to communicate has been interpreted narrowly, simply requiring students to convey technical information to their professors or peers. Stevens Institute of Technology, through its Writing and Communications Center, offers a sequence of workshops to undergraduate engineering students in their junior and senior years designed to develop and strengthen students’ oral and written presentation skills. The Engineering Information Foundation (EIF) provided funding to Stevens to improve existing support for students by developing and assessing workshop components to increase students’ ability to communicate research to non-technical audiences. Modifications to the workshops were made based on preand post-survey data. Furthermore, the grant was used to develop and award a Communication Prize. Typically, Stevens, awards a prize to two senior design project student teams for innovative design, research or business projects which could lead to the development of a technology directly linked to either novel or established scientific concepts. The EIF grant offered the opportunity to award an additional prize for the senior design team that developed the most compelling presentation to non-technical audiences. This essay provides specific information about the workshop content and Communication Prize criteria, student assessment and faculty response to the project.