For Immediate Release
July 12, 2001

From Scientists to Senators: Unique Course Teaches Engineers to Communicate with Diverse Audiences

Georgia State Senator Mike Polak talks about the legislative process with students from Chemical Engineering 4600. The class was held in the historic Georgia State Senate chambers. link to 300-dpi image

In Chemical Engineering 4600 at the Georgia Institute of Technology, chemical formulas, thermodynamic equations and process flow diagrams take a back seat to invention disclosures and congressional position papers.

For an entire semester, Mark Prausnitz helps his engineering students analyze audiences and study how a broad range of communication tools can help them reach their real-world goals. He makes that point through a case study of a real product -- and a series of weekly guest speakers that include state senators, graphic communicators, lobbyists, company CEOs, patent attorneys, regulators and others who may help determine the product's ultimate success.

"Communications is really important to the success of a professional engineer," explained Prausnitz, associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Chemical Engineering. "The world of a professional engineer intersects with law, business, politics, ethics and all the different pieces of the modern world. There is a lot more to it than the narrow scope of things students tend to encounter in a typical college class."

To prepare them for leadership roles in engineering, business and society, he helps students develop the communication skills they'll need in a broad range of areas: influencing legislation and the political process, pushing new products through patenting and marketing, persuading management to try new approaches, and explaining complex issues to non-technical audiences.

Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, the course focuses on the many steps involved in developing and preparing for market a real product -- a nicotine patch -- produced by a hypothetical company. Through this case study, students learn that getting a product to market takes more than good engineering. Prausnitz likes the case study approach because it unifies the communications topics and "provides something tangible that the students can grab onto."

The course was offered for the fourth time during Spring Semester 2001. It has been co-taught at different times by Melissa Bradley and Elizabeth Bolton, who further broaden the scope of the course through their liberal arts backgrounds and experience teaching communications at Georgia Tech.

Beyond learning the basics of communications, Prausnitz wants his students to deal with questions whose answers aren't black-and-white. Engineers accustomed to finding the single precise answer to an equation often become frustrated in the gray areas of communication, Prausnitz notes, so he purposely makes assignments open-ended to show students that there can be many solutions to a problem.

In one assignment, for example, students address quality issues in a memo to factory personnel. "You want to convince the factory workers to be more careful in the procedures they are following because the final product has defects," Prausnitz explained. "How to do that is up to you. What tone do you take? Do you chastise the workers? Are you supportive? How do you approach the problem? There isn't one single solution."

To emphasize that, the students spend the first part of each class period critiquing each other's work. That exposes class members to divergent approaches and demonstrates that there are many workable solutions. Though the course digs into many issues, Prausnitz believes the single most important lesson for his engineering communicators is: "know your audience." From that knowledge, he and his guest speakers encourage students to set goals and choose the best communication tools to reach them.

"The way you write something in a scientific journal is different from the way you write a press release," he noted. "The way you present something to a community organization is different from how you present to the company's board of directors. We address a lot of different audiences and a variety of different goals."

Though many universities offer writing clinics to help their students with papers and teach them how to communicate with colleagues, Prausnitz believes his course is unusual in addressing communications so broadly.

"During their careers, engineers may need to work with a graphic designer or be drawn into the political process," he said. "Most engineers have not been prepared for these types of interactions and often cannot communicate effectively."

David Bonnichsen is a believer. Now a process engineer with Solvay Polymers in Houston, the Georgia Tech graduate enrolled in the course to improve his writing and speaking skills. He believes the course is one of the most important he took at Georgia Tech.

"Each day I speak with a variety of different people, from plant operators to corporate vice presidents," he said. "It is imperative that I understand the needs of the audience before I can effectively communicate with them. My ability to communicate effectively is a result of a personal desire to be a better communicator, and the teaching and coaching I received in the course."

Companies need smart engineers to develop the ideas of the future, but without communications skills, Bonnichsen says many good ideas never reach fruition.

"Communications skills are single-handedly the most important asset an individual can possess," he added. "Companies want smart individuals working for them…but companies want to know that their employees can communicate an idea in such a way that they can get 'buy-in' from everyone. Mark's class takes that idea from the mind to the paper to the people."

At career fairs, Zubair Anwar heard company recruiters emphasize the importance of communication skills. He enrolled in the course to get them, and believes an awareness of audience needs and ability to make verbal presentations were the most important skills he learned.

"While there was a lot of writing involved throughout the course, audience analysis and oral skills were emphasized the most," he said. "I feel the course may give me an advantage over my classmates when we walk into the real working environment."

Though few of his students probably realize it, Prausnitz is uniquely qualified to teach a course in communications for engineers. Over the past 15 years, he has taught public speaking at three different universities. For two years starting in the spring of 1998, he was deluged with media inquiries about a microneedle array he developed with another Georgia Tech professor, Mark Allen. He helped turn that invention in a company that gained financing, grew and was sold.

Prausnitz has also been involved in more than a dozen patents, served as an expert witness twice, consulted with numerous companies and published almost 50 scientific papers. Those experiences underline the importance of what the class teaches, and provide realistic scenarios for study.

"This class is about interacting with the big world that too many engineers do not realize they can influence, and even more importantly, do not realize influences them," he said. "We are trying to give students some of the information needed to become engineering, business and societal leaders."

RESEARCH NEWS & PUBLICATIONS OFFICE
Georgia Institute of Technology
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Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA

MEDIA RELATIONS CONTACTS:
John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: john.toon@edi.gatech.edu; Fax: (404-894-4545) or Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu.

TECHNICAL CONTACT:
Mark Prausnitz, Georgia Tech School of Chemical Engineering (404-894-5135);
E-mail: (mark.prausnitz@che.gatech.edu).

Writer: John Toon