Achievement

We developed two graduate-level communications courses. One focused on oral communications skills and the other on written skills. Students learned how to write and review interdisciplinary grant proposals, and how to communicate interdisciplinary research to laypersons, technical people outside their own discipline, and policy makers. Feedback allowed students to make revisions and further refine each student's skills. External experts (journalists and laypersons) evaluated each student's skills and provided qualitative feedback in the form of a formal oral critique and one-on-one discussion. These courses will be offered next year and integrated into the curriculum. Standard university and self-developed written instruments are used to evaluate the course. This year's evaluation indicated a need to videotape student presentations to document their evolution as speakers; the documents collected already do this for the written communication exercise.