This article argues that the small school context has been a relatively unexamined or under-examined context for technical and professional communication program development. While graduate program development holds a large share of the field's attention in recent national forums, growth in graduate programs is a consequence of demand in the job market among mostly “teaching” schools. Thus, the field must consider how well we are socializing new Ph.D.s into the values and the real work of institutions where they will find employment. Toward this end, this article articulates three mediating forces of program development in the liberal arts and humanities settings of small schools: 1) interdisciplinarity and flexibility are lived dynamics of small schools; 2) the campus-wide privileging of writing and communication skills presents ongoing opportunities for curricular initiatives and program development; and 3) compression of decision-making structures leads to more involvement of/with administrators and units across campus.
In order to heed the call in engineering education to provide richer learning environments, in which engineering students develop critical skills to work effectively on teams with individuals from other fields, we need to encourage development of multidisciplinary, multilevel learning experiences in which students play lead roles. The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Mini-Baja competition project at Penn State Altoona is one example of how faculty and students have been addressing this need. The project is structured as a functional organization, with students from many disciplines (engineering, engineering technology, business, English and art) engaged in supporting vehicle design, development and testing efforts. The student team, consisting of freshmen through seniors, are grouped by functional area (vehicle subsystem design, documentation, marketing, fabrication and testing) and coordinated by a "directorate" of upperclassmen. Students earn college credit for some of the activities, but the majority of the effort is on a volunteer basis. The project provides an excellent environment for crossdisciplinary learning, as well as team and project management skill development, and is an efficient way to carry on a major design effort. In addition, the project provides engineering research opportunities for one of the authors. The paper discusses the project organization in detail, and discusses the means and limitations of involving faculty and students from various disciplines in a broad integration of teaching, service to the profession and community, and research.
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