Integrating communication skill into the engineering curriculum (addressing communication issues from three directions)

Summary form only given. Over the past few years we have tried to focus on relevant issues concerning engineering from the viewpoint of administrators, faculty, students, staff and industry. We feel that it is important to address common needs and individual desires in order to achieve the best that we can accomplish in the area of communication. With this mind, we looked at what we were doing in the realm of teaching and promoting technical communication in our courses. A number of critical issues were noticed. We decided to propose, plan, and implement procedures that would address all the concerns and utilize the positive elements of our program to improve the communication skills of both our undergraduate and graduate population. The means to achieve acceptance by the faculty and students is addressed, along with the detailing of the careful planning for the important utilization of the graduate teaching assistant population as the catalyst for making the operation successful. Adaptable to most schools, the present plan enables faculty to realize that they can teach good communication skills, makes students aware of the fact that they can competently both produce and present technical documents, utilizes graduate assistants to provide a vital service to the undergraduate population, and explains the need for an entity within the department to direct the process