Disrupting the humanities and social science binary: framing communication studies as a transformative discipline

ABSTRACT

Debates whether communication studies should be housed with the humanities or social sciences have raged on for decades. In response to attacks on the humanities, we argue that the discipline has much to gain from seeing how the humanities contributes to the social sciences and the potential benefits of integrating humanistic and social scientific approaches. Specifically, we present two case studies that illuminate ways humanities-informed thinking has contributed to and benefited social science theory, method, and data. First, we review Jeffrey A. Bennett's Banning Queer Blood to illustrate the importance of reflexivity and practice when analyzing interview data. Then, we highlight how the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin influenced Leslie A. Baxter's most recent articulation of relational dialectics theory and development of contrapuntal analysis. Finally, we discuss obstacles and opportunities for engaging in transformative research.     

Engineering education and industrial research and development-thepromise and the reality

The author observes that the social fabric of engineering, the support infrastructure of the profession, and the political and economic systems of the world are undergoing shifts that affect what engineering is, how it is accomplished, and what it should do. He asks what these changes mean in terms of the educational system and explores a few of these issues that lie between academia and the industrial environment beyond. He discusses the engineering curriculum as seen from industry, the role of continuing education, research in academia     

社区大学的科学课程———以文山社区大学为例

社区大学是台湾特有的一种成人教育设施。1997年由台大数学系教授、社会运动家黄武雄倡议,翌年获台北市政府支持,于文山区设立全台第一所社区大学——文山社区大学。其后台北市其他区及各县市相继成立,现全台共有83所。社区大学的课程分为学术、生活与艺能及社团等三大类,其中学术课程大多分为人文、社会、自然科学等三类。社区大学的自然科学课程,可视为科普的一环。本文以文山社区大学的自然科学课程为例,简介其课程、师资及学员,异日或许可供大陆成人教育界及科普界参考。     

STS教育与理工科研究生综合创新力培养

STS教育视野中的综合创新力是指能够吸收人文社会科学知识进行创新的能力,能够从其研究对象及其成果的社会效益对其进行反思或评判并予以纠正的能力,能够从科学技术与社会的关系角度确定研究课题的能力等;STS教育与培养理工科研究生综合创新能力有很多内在关联;通过实施STS教育,借鉴日本的经验,能够培养理工科研究生的综合创新力。     

The major problems facing engineering education

Engineering education has been much studied during the past fifty years. One of the first major studies, known as the Wickenden Report in its trial version recommended that engineering education be at the graduate level. However, this was later amended to say that engineering education should be an undergraduate study, but should be followed by an internship in which one's further education would be guided by the engineering colleges, industry, and the engineering societies working together. The dilemma of engineering education has been that we have tried to combine a broad general education with some engineering in a sort of liberal science education, instead of offering professional education with a very strong technological stem. Since we have chosen the former path, we find ourselves confronted by other unresolved questions. Should we teach science or engineering practice? How much emphasis should there be on design and how much on theory and analysis? How broad should the curriculum be and how much of the humanities should it contain? How much should we depend on graduate work to train an engineer? Now in addition to these dilemmas we find ourselves confronted with the problem of finding sufficient time to cover the material considered necessary. It is obvious that many of our constraints, schedules, credits, fifty-minute periods, lectures, laboratories, and lock-step methods must be replaced by new methods and systems designed to teach more efficiently. This offers an opportunity for cooperation among industry, the colleges, and the professional societies.     

Does Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Education Produce Real Engineers?

This note presents the results of a study of undergraduate biomedical engineering education done during the 1980-1981 academic year. The curricula from 29 institutions offering a degree program or an option in biomedical engineering were tabulated by subject category and compared to the older discipline of electrical engineering. The object was to determine how much, if any, reduction there is in engineering course work in order to includelife sciences in the biomedical engineering programs, and if the amount of life sciences is enough to adequately provide for students' needs. An attempt is also made to correlate the purpose of the programs and the content of their curricula Course catalog information and a survey sent to the 29 universities were used to assess the information.     

Securing your Internet connection: a sequel

This author discusses the problem of Internet security. He draws some parallels between spammers trying to trick victims to opt out of their e-mail list in order to obtain information on valid e-mail addresses with so-called social engineering techniques used by security perpetrators. The term social engineering is typically used to describe a human-interactive (the emphasis is on the word human as opposed to computer-based) process that tricks people into violating security policies and procedures to get unauthorized access to protected information exposing security vulnerabilities. The best way to deal with social engineering threats is through creating and enforcing strict security procedures through education and training     

Are your systems safety-critical?

The author describes how reliability alone is not the key to producing good software for safety critical applications. He argues that, whatever their size, companies also need to apply safety engineering throughout the system life cycle     

The problems that I have with writing

The author describes the senior design project he developed as a partial fulfillment of the mechanical engineering technology degree and his experience with the senior design communication curriculum provided to assist students in writing the technical reports for their projects. He discusses the particular writing problems he encountered and how the writing course helped him overcome them. He illustrates his points with quotes from his report     

Higher education for the information age

The new generation of engineering professionals needs to know not only the scientific and engineering principles, but also have extensive knowledge about arts, literature, and social sciences. They need far-reaching vision for the future in order to understand grand challenges on the technical-level, the system-level, and the social aspects of topics that are of importance to the modern society. One solution is to emphasize fundamental courses such as mathematics and physics with new interpretation to correlate with real-world applications. It is important to include system-oriented topics in the curriculum so that students know how to apply the basic principles, The key focus should be placed on analysis and design skills, and effective communication is essential to address any large-scale problems     

Interdisciplinary MS program in telecommunications at the university of Colorado

The MS degree at the University of Colorado is a broad-based program involving the social sciences, journalism, law, and engineering. It includes a hands-on lab and a thesis requirement. Thus, the graduates have more than a paper familiarity with the technology and they know how to communicate ideas. The program has strong support from industry and government.     

Re-engineering engineering education

For years, companies have complained that new engineering graduates fall short on the practical engineering skills that would make them more productive in the real world. Here, the author describes how industry is helping to redesign the education of engineers by sponsoring student projects, supplying laboratory instruments and procedures, and giving seminars on the latest technologies at faculty workshops     

A mentor in hand

The dictionary defines a mentor as a wise and trusted counselor or teacher. At every stage of our lives, every one of us depends upon such people. When we are young, our mentors are most often our mothers and fathers. As we mature, other mentors enter the picture: teachers, coaches, guidance counselors and professors, to name a few. Here, the author describes how engineering lives are no different, and how mentors are needed at work no less than in other areas. He argues that finding the right people for guidance can tilt the scales in favor of engineering career success     

中华优秀传统文化融入课程思政教学的探索

课程思政教学中融入中华优秀传统文化教育,在知识传授和能力提升过程中实现文化传承和价值引领,是落实立德树人根本任务的重要基础,是培养新时代复合型高素质人才的重要途径。在审视中华优秀传统文化融入高校思想政治教育的现实意义的基础上,以“电工学”课程为例,深入挖掘课程中的人文价值,提炼传统文化的科学价值,在电工学课程中融入思政元素,实现人文、工程、德育的深度融合。     

Enthusiasm in technical proposals: verifying a method of lexicalanalysis

Analyzing proposals for evidence of enthusiasm verified a method of lexical analysis and substantiated the presence of enthusiasm in social science/humanities proposals but not in science/engineering proposals. Proposal evaluators, both experts and nonexperts, react to technical accuracy as well as subjective elements in the proposal document itself. A study of word usage identified a lexicon that reflected enthusiasm in proposals, then analyzed 1000-word samples of text for the presence of this vocabulary. Testing this method on government requests for proposals (RFPs) and business salesmanship texts determined a range of values for an enthusiasm index (EI). Subsequent analysis of fifteen technical proposals as a group revealed no significant difference between the RFPs and the proposals themselves. However, a breakdown by subject yielded a significant difference between those from social science/humanities and those from science/engineering. The successful proposals contained occurrences of enthusiastic lexicon, but the method only examined this one indicator of enthusiasm     

浅析社会对工程技术专业人才需求的多样化与高等学校工科专业人才培养目标的定位

从社会对工程技术专业人才的实际需求出发,探讨高等学校工科专业人才培养目标的正确定位问题,由此对目前我国高等教育领域已出现的普遍“拔高”现象提出警示。文章又从高等教育的社会功能与作用、工程技术专业人才的社会需求、高等学校专业教育的人才培养目标和本科教育人才培养的专业规范四个方面来论述高等工程教育对社会经济建设与发展的作用与特点,以及在人才培养过程中需把握的某些问题,以供大家讨论、交流与互相学习,旨在对目前正开展的专业规范制订立项研究工作有所启示与参考。     

Engineering education and practice: The need for a consistency of outlook

Engineering education has been unduly influenced by attitudes more appropriate to the natural sciences. It should instead acknowledge the ultimate concern of the engineer for design rather than analysis, for systems rather than constituent components, and for value to the community in place of mere increase of knowledge. Advocacy of an engineering education which is consistent with engineering practice is supported by suggestions concerning curriculum structure, syllabus content, and educational methods.     

Chinese Academic Journal(CA J- CD) International Version Starts to Be Published for Overseas

Chinese Academic Journal(CAJ-CD) is a series of integrated full text database of current electronic academic journals in China. The subject areas of CAJ-CD are included in the humanities, social science,natural. science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, technology, and so on. All these journals reflect the progresses and the most recent dynamic developing information in China's academic researches.     

Putting the human being back into engineering [education]

The author suggests that the main crisis facing engineering education and the engineering industry is a crisis of professionalism. He outlines four principles of professionalism, discusses the goal of education, and examines excellence in industry     

Education in biomedical engineering

The interface between electrical engineering and the life sciences has grown enormously over the past three decades, nearly keeping pace with the expanding disciplines themselves. In an era when one finds engineers applying automata theory to genetic control systems, coupled-oscillator theory to the growth of yeast or the synchronizing of circadian rhythms, control theory to the cardiovascular system, communication theory to sensory systems, and network theory to food chains, one is no longer justified in holding a stereotyped view of the "Bio-Medical Engineer," or in providing a specialized education to correspond to that stereotype. It is proposed that the undergraduate education of a bioengineer should introduce him to the breadth of that interface along which he eventually must choose a niche. Thus early specialization, both in engineering and in the life sciences is undesirable.