• Database

Draft–August, 2015

Science Communication & Writing Curricula at Select Universities

Patrick Logan,
Dept. of Communication Studies, Univ. Rhode Island
mayfly@uri.edu

Numbers in this paper and its appendices are from a database. Additions, modifications, or deletions in the database may occasionally change these numbers. Should a print version of this article be submitted, I will place a notice here. —P. Logan, August, 2015.

Click to show outline of paper

NOTE: This is an online draft. Work is in progress, live. Current progress is marked within the text (see Results section. Appendices 1-6 have been updated; tables 1, 2a&b are now finished). An earlier draft, previously posted at this URL, is here.

Introduction

Public policy must be rooted in science in the face of challenges from climate change, pandemics, peak oil, overpopulation, etc. Polling suggests that neither the public nor their national representatives are adequately aware of critical contemporary science, nor do they sense urgency for public response to threats revealed by science. This paper assesses the current status of university programs for creating or maintaining the connection between science discourse communities, the public, and policy makers. Specifically, it asks:

• What special competencies do university communication and writing programs bring to the task of communicating scientific awareness, recognizing importance of vulnerabilities, and persuading social movements?
• What is the current status of science communication in the curricula of leading communication studies programs in leading research universities?
• What benchmarks characterize best practices for producing the Nation's most effective science communicators?

A database of departments and courses was constructed to help answer these questions.^[1] Departments explored for the database include communication, journalism, writing, or English, and natural or social science departments that offer communication or writing courses. Departments were chosen from the 108 Carnegie classification^[2] "very high research activity" and the 99 "high research activity" universities. This set also contains all of the 79 universities listed by the National Communication Association (NCA)^[3] with departments or programs offering "Doctoral Programs in Communication."^[4] The intent of the database is to approximate the current status and near-term future direction of science communication in a set of US universities most representative of the intersection of science and communication, as represented by sampled curricula. The list of courses within the selected academic units provides a starting point for benchmarking the approaches and topical foci of contemporary courses in science communication.

The intended audience for this survey is anyone assessing the state of science communication and writing as found in communication, journalism, and writing programs. This audience includes academics with interests in communication and also those whose scientific awareness—of matters such as climate change, peak fossil energy, human health, or the fate of food, water, and natural resources—drives them to search for better means to connect science discourse communities to the public sphere. More effective science communication informs citizens and elevates representative government. Stimulation of discussions leading toward this goal provides an overarching purpose to this exercise.

A sampling of contemporary curricula reveals the most popular areas of emphasis within and across institutions and the presence of potential growth areas. In most communication studies programs, course offerings are congruent with NCA's self-definitional "What is Communication: Areas of Emphasis." That is, there is a clear national norm which most communication studies faculty would recognize as a traditional teaching component of the communication discipline. NCA's "Interest Group Descriptions" and "Doctoral Programs Research Areas of Interest" help identify potential areas of change-in-the-making.^[5]

Method: Sampling plan^[5b]

University websites were searched for colleges, departments, and courses. Units labeled School or Program were treated as though they were either a college or a department.

Universities: Universities were chosen for their current importance to US science and engineering and to communication, as follows. Of the approximately 4500 degree-granting colleges and universities in the US, about 2775 are four-year colleges.^[6] Much of the Nation's science and engineering (S&E) research and development (R&D) is performed in a relatively small number of these. NSF reports that in FY 2012, 907 institutions reported spending at least $150,000 on S&E R&D. Of these, the top-spending 20 accounted for 31% of total academic R&D spending and the top 100 for 79% of all academic R&D expenditures.^[7] The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching lists 108 universities, based in large part on relative expenditures on research, as "very high research activity (RU/VH)," and another 99 as "high research activity."^[8] These were all surveyed here.

In US Research universities, research is the primary vehicle for graduate education. Accordingly, universities important to science research also tend to produce the bulk of the Nation's future science PhDs. Of the 52,760 science doctorates awarded in 2013, 73.1% came from RU/VH and 90.6% from RU/VH + RU/H Carnegie institutions.^[9]

Departments:The National Communication Association recognizes 790 member communication departments. NCA lists member departments, separated into Bachelor's, Master's, and doctoral programs in communication.^[10] 79 universities include 100 doctoral-granting programs, most with a single PhD program per department, with a few departments offering more than one doctorate and a small number of departments sharing a common degree. Most departments from the universities containing NCA-listed PhD programs were already included in the sample group of research universities, and the remainder were all added.^[4b]

Not all doctoral granting communication departments are members of NCA. In addition to the 100 doctoral granting programs listed by the NCA, the database also includes 12 non-NCA departments, categorized as communication, that also offer the doctorate; of these, 2 offer science communication (n=5) or science writing (n=8) courses. Of the total of 214 communication programs assessed in the database, 24 offer a masters as their most advanced degree (56 science communications and 22 science writing courses) and 14 appear to offer a bachelors degree only (19 science communications and 14 science writing courses).

In seeking information about courses and communication curricula, each university was searched for colleges or departments or programs with likely names. The NCA membership list includes 116 names for 790 departments, of which six, all containing the word "communication," were used by 607 departments (77%):^[11] In general, these departments were located in Colleges of Arts and Sciences / Liberal Arts, etc., or in hybrid or autonomous colleges or schools of their own (e.g., Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication (Cal. State Northridge); College of Communication (several)). There were a few instances where a department of communication was located outside a similarly named school or college (e.g., two separate units using "Communication," one in a College of Communication & Media and another in a College of Arts & Sciences).

Each university was also searched for a department or program in journalism. If a department in neither communication nor journalism was encountered, the department of English or the terms "science communication" and/or "science writing" were also searched in an effort to find an academic unit offering science writing or journalism coursework. Category labels were added for all departments. For the 348 departments surveyed, 214 were categorized as "communication" departments. Other department categories were "journalism (63)," "writing (17), "media (42)," and "English (23)". In addition to communication and writing departments, a few science communication courses were also found within science or other departments, including departments categorized as "natural science (41)" or "social science (14)." (To be clear, only those English, natural science, or social science departments in which a science writing or science communication course was encountered are listed in the database; This is not a survey of all such departments, and if science writing or science communication courses were encountered in communication, journalism, or writing programs, no additional search for courses outside of these units may have been attempted.) Several departments fell into more than one category. There were 19 departments which were both communication and media, for example; this is usually clear from the department name.

The universities included in the database produce most of the Nation's future life and physical science PhDs, the future faculty of American universities, including 97% of the 2012 doctorates in physical sciences and 85.5% of doctorates in the life sciences.^[9] These same universities also produce most of the Nation's future communication studies faculty. By assessing the curricula available to these PhDs, we can guage the current potential curricular exposure of scientists to communication and the exposure of communicators to science. The overlap of science with communication, of course, depends on the willingness of the respective science and communication discourse communities to collaborate in the education of their doctoral candidates, and the actual connections of science and communications are undoubtedly considerably limited, possibly rare. One indicator of this willingness is the presence of science communication courses within departmental course listings, as surveyed here. The potential vital roles of non-doctoral feeder schools to informing the future science communication capabilities of future faculty may (or may not) be appreciable, but that assessment is beyond the scope of this survey.

Courses: Most departments provide a link from a home page to a course listing, with descriptions, or to the university's database of course descriptions; a few, unfortunately, resort to links to pdf's of university bulletins ( making the search for course descriptions unnecessarily tedious for students and investigators). In general, course titles are congruent with NCA areas of emphasis^[12] or with NCA doctoral programs research areas of emphasis^[13]. The database displays a link to the departmental or university courses list. Courses selected for the database were restricted to those providing a clear focus on both science and communication^[13b]. 393 courses are included in the database.

Courses were categorized for communication focus and topic focus. Communication focus includes "science communication (196 courses)," "science writing or journalism (186)," and "film or media (67)." Courses pursue communication, writing, or media goals using content that explores a common set of topics. Here, course topics categories include "environmental science (168)," "politics and public policy (51)," risk (25)," "sociology or social movements (48)," "sustainability (24)," "science ethics (18)," and "science, technology, and culture (64)." Courses could, of course, use multiple topics (e.g., "environmental policy" or "ethics for science, technology, and culture").

Where it could be determined, courses were also categorized, based on title or course description, as focused on communication or writing for the public (221), for scientists (59), or both (35).

Analysis: Analysis is limited to frequency analysis and cross tabulations in search of answers to basic questions. These include "How common are science communication courses", "Are the courses equally common across communication, writing, or media programs," or "Are any particular topic foci (e.g., environmental or risk communication) more frequent than others." For programs considering starting or expanding offerings in science communication, stronger programs and curricula are highlighted as potential benchmarks to be considered for wider emulation.

Results

The database lists 348 total departments and 393 courses (196 communication, 186 writing, and 67 media, with some courses under two or more categories).Table 1 shows frequency of all departments—categorized as communications, journalism, media, English, Natural Science, and Social Science (lower left diagonal matrix)—and frequency of courses—classified as communication or writing, by departmental categories. The frequency of departments for which courses are found are given under the department totals as "(total with 1 or more science communication course / total with 1 or more science writing course)." Note that departments categorized in two or more categories cause row or column sums to exceed the total numbers of departments or courses.

Courses on Science Communication

Of the 196 science communication courses encountered in the database, 159 (81.1%) are concentrated in 79 (36.9%) of the total 214 communication departments; conversely, for 63.1% of communication departments, there are no apparent courses in science communication. The 29 communication courses associated with media departments are mostly (27/29) from departments classified as both communications and media.

When there were few or no courses in science communication in communication or media/communication departments, the search was expanded to writing (journalism, writing, or English departments) or science departments. The 41 natural science departments yielded 12 in which 31 communication courses were taught^[14].

NCA Doctoral Granting Programs: Of the 196 courses identified as "science communication" in the database, 84 (42.9%) are taught in 42 of the 100 doctoral-granting departments listed by NCA (Appendix 1). Of the 186 courses identified as "science writing," 31 (16.7%) are taught in 18 of the 100 NCA doctoral departments. 58 NCA doctoral-granting departments appear to offer no courses focused on science communication and 82 offer no courses on science writing.

• Only two of NCA's doctoral granting departments teach more than three science communication courses (fig. 1).
• 56 of the 84 courses are on communication to the public; 13 focus on scientist-to-scientist communication; 11 cover both.
• 43 of the 84 courses are on environmental communication and 5 on sustainability; 26 deal with sociology or social movements, 15 with politics or policy, and 11 cover science, technology, and culture (STC). 11 are concerned with risk communication. Courses on communicating science ethics are uncommon (n=1).

Communication Departments not listed as NCA Doctoral Granting: An additional 84 courses on "communicating science" were listed in the database from 42 departments categorized as focused on communications, but not included in NCA's list of doctoral departments (Appendix II).

• Only two programs teach more than three courses and in both the curriculum is highly focused (fig. 2):
  • Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Literature, Media, and Communication focuses on Science, Technology, and Culture.
  • SUNY Stony Brook's new Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science (School of Journalism) offers a palate focused on presentation, tailored for both scientists and journalists.
• 61 of the 84 courses are on communication to the public; 16 focus on scientist-to-scientist communication; 12 cover both.
• 49 of the 84 courses are on environmental communication and 9 on sustainability; 13 courses emphasize policy or politics and 9 focus on sociology or social movements. 11 deal with risk communication.
• There are 28 courses categorized as having a focus on science, technology, and culture, including eleven from the Georgia Tech program.

Science Communication Courses Outside of Communication Departments: Science communication is rarely taught as a formal course outside of departments that can be clearly categorized as focused on communication. The database includes 28 courses focused on science communication, taught in 16 departments not categorized as primarily focused on communication (Appendix III).

Of these courses, 20 were oriented toward communicating with the public, 5 toward scientists, and 4 toward both. Subject focus included 12 courses focused on the environment and 7 with emphasis on science, technology, and culture. No other subjects were emphasized in more than 3 courses.

Courses on Science Writing

NCA Doctoral Granting Programs: There were 186 courses in the database categorized as "science writing," taught in 103 departments, including 31 courses in 18 NCA doctoral programs (Appendix IV). 28 of the science writing courses taught in NCA doctoral programs were writing to the public. 18 courses focused on writing about the environment, 7 focused on science and technology (STC), and 5 emphasized policy or politics, with 1-2 courses each on risk, sociology/social movements, science ethics, or sustainability. None of these courses are categorized as being focused on both science writing and science communication.

Outside of the NCA doctoral departments, 155 courses in science writing are taught in departments of communications (n=44 courses) , journalism (n=52), English (n=22), natural science (n=47), or other (n=26) (note that some departments are listed under more than one category (e.g., a department of communications and journalism)).

Science Writing in Journalism Courses: There were an additional 52 science writing courses taught in 24 non-NCA doctoral granting departments categorized as "journalism" (Appendix V). All of these were focused on writing for the public (newspapers, magazines, etc.); five courses (four at Lehigh Universitys Department of Journalism and Communication) also addressed writing about science within science discourse communities. 23 courses were concerned with the environment (based on wording in course title or description). Other foci were limited to a handful (six or fewer categorized) of the 52 courses. There was little evidence that science itself was a focus other than indirectly or abstractly: This may be a function of the limited breadth of course descriptions, or it may be, as a course on "Science Journalism" from the University of Arizona suggests, that there are fundamental differences between "science communication" and "science journalism" such that the nature of science communication itself becomes beyond the scope of contemporary journalism pedagogy.

Under development, here....

Science Writing in English, Other Writing, or Science Courses: In non-NCA doctoral granting departments and departments with neither "communication" nor "journalism" in their name, 115 additional courses dealing with science writing were encountered (usually by searching the university site for "science writing" or "scientific writing" or by scanning the English department course lists), taught in 41 departments (Appendix VI).

Of these courses, 35 emphasized writing for the public and 23 writing for scientists or students of science (4 were both or non-specific). Eighteen courses emphasized environmental writing based on course title or phrases in the description. None appeared to emphasize writing about risks. Twelve addressed social concerns, as indicated by phrases within the course descriptions ("relationship with nature," "preparing briefing for policy-makers," "science journalists role in society," "political ... contexts of modern environmentalism," "cultural place of science in our society," "conservation movement," etc.).

Discussion

Characterizing Core Communication Curricula: The future of science communication and writing curricula in communication or writing programs depends on myriad factors, including internal university resources and external marketplaces. Inertia tending to maintain a status quo comes from cultural senses experienced within the discipline, cultural in the sense that a shared consensus of the nature of a discipline is inheritable, with limited possibility of alteration, by each new generation of scholars. Cross-disciplinary exchange and intellectual fertilization experience resistance within disciplines, related to how the discipline is structured currently and how this structure is perceived by current faculty and students. The subject is as much a matter of working across disciplines to incorporate new material into communication and writing programs as it is a matter of studying communication between disciplines. In addressing the latter, Joachim Schummer shines light on the former.

An analysis of central foci of contemporary curricula can clarify forces of inertia, tendencies to keep doing familiar established practices within disciplines. It may also shed light on places where new perspectives may take place without fundamental cultural shifts. Such an analysis can proceed from many starting points, so long as the aim is to establish a center of focus. For communication, this is most commonly a curricular emphasis on public speaking and rhetoric. Creating speeches and delivering them to an audience has historically been an important component of higher education. The art of making the speech persuasive is as old as Aristotle's Rhetoric^[23].

The use of course titles and descriptions gleaned from web listings or online course catalogs provides a lens with limited ability to provide insight into what is being learned within the nation's science communication and writing academic galaxy. But even Galileo, using Tycho Brahe's crude telescopic lens, created a vastly improved understanding of the medieval universe. Acknowledging the crudeness of the current effort, there are some things that seem clear about what we are, and perhaps more importantly, what we are not doing in U.S. universities to improve the connection between science discourse communities and the public sphere.

Core Communication Curricula

Of the many areas listed by NCA as areas of general^[20] or research^[21] interest, several are central to most curricula (here listed with NCA descriptions^[20]:

Deferring any debate about particulars of this selection (and admitting infinite other possibilities), the point here is to establish a centrum^[24] approximating a central focus for the communication discipline. The critical questions concerning the prosperity of any existing novel curricular element are 1) does the new element (say, a course, or a major topical component of a course) chance to survive, endure, and grow increase or decrease as other elements in the curricular environment increase in abundance (or "activity") and 2) does the abundance (or "activity") of the components in the curricular environment increase or decrease as the number of courses (or elements of subject matter) increases?

As disciplines and their containing departments or programs grow, growth itself may or may not create an environment for new courses or course content to take root. This is evident in larger programs, where additional areas of interest spring from the centrum. These include NCA interests: communication education; health, international, intercultural, or legal communication; mediation and dispute resolution; political communication and public address; performance studies, theatre and drama; electronic media, mass media and media literacy; public relations; and semiotics. ^[20]. These outgrowths may remain within the same local academic unit, or they may branch off (e.g., a department of public relations, which may remain organizationally closely aligned with communication or may drift into, say, a college of business).

Rutgers, for example, has a mature array of courses within their Department of Communication, here aligned with NCA "areas of emphasis" as examples of species within genera [25]:

Similar mappings may be made for other communication departments. Here, the diverse array of courses at Rutgers models a typical major department. "Missing" elements such as theatre and drama or legal communication may be covered elsewhere: Rutgers has a law school (Newark campus) and a separate Department of Theatre.

Links to additional examples similar to Rutgers may be developed in a later draft. Links within the database that accompanies this article may facilitate rapid locating or specific departments, course lists, and descriptions. ^[3]

Extending beyond the communication centrum, universities also have colonies of communication-related curricula scattered in the academic organization charts. Programs of writing and rhetoric, rhetorical writing considered within English departments, dedicated masters programs in science writing for the popular press, and science considered as a "beat" in journalism can extend or replace any consideration of science within the core communication program. Without generalizing about journalism or writing curricula, I'll limit this search initially to science in proximity to the core communication courses, and then extend the search with a focus limited to science writing.

Missing from the NCA areas of emphasis and from most curricula (e.g., the representative Rutgers curriculum) is any reference to or example of science communication (or of Environmental Communication, the NCA interest group^[6]). Before arguing a case for increased emphasis on science communication (or on targeted topics integrated into communication courses), recall Schummer's dichotomy of the cognitive and social aspects of disciplines (above).^[2]. If communication curricula are a product of a recognized (and, via graduation, culturally transmitted) cognitive body of knowledge (of the world, methods, and values) and of a social understanding of the discipline (e.g., NCA's projection of a common set of emphases and interests), then consideration of science communication asks how can we improve interdisciplinary communication and make it manifest in curricula. Schummer suggests strategies of scientific reductionism (a shared knowledge base), simplification ("a common pool of useful metaphors and images and a common-sense understanding of what matters and what is sound..."), and modularization (..."subprojects, with well-defined types of information input and output from and to the other subprojects" ^[26] and a fourth strategy:

What is it about science that might command a presence in communication curricula? In a search for courses, a starting point is to establish three "prey" images: 1) Science knowledge, or the telling of things to create awareness of the domain of natural sciences; 2) Clarification of importance, seeking matters that require consideration in the public sphere (e.g., climate change, peak oil, food and water); and 3) Action in response to scientific awareness, and the rhetorical means to foster action via human regulatory mechanisms (i.e., economic, political, and social systems).

Status of Science Communication in the Curricula

Two-thirds of the 79 NCA doctoral programs offer no coursework at any level specifically focused on science communication. Of the remainder (26 departments), five have more than two courses, led by Cornell and George Mason's Departments of Communication. Cornell's program, it should be noted, has its roots in the agriculture college (George Mason in Arts and Sciences). American University, UNC Chapel Hill, and U Washington-Seattle also have broader (i.e., more than two) science communication course offerings. About half (26) of the 55 science communication courses encountered focus on the environment. Only eight courses address science per se and four of these deal with social impacts of technologies derived from science. Despite strong interest in Environmental Communication within the NCA, the core departments—those that will produce the next generation of communication faculty—pay generally weak and non-uniform attention to science communication.

In non NCA doctoral departments, Environmental Communication makes up more than half (34 of 59) of the science communication courses listed.

Course titles and descriptions provide few clues into any specific content covered in the "science" part of science communication. Queries for specific phrases in the 114 science communication course descriptions found a limited number of mentions of critical terms like "climate change" (6 records total, 1 from an NCA doctoral department), "sustainable"(2 total, 1 doctoral), "energy" (3,1), "peak oil" (1,1), "population" (2,1)^[28], or "natural resources" (1,1) (Appendix VII). Certainly, a more exhaustive review of individual course syllabi would reveal at least some attention to these components of 21st century environmental concern, but none rose to the level of prominence implied by mention in a course description.

Status of Science Writing in the Curricula

There are very few science writing courses (16) taught within the NCA doctoral departments; the Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota sets the bar with four courses. Most (13) of these focus on writing for the public, and about half (7) focus on the environment.

Although journalism is represented in some NCA doctoral programs, most of the science writing is outside the NCA doctoral group. As within the communication departments, about half of science writing courses (14 of 31 courses listed) emphasized the environment. Virtually none focused on science per se, which seems to be relatively invisible outside of topical writing in contemporary journalism.

Nevertheless, queries for specific phrases in the 112 science writing courses led to a relatively small number of clearly identified topics. "Climate change" was included in course descriptions four times (none from an NCA doctoral department), "energy" was found twice (0 NCA), "population" (in "population growth") was mentioned once, and "sustainable" and "peak oil" were not found (Appendix VIII).

Potential Areas for Growth of Academic Science Communication and Writing

For modern society to function, science discourse communities must communicate with the public with effective rhetoric able to inspire public action on climate change, post-fossil fuel energy, etc. Effective communication are certainly congruent with rhetorical traditions of the discipline and its contemporary academic bifurcations. It behooves university communication programs, through research and the classroom, to become active agents to guide this rhetoric. A necessary beginning is to address three primary inhibitors of effective science communication:

Nature of Science—Communicating Hard Science and Technology: As a focus for communication (including journalism, media, etc.), an understanding of science must include at least a core familiarity with a scholarly body of knowledge obtained from study of one or more science disciplines. Schummer's strategy (above) for improving interdisciplinary communication, applied to communication between discourse communities and the public, is a strategy of translation or mediation. Translation from a discourse community to another discourse community or to the public "requires a translator who should ideally be educated in all the disciplines involved." The translator must also be capable to mediate "between different opinions on what is sound and important and on how to tackle a problem to best effect." A core quandary for science communication is that "mediators are rarely available because there is neither a profession nor a specific education for cross-disciplinary mediation." ^[27]

One approach to addressing this quandary is to provide close access between communication curricula and science discourse communities. This may be more intrinsic in communication departments historically derived from within science programs. For example, this is a point of distinction for the Department of Life Sciences Communication (LSC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a department which also shows keen awareness of local natural advantages which bring potential for topical integration across disciplines^[30].

Note that the Madison's Department of Life Science Communication, which is not listed as an NCA doctoral program, does offer a doctoral degree; this suggests that the program is more likely than others less entwined with exposure to science to become a vital source of future seed stock for science communicators nation wide. The Department also coexists with the NCA doctoral listed Department of Communication Arts, found on the same campus, within the College of Letters and Science^[31], a program of undoubted prominence, but one not currently positioning itself to contribute to any evolution of the discipline favorable to proliferation of new species of science communicators.

Cornell's (NCA doctoral) Department of Communication also resides within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Hinting at a more traditional self-perception as a social science, the Department nevertheless also seems aware of its place as an agent of social engagement.

Arizona State's huge and relatively new (established in 2007) School of Sustainability, provides a similar stimulus for integrative learning, including a rich array of both undergraduate and graduate courses that could nurture a deep scholarship for any student in the (NCA doctoral) Hugh Downs School of Human Communication interested in science communication. The extent to which a student may become "ideally educated in all the disciplines involved" depends on the goals of the student and the receptivity toward or encouragement of a multidisciplinary learning environment within the communication and science departments, an assessment beyond the current study.

Nature of Science—Communicating Science as a Way of Knowing: Even when armed with competence in a knowledge base and techniques, students of science communication require a still deeper level of understanding. Risk communication, often associated with health communication, for example, extends into matters where science enters the policy arena. Often, these matters are in areas of critical national or global concern, such as energy (peak oil, nuclear, alternatives), food (GMOs, animal versus plant protein, eating disorders), population (birth control, tax dependencies), and, of course, climate change. Risk communication may receive less attention in science programs than it does in many communication curricula, where courses vary as to the nature of risk considered (health versus environmental, for example). The works of Sunstein or Slovic, for example, provide critical perspectives on communication of risk^[33]. Of particular concern for science communicators, concepts such as Sunstein's availability heuristic or probability neglect^[34] are seldom part of science curricula.

Science communicators in public arenas are surrounded by systematic distortions and misuse of science in politics^[35]—for purposes of greed^[36], ideology^[37], or theology^[38]. Science is also under siege from the left, often from within the academies^[39]. Because, as Gross and Levitt point out, scientists generally ignore such attacks and carry on with their work blissfully, there are rarely any efforts to create awareness or strategic counter arguments within science or science communication curricula. This appears to be a serious deficit in preparation for those who would choose to practice science communication in the public sphere, but one that could easily provide topical material in a communication course on, say, political discourse or propaganda.

When science advocates perennially call out for an increase in production of scientists to meet myriad national needs^[40], universities generally interpret this as meaning more attention to teaching the periodic table, molecular biology, or astrophysics, or their contemporary offspring in nano technology, genomics and proteomics, quantum cosmology, etc.. To bring the leading edge of science into the public sphere, science communicators must also understand the rhetorical roots and philosophical history of science, well taught by reference to the early astronomers, Descartes, Bacon, and Newton^[41]. Familiarity with Darwin—more specifically Darwinism, or the role of chance in natural selection, usually referred to a the Theory of Evolution— is not only a prerequisite to articulating contemporary science consensus on evolution (as a counter to theocratic, non-science intelligent design, for example), but also a requirement for understanding the differences between deterministic and stochastic views of nature; in turn, this is the starting point for communicating the importance of uncertainty and the tools used by policy makers for acting in the statistically "messy" real world. The essential training of a doctoral-level science communicator, accordingly, may well include history and philosophy to an extent rarely encountered in contemporary science departments (one can only speculate how many doctoral students could satisfactorily present an outline of the meaning, ontology, or vital contemporary relevance of the scientific method, for example)^[42].

Language of Science—From Facts to Meaning: When Schummer calls for translation and mediation, he goes beyond asking communication to build definitional bridges from esoteric science discourse to publicly accessible language, although this remains a central focus of most science journalism curricula. A vexing question for modern modern science remains why the Enlightenment ("Age of Reason") so often appears to have failed to "stick" in the early 21st century. The usual scientific assumption—if we adequately present the data, the public will understand and eventually act appropriately (any further exhortations being "outside of the job description" of scientists^[43])—falls short of explaining the effectiveness of anti-science politicians and their advisors^[44].

Since antiquity, students of rhetoric have been schooled in the meaning of ethos, pathos, and logos. If the observations and reasoning of science (logos) and the (perhaps failing) credibility of scientists and academicians (ethos) are so easily dismissed in contemporary politics, students of communication know that a key to rhetorical weakness of raw science (presented as authoritative and factual) is in strong part due to failure to adequately understand the roll of emotions (pathos), including subconscious feelings. Relatively recent linguistic and brain physiology studies thus are an important foundation for those who seek to effectively translate and mediate. In part, this is a key to the relative (although not yet complete) success of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which provides equal attention to the presentation of basic scientific observations, interpretation of the consequences of observable trends, and encouragement for action to mitigate damages^[45].

Effective science communication on matters such as climate change and future energy alternatives is critical to contemporary public engagements such as Hopkins' Transition Movement^[46]. Responses to information from science contribute to citizen motivation to explore new concepts of local community resilience, consumption, etc. Equally important, however, is an awareness of shared political and moral feelings. As communicators engage to persuade formation of such public movements, they will be well advised to acquire an understanding of the roll of mental frames of reference^[47], the emotions—sub-conscious mental associations (a result of relatively recent work on brain physiology) and the concept of positive asymmetry as it affects public ability to comprehend natural disasters such as hurricanes Katrina or Sandy— and their role in contemporary politics^[48].

Communication and the Culture of Science: Although it is very difficult to convey (reference to the Career of Carl Sagen is instructive^[49]), the cultural pressures within universities and science guilds against engagement with the public is important for science communicators to comprehend if they are to understand the great reluctance of most scientists to speak out about the implications of their work on climate, energy, food, water, or the biosphere. Students of science communication may also benefit from awareness of the difficulties that scientists encounter as they venture from the relative refuge of life in the laboratory (both literal and figurative) into the wilds of public forums. Internecine warfare within the climate science community, for example, is vividly portrayed in Cooney's Storm World^[50]. The more disturbing politicizing of science at a federal level is also well captured in books on climate science in a political arena: studies of the experiences of James Hansen, Stephen Schneider, or Michael Mann are prominent examples^[51].

Writing Science: Pragmatic reasons for increased attention to science writing have been put forth by science communicators such as journalist Chris Mooney.

Others, such as English professor Michael Zerbe^[53], see the need for greater attention to the rhetoric of science in composition studies as a matter of (the subtitle of his book) "engaging the dominant discourse." Why?

A mixture of desire to engage the dominant discourse and a pragmatic desire to turn out some of the nations best science writers informs to exemplary Science Communication Program within Kresge College at the University of California Santa Cruz.

Certainly, these themes are reflected in the quality writing programs of MIT's Graduate Program in Science Writing, found within the School of Humanities, Arts, and Sciences.

MIT, along with Georgia Tech, Stanford, and few others, represents the best of U.S. science and technology education, and the presence of a graduate level program dedicated to writing about science is particularly noteworthy. But especially remarkable is the dedication to writing for the public.

If there is a national mood of despair about the role of science in contemporary journalism or writing programs, it is not reflected by the awareness or exuberance displayed by MIT and UCal Santa Cruz.

Conclusion: Beyond Environmental Communication

As American universities have evolved, particularly since the mid-nineteenth century rise of the public Land Grant Universities, a key to their international success has been the innovation of increasing homes for specialization of scholarship. Essential for individual researchers and teachers to focus their studies, the emergence of academic discourse communities also empowers claims to quality and distinction, a key source of the prestige that undergirds success in a competitive academic marketplace^[56].

Communication's geneology extends to ancient Greece, where formalized education prepared citizens for vibrant civic engagement, citizenry contrasted with idiocy (a tendency toward concern with private—as contrasted to public—affairs)^[56]. Key to the education was rhetoric for public speaking. Ironically, the tendency toward disciplinary isolation that was a foundation for a rise to global preeminence for American higher education in the twentieth century, may be now showing signs of strategic stagnation in the face of the complex, multidiscipliary challenges of twenty-first century global society. Is the collective vision of contemporary communication too narrow, too overly concerned with a private, internally focused and overly narrow set of emphases? Or is communication on the verge of expanding its sense of wider engagement with a broader array of academic concerns, reestablishing a more central role as a critical agent of academic citizenry?

The current survey suggests both a culturally-rooted sense of a set areas of emphasis essential to disciplinary identity, and a dynamic response to the stimulative effects of new media technology, extending speech and writing in new and exciting ways. There is a justified sense of pride in the scholarship of communication research over a wide intellectual domain, and an awareness of the important contributions being made by the discipline as a vital source of public social commentary and criticism, an exercise of the highest democratic social function of modern universities.

The survey also suggests that there is still great potential for communication as a catalyst to reignite the Enlightenment by facilitating a return of science to public discourse. Through preparation of better educated citizens, more competent to assess the credibility of sources of scientific sense (and nonsense), and through preparation of a new generation of teachers and practitioners of science-infused social action, there is yet significant room for expansion of science communication within the Nation's curricula.

There are clear models in which collaborations or integrations of science and communication create benchmarks for others to emulate. There are focused programs that should inspire growth in science writing, and in the creation of hybrid science communication in new or evolving media. There is, it seems clear, an adequate seed stock of people and ideas from which a population of diverse and interesting species of science communicators can evolve.

If what we are seeing is evidence of potential for growth and refinement in what is recognized as science communication, then it may be correct to say that the discipline has adequate awareness within its current cognitive body of knowledge (using Schummer's analysis) for production of an expanded array of curricular offerings, adding to the traditional perception of the boundary's of essential science education an expanded diversity of communication curricula (further speciation, if you will) to include insights from the political implications of brain sciences (e.g., neuro networks, frames, the subconscious nature of thought, the role of metaphors, etc.), from understanding of human perceptions of risk analysis and the availability heuristic, and from an understanding of the asymetric nature of human emotional positivism.

Finally, while there are many academic arenas for experimentation with Schummer's social understanding of the discipline, we may as yet not have begun to understand the power of external influence on the nature of communication, or to forsee the future selective pressures for communication to become even more engaged as an agent of social change in response to planetary concerns which science is now bringing to our awareness. The need for going beyond the traditional tri-part land grant philosophy of teaching, research, and technical outreach will be explored in a separate appendix, an inquiry into communication as an agent of advocacy in a twenty-first century Rhetorical University.