Office of Professional Communication for the School of Engineering

The goal of the office of Professional Communication for the School of Engineering is to help strengthen engineers’ communication skills. Jan Hewitt, Ph.D., and Tracy Volz, Ph.D., each have ten years of experience working with the Cain Project for Engineering Communication at Rice and now provide support for engineering faculty and students.

Jan’s focus is written communication, especially for graduate students, though she is also available to consult with faculty. Each semester she offers two non-credit thesis-writing seminars open to graduate students ready to write an extended Ph.D. proposal, a master’s thesis, or a Ph.D. dissertation. Each class is limited to 15 students, who take the class only with permission of the instructor. She has also co-taught a required class in thesis writing for the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics. Workshops she offers include “How to recognize and avoid plagiarism” and “How to write a paper for publication.” Workshops can be tailored for a specific department.

Tracy, whose focus is oral communication, helps faculty incorporate written, oral and visual communication into a syllabus and has worked with departments to develop sequential assignments in core courses for undergraduates. She and student coaches give feedback to students in practice sessions as they prepare for presentations. As time allows, Tracy offers workshops to students on topics such as research presentations and technical poster design.

Jan Hewitt
Senior Lecturer in Professional Communication
jhewitt@rice.edu
713-348-6224

Tracy Volz
Senior Lecturer in Professional Communication
tmvolz@rice.edu
713-348-6192

Visit the web page for the current Thesis Writing Seminar schedule.