The Communication Factor
Newsletter of the Cain Project in Engineering and Professional Communication at Rice University Fall-2003

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Student Spotlight: Cain Project Mentors & Coaches

Student Presentations Coaches
In the fall of ’99, the Cain Project trained its first presentations coaches to mentor the presentations of other students. Science and engineering students can make appointments with these coaches to get feedback on their presentations’ delivery, organization and graphics. Currently the Cain Project has two presentations studios in which practices are held: one in Abercrombie B109 and the other in Anderson Biology 215. Although final presentations fall at the end of the semester, a hectic time for all students, the dedicated coaches take time out of their busy schedules to help other students prepare for their presentations.

Sam Jones, a chemical engineering major in his junior year at Rice, is currently one of the Cain Project
presentations coaches. Sam’s first involvement with the Cain Project was as a Rice freshman in UNIV 113: Technological Disasters and Catastrophes. In this class, groups are required to give presentations analyzing a disaster or catastrophe such as the Apollo 1 mission. It was in this class that Cain Project Assistant Director Tracy Volz coached Sam. Because of Tracy’s coaching, Sam now enjoys public speaking and finds it much less stressful. He “gets a kick” out of giving presentations.

Currently Sam coaches students in UNIV 113. He is also a TA for Organic Chemistry 215 where he presents synopses of chapters and works through old exams for an audience of up to 100 students. He feels that the ability to speak in front of a group helps students stand out. Although working with the Cain Project it is not a requirement, Sam says that students are missing out on a great opportunity if they do not take advantage of the services it offers.

BIOS 201/202 Student Writing Mentors
Each year the Cain Project recruits some of the top writers in BIOS 202 to become writing mentors for Introductory Biology. These students are trained by Cain Project instructors to read, evaluate, grade and review BIOS 201/202 students’ papers. They are available for one-on-one consultations with BIOS students to review their assignments and to give them feedback. This semester, ten mentors worked with over one hundred students on their assignments and extra-credit papers.

BIOS writing mentor Trevor Crowell is a junior majoring in biology and history. He is considering pursuing a career in international medicine.

Trevor was first introduced to the Cain Project when he enrolled in BIOS 202 and received the mentoring that he himself now gives. Trevor has also taken two other courses sponsored by the Cain Project, ENGL 307: Medical/Technical Communication and BIOS 305: Writing and Presenting in the Biosciences. The clarity and persuasiveness of his own writing have greatly improved as a result. Trevor expects to use many of the skills he has learned from the Cain Project as a physician, a career in which he will interact with people on a daily basis. Being able to communicate effectively will aid him when working with patients, researchers, and other physicians and professionals.

Lingo Lai is a senior psychology student who has been a Cain Project writing mentor for the past two semesters. She emphasizes the difference between writing science papers vs. writing humanities papers. Most students entering college lack experience writing scientific reports. They are rarely taught how to manage the aspects of style, tone and wording required by this type of writing. As a mentor, Lingo helps students develop the skills they need to write well.

Lingo says that her experience working with the Cain Project as a writing mentor has been rewarding because of the noticeable improvement of the students’ work within a semester. She likes knowing that the students actually read the comments she writes on their papers and enjoys feeling that she’s made a difference in one aspect of their academic careers.

In addition to helping the BIOS students, Lingo finds that mentoring helps improve her own writing skills. After reading so many papers, she has developed a “better sense of how information should be presented and how sentences should be phrased.”

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