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Annual Report 2018-19

The Humanities Side of STEM

STEM is the new buzzword sweeping across the nation from kindergarten through higher education. Many of us presume only the brainiacs will enter the STEM arena; we picture quiet yet brilliant students in thick-rimmed glasses working long equations on calculators hooked up to computers which will solve our modern world problems. We assume our students are playing in virtual reality goggles and creating holograms or building the next big app for everyone to download.

While all of that may be true, the STEM or science, technology, engineering, and math industry is trickling through many programs at SUNY Niagara. Students are preparing for opportunities in their given trades as well as rounding educational experience in the humanities to bring an edge to their resume when they head into the workforce.

Our SUNY Niagara Humanities division acknowledged the importance of the STEM field and their tendrils which will be making their way through the liberal arts. In 2013, the college began offering ENG 103 “Writing for STEM.” Marc Pietrzykowski, Associate Professor in the Humanities department, teaches the course designed for students interested in careers within the STEM scope. “ENG 103 was created to teach students the same rhetorical, analytical, research, and critical thinking skills that ENG 102 provides, but instead of reading works of Literature, we read general audience Science, Technology, and Nature writing, most of it non-fiction,” explains Marc.

SUNY Niagara STEM Center

Rendering of proposed SUNY Niagara STEM Center

Additional, he states, “We do some assignments that are more tailored to the kind of readings we do, such as: students complete a group project where they analyze a campus- or community-based problem, then offer solutions, including a system solution boundary and a cost-benefit analysis. Some examples of problems students try to solve include potholes on campus, cafeteria choices, [and] utilizing the campus grounds better.”

Students are learning cultural norms in their chosen STEM communities as well as learning how to write for their future audiences. Writing for STEM facilitates a space for students to flex their creative muscle, learn about the sciences outside of a lab, and gain rhetorical understanding in a subject they are interested.