At Caltech, Words Matter too

The Words Matter project at Caltech has been in existence for only a year, yet it has already raised awareness on campus of the beauty and value of effective writing.

“We’re supporting a range of events designed to raise the awareness of good writing and bring students in contact with prominent authors,” said Steven Youra, chair of the Words Matter committee and director of the Hixon Writing Center. On a campus where ideas about theoretical astrophysics make headlines, and molecules rule, words can sometimes get short shrift. The Words Matter project is intended to revise that situation.

The project has three aspects—visiting writers, science writing, and small grants. Distinguished writers are invited to Caltech through the Visiting Writers component. These writers don’t simply give a one-shot reading and leave, but instead they stay around for a while.

In November, the novelist and poet Seamus Deane spent four days on campus, reading from his work, participating in classes, dining with students, and meeting with faculty. He capped off his visit with a public lecture on politics and culture in his native Ireland.

“Because our students’ interests are diverse, we try to select a range of visiting writers to engage different segments of the community,” Youra said. As an example, he noted that the next writer in residence will be Caltech alumnus Alan Lightman (PhD ’74), a theoretical physicist and novelist, science essayist, and member of MIT’s graduate science writing program.

The second component of Words Matter, an annual Science Writing Symposium, will take place this year on Monday, February 3, when a group of distinguished science writers will discuss the challenges of communicating complex technical information to general audiences. The moderated panel will include Usha Lee McFarling of the Los Angeles Times, Cory Dean of the New York Times, and David Goodstein, Caltech’s vice provost, Gilloon Distinguished Teaching and Service Professor, and professor of physics and applied physics. The symposium is primarily aimed at Caltech juniors taking the Core 1 Science Writing Requirement, which calls for science papers written in language that general readers would understand.

The third Words Matter component is a small-grants program that supports a variety of literary activities, including readings by lesser-known writers. Last spring, a grant helped defray publication costs of Totem, Caltech’s arts and literary magazine; this term, Words Matter grants will help sponsor cartoonist Aaron McGruder’s February 4 visit and will bring a drama expert to conduct workshops on Shake-spearean language and performance for Theater Arts at Caltech. Words Matter also supported an informal dinner-discussion for students with the writer Michael Crichton before his Michelin Distinguished Visitor Lecture on January 17.

“Overall, we hope that Words Matter fosters greater appreciation of writing in all its dimensions,” Youra said. For more information about Words Matter, including grant proposals, go to
http://www.wordsmatter.caltech.edu/
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