Introducing the Scientists with Stories Project!

There is much to be said about initiative, and the Scientists with Stories Project (SwS) is an excellent example of the best kind of initiative in academia – a bottom-up process driven entirely by students, for students.

The Scientists with Stories project is the creation of an enterprising group of graduate students at Duke and UNC. These students identified a gap in their training and successfully raised funds to help address this gap, to the benefit of their entire cohort. It’s a significant gap  – they are seeking training and practice in the use of new communication tools and digital media. Like it or not, these tools are critical for young scientists seeking to address the “broader impacts” requirements of many funding agencies. They are also an increasingly important way for young scholars to promote their science and get their messages out.

I’m lucky enough to be the faculty advisor for the Duke side, John Bruno is my counterpart at UNC. It will be great to work with these driven young scholars and to see what shakes out. The proposal was funded by the Kenan-Biddle Partnership, a program that supports projects that enhance the intellectual life at both Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by strengthening established links or encouraging new collaborations. The Nicholas School ran a brief story on the project today.

Below is the executive summary of the funded proposal to best explain how the SwS project will do this.

The Scientists with Stories Project: a media training collaboration at the coastal laboratories of Duke & UNC-Chapel Hill

Executive Summary

Science communication is an increasingly important component of the broader impact of scientific research projects — and the grants that fund them. Most science curricula at the PhD level lack any programs to help young scientists develop the skills needed to communicate via newly dominant mediums of communication: digital photography, web videography, podcasts, and blogging. The PhD students affiliated with Dukeʼs and UNCʼs coastal laboratories experience extra challenges when seeking to acquire media skills outside of their academic curriculum. Geographic isolation prohibits these students from utilizing main campus resources, including media-relevant courses, media equipment loans, and interaction with faculty at Dukeʼs Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) and UNCʼs School of Journalism and Mass Communication (SJMC). Our end goal is to foster the notion that the process of scientific inquiry is, essentially, a story. To this end, we must work across campuses to transform the next generation of young scientists into storytellers. This proposed collaboration creates an intensive training workshop and professional exhibition opportunities for PhD students affiliated with the Duke University Marine Laboratory (DUML) and the UNCʼs Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS). The program leverages existing institutional and student assets, such as connections with workshop instructors, student and faculty blogging platforms, optimal training spaces, video-link systems, and student-ready media equipment. The January-through-December program model caters to those PhD students committed to producing a polished media product. Most marine science students can design their media projects around summer fieldwork, which will be bookended by training, exhibition events, and support meetings during the spring and fall semesters. The Scientists with Stories (SwS) project idea was developed in September 2011 during a recently revived inter-laboratory student symposium convening DUKE/UNC students. This proposed initiative is designed to build off of our common search for outreach skills and a renewed enthusiasm for increased collaboration between the two university laboratories in Carteret County. [/framed_box]