Academic communication format ineffective, outdated

By Margie Diddams     11/5/09 6:00pm

In less than two months, I will graduate with a bachelor's degree in ecology. Shortly thereafter, if graduate school applications go as well as I hope, you'll find me in a Ph.D.-track program for conservation biology or environmental science. Like most seniors around this time, I'm as excited as I am nervous. However, I have a secret. It's not much of a secret for those who know me, but considering you probably don't, and in light of what I've just told you, this may come as something of a surprise.

I am not a fan of academia.

I yearn to change the world. If my life doesn't impact the way humans interact with the environment, help eliminate discrimination, war or poverty, or improve the treatment of animals or the distribution of resources, I fear I'll have spent a lifetime in vain. Perhaps this seems romantic or na've. I'm okay with that; it's my truth.

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Sometimes I get fed up with academia for its inability to meet those goals. How, I've wondered, can I ever change the world if I'm too busy studying steric hindrance and the coefficient of conversion efficiency? And yet I'm attending an elite academic institution, with plans for continued education. You can see the contradiction.

I finally read something that helped me swallow this quandary: a new book by Randy Olson entitled Don't Be Such a Scientist. His basic argument is just as it sounds: Scientists - academics in general, really - have such a hard time communicating their ideas that the public can't relate, and the vast majority of intellectually useful information goes unheard. He draws a distinction between substance and style: Brainiacs have got the substance, but they often fall flat on their style of delivery.

After finishing the book, I realized that I agreed. Academia and I are, by and large, working toward the same goals. Academics have the substance, but they too often lack the style. I'm sure every Rice student can relate on some level. Be honest, students (even faculty, as you were students once, too): How many times have you fallen asleep during class? Let your mind wander? Thought about food, sex, sleep - anything more relevant to your daily life?

But if you take out the mumbo jumbo - the jargon and the big words, the complex theories that lead to frantic late nights in Fondren - academia is all about the big issues: Why are we here? Where did we come from and who are we? How, through science and art, can we improve ourselves, our society and our surroundings? What could be more relevant to our daily lives?

So the substance and the content are certainly there. (I dare you to identify any topic the institutionally recognized "thinkers" of the world aren't bouncing around their grey matter.) But the style with which those "thinkers" communicate is obviously flawed - or else students would not have to mentally leave the classroom to find issues that resonate with them.

The first semester of my freshman year at Rice, I committed an academic faux pas. I was taking a course on postmodern literature. We'd just finished reading some spectacular book - probably by Toni Morrison, my postmodern queen - and I'd come to class ready to rave. When I commented that the book touched me deeply and made me sob, the response was not as I'd expected. My classmates and professor didn't disagree so much as stare at me. I had interrupted a perfectly good, intellectual discussion of the book's complex symbolism and erratic organization. Of what intellectual value were my tears?

Books, like scientific inventions, psychological theories and political ramblings, are intended for the public. If a book makes you cry, or if lots of people in society put scientific inventions, psychological theories or political ramblings to good use, then why can't we call that book, product or theory a success? And if that's the case, if the public's response to academic work determines, at least in part, the value of that work, shouldn't we strive to make academia more accessible?

Life, as I see it, is pretty simple. Much as we try to pretend otherwise, humans are animals: We eat, sleep and reproduce, and somehow we've got to get along in the process. Everything else in society, like our advanced technology and extensive infrastructure, is secondary, and represents attempts to improve our efficiency or enjoyment of the basics. Nonetheless, centuries of intellectuals have produced a whole repertoire of convoluted terms and esoteric hypotheses from such straightforward concepts.

A memo to stressed orgo students: Atoms don't experience steric hindrance. They run into each other. Kah-bam. Like a fly to the windshield. And populations don't express a coefficient of conversion efficiency. Predators digest their prey, and it takes time. Every field has a list - oh, so long - of comparable examples, basic ideas made unnecessarily complex.

Today's generation of scholars is not necessarily to blame for this phenomenon. Academia is a conservative craft. Scientific and artistic ideas exist in the modern intellectual consciousness because countless individuals over thousands of years have fought for their inclusion. To stray too far from the accepted body of knowledge is to imply that you know more than all those smart dead dudes combined. So if you're going to suggest something novel, you better do it in the least shocking way possible: Use the same terms, the same format, the same framework.

But what if the terms, format and framework for our thoughts were outdated? If these tools of communication can't keep today's students awake, how are they ever going to rattle non-academic sectors of society? How can we expect migrant workers, homemakers, even the president, for goodness sake, to listen, let alone do something about what we're saying? How can our studies benefit society if we're not sharing our thoughts in a useful way?

My frustration with academia and my interest in academics are not, I've finally realized, necessarily in conflict. Research and analysis may generate solutions to the problems of the world, but only if we find an effective way to communicate those solutions. We must talk in a way that convinces Joe Shmoe that our words have meaning and our ideas are relevant.

Because if we don't, we're nothing more than an isolated group of monkeys talking a funny language only we can understand.

Margie Diddams is a Lovett College senior.

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