Liberal Studies in Engineering - Workshop Report
Support for this event was provided by the National Science Foundation’s Improving Under- graduate STEM Education program (award no.1451399 made to MIT), by the Teagle Foundation, and by the Deans of MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and of Claremont Graduate University’s School of Educational Studies.
Discussion Session 4
G.S. Tannenbaum I. C. A . F. Robinson (London, UK): Have you treated animals with somatostatin to see if you can block the change in GHRH immunoreactivity? G. S. Tannenbaum (Montreal, Canada): We are currently extending our investigations in these depleted animals. Somatostatin treatment is one area we intend to look at. I. C.A. F. Robinson: Would you like to speculate on the oscillation observed in GHRH levels. Do you think this is a reflection of activity or somehow causal in the rhythm? G.S. Tannenbaum: These are preliminary data taken from only one trough and one peak GH time point and therefore it is premature to speculate. We are now investigating this feature further by assaying GHRH mRNA at several different times throughout the 24-hour cycle. M. Silbermann (Haifa, Israel): Would you care to comment on the central intrahypothalamic interaction in starvation? What does it mean in terms of the hypothalamus, somatostatin and sex hormones? G. S. Tannenbaum: I believe that the high somatostatin levels circulating during starvation emanate from peripheral sites, e.g. the pancreas and GI tract, rather than central, hypothalamic sites and act to suppress GH secretion at the level of the pituitary. Concerning sex hormones, there is controversy over whether the sex steroids have a direct effect at the level of the pituitary or whether they act via the CNS. No direct effect of oestradiol at the pituitary was found by Thorner's group. Chowen-Breed et al. (Endocrinology 1989; 125: 357) have shown differences in hypothalamic somatostatin mRNA in females compared with males and that testosterone can modulate somatostatin gene expression in the brain. Hence, available evidence suggests that steroidal sex hormones act via the CNS. J . 0 . Jansson (Gothenburg, Sweden): What are the effects of long-term infusion with somatostatin? G.S. Tannenbaum: We have not looked at long-term infusion; other workers are currently investigating this. However, we would assume that both long-term infusion and pretreatment with a long-acting somatostatin analogue would produce an augmentation of the response of the somatotroph to endogenous stimuli such as GHRH. 0. G. P. Isaksson (Gothenburg, Sweden): Why were male rats synchronized in Canada, but not in the London and Gothenburg experiments? G.S. Tannenbaum: Single blood samples taken at supposed peak and trough GH secretion cannot be depended on to represent true maximum and minimum values, respectively. We have measured GH secretion in this way and have not always been able to find a significant difference between the two different time points. Although there was a trend for higher GH levels in rats killed at 11.00 hours, this did not reach significance because of the huge variability in values obtained. A peak in GH secretion is an episode which lasts for about an hour, and while 11 .OO hours is taken to be the time of peak secretion, measurements taken at this time could be situated on either the upswing or the downswing of an episode. Hence, the necessity for chronic 6-hour sampling.
Teaming engineers and technical communicators in interdisciplinary classrooms: working with and against compartmentalized knowledge
We highlight how, in interdisciplinary, capstone design courses, the most successful teams typically depend heavily on aspects often considered in science and engineering to be "soft skills": flexibility in handling differences, interpersonal strengths in interacting with others, positive attitudes toward collaboration, openness to alternative ideas and approaches, an ability to withhold decisions while various methods and alternatives are considered and weighed. We suggest that such elements are often ignored even in the upper-level courses students take, most often due to the real pressures we feel to teach students more technical skill sets associated with our own given disciplines. Yet, we argue the importance of explicitly teaching mindsets open to "soft skills" along with or as part of these more specialized skill sets. We highlight issues that have continued to surface as we have attempted to do just that. In addition, we share some of the less and more successful strategies we have adopted over a five-year collaboration for fostering mindsets that are often so much more a challenge to teach or to adopt.