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Media Relations

IU class explores communication gap between scientists and policy makers

Faiz Rahman doesn't just talk about the communication gap between scientists and public officials -- he's doing something about it. The associate professor of geography at Indiana University Bloomington brought politicians, media officials and policy experts into the classroom this fall to talk with students about translating science into policy.

"For students, it was quite an eye opener," Rahman said, speaking of his IU course titled "Science, Public Policy and Outreach." They learned that government officials have to give considerable weight to public opinion and the beliefs of their constituents, even when they conflict with scientific consensus.

"The scientists stay too much among themselves," Rahman said. "It may be that it's a good idea for us to reach out to citizens and explain why we do what we do."

Rahman taught a similar course last year when he was on the faculty at Texas Tech University. A native of Bangladesh who earned master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Arizona, he came to IU in January 2007.

A remarkable list of experts agreed to speak to his class and kept their commitments. They included U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, who represents Indiana's 9th congressional district, including Bloomington; state Sen. Vi Simpson, who represents the Bloomington area in the Indiana General Assembly; and former U.S. Rep. David McIntosh, the 2000 Republican candidate for governor of Indiana.

Other guest speakers were Soroosh Sorooshian, former president of the Hydrology Section of the American Geophysical Union; Clayton Taylor, vice president of WFYI-TV in Indianapolis; IU Bloomington faculty members Lesa Hatley Major from the School of Journalism and A. James Barnes from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs; and Melanie Moran, assistant director for Web communications at Vanderbilt University's Peabody College.

Students in the class, designed for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, also worked on projects, carried out research and wrote papers. Rahman said their research found that, at major U.S. research universities, there are almost no courses on how scientists can better communicate with policy makers and the general public.

"We train our students how to be good scientists, but we give them almost nothing on how to communicate with nonscientific audiences," he said.

And that's not just a practical problem. With much research funded by taxpayers, Rahman, said, "Maybe there's a moral issue of letting our fellow citizens know what we are doing with their money and why it's important."

Rahman said students learned that scientists and public officials want to see science used to inform policy making, but both sides could do a better job of communicating with each other. He plans to teach the course again at IU in the fall semester of 2008-09.

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