What Is CID?
What Is CID?
Communication in the Disciplines (CID) programs facilitate students’ mastery of course content and develop their scholarly expertise, while improving their communication skills. CID courses emphasize discipline-specific modes of inquiry, vocabulary and concepts, genres, and discourse conventions in a particular field of study, while reinforcing general rhetorical principles. CID instruction can be embedded in existing courses in a variety of ways, from the introduction of an in-class workshop to coach or TA training to wholesale curricular change.
CID Projects 
See how we've supported students' communication skill development across the curriculum.
Faculty Resources 
Learn how the PWC can support your students' communication skill development.
Contact Us 
Contact the Rice University Program in Writing and Communication or the Center for Academic Communication.
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Faculty Spotlight
The CAPC Director worked with me to design and then hone writing assignments for BIOC 300 over a period of years. The instruction and support system provided by the CAPC for the undergraduate TAs (and for me) was exceptional, and the TAs improved their own writing by being on the other side of the grading process. This partnership was a wonderful adventure!
Kathy Matthews
Stewart Memorial Professor, Biosciences -
Faculty Spotlight
Several years ago, I approached CAPC with a request to help me develop a new segment of MUSI 733, a doctoral seminar at the Shepherd School of Music. CAPC worked closely with me to develop a writing project that could be integrated into the course schedule. Activities included a presentation and workshop, individual consultations, and constructive criticism of oral presentations. The results have been outstanding and inspirational for our students. The expertise, guidance, and generous support offered by CAPC has been critical to the project's success.
Kurt Stallmann
Professor, Composition and Theory -
Faculty Spotlight
CAPC has really helped me develop the presentation skills of graduate students in my POLI 536 course. The director gives an interactive presentation on oral and visual presentation skills on the first day of class, and then CAPC provides a peer consultant for the semester to help students with their individual presentations. By the time the students get to class, their oral and visual presentation skills are excellent. It's been a great resource for me and the students.
Leslie Schwindt-Bayer
Professor, Political Science -
Faculty Spotlight
The PWC associate director has come to my classroom many times to conduct a workshop on how to do an effective presentation using power point. I am continually impressed by her thoughtful and generous preparation. Each time she arrives with new examples pitched to that year’s syllabus and that pointedly speak to the students’ assignments. In addition to offering students expert instruction on all aspects of oral and visual presentation, her practiced professional demeanor models for them the points she is explaining. The impact of her excellent lessons is born out in the polished presentations students go on to do. We are so fortunate to have the PWC (and CAPC) as a resource at Rice!
Rosemary Hennessy
L. H. Favrot Professor, Humanities -
Faculty Spotlight
The staff at CAPC helped me to create a new, communication-intensive, senior seminar on contemporary German history, which involved formal presentations by the students. Each student worked with a graduate CAPC consultant who led them through the process of creating an effective presentation, complete with PowerPoint tips. The class was a great success, earning a 1 (highest possible evaluation) for both quality and effectiveness. To quote a student evaluation: "I learned so much from crafting my own lecture, both about the topic I presented on and about pedagogy itself—invaluable."
Carl Caldwell
Samuel G. McCann Professor, History -
Faculty Spotlight
PWC Associate Director Elizabeth Festa has become an integral part of our undergraduate program in Anthropology. With customized workshops on visual argumentation strategies for student poster presentations and support for common projects like student literature reviews, Dr. Festa’s expertise means I can expand the learning opportunities for my students in any course. Dr. Festa has also helped us transform the research support courses required of all anthropology majors. Thanks to the PWC, our students not only learn about anthropology, but also about how to communicate their own original work in a way that will be both clear and meaningful to any audience. This support has been key to the increasing quality of our student’s senior research projects, including a number of recent RURS wins.
Zoë Wool
Assistant Professor, Anthropology -
Faculty Spotlight
The PWC was a critical resource as I worked to integrate oral communication mentoring into a 300-level STEM course. The PWC not only helped me refine the structured activities for communication training in this class, but they also provide direct support by mentoring students as they work to refine their assignments for a capstone class exercise. At the graduate level, the PWC has also been a wonderful collaborator in a project that is focused on developing new graduate student communication training activities that seek to educate students about how to refine their communication for both disciplinary and interdisciplinary audiences.
Joff Silberg
Professor, BioSciences