The Words Matter Program offers Caltech students frequent opportunities for close contact with accomplished writers. Funded by the President’s office and guided by a committee of students, faculty, and administrators, the WM project has three components: a writer-in-residency program, a science-writing symposium, and a small-grants initiative.

• WM invites prominent authors to campus for brief residencies of several days. Since our undergraduates have very diverse interests, WM aims to reach the broadest range of student audiences by including different writers who deal with a range of concerns in different genres. Each writer’s visit features intensive engagement with students. In addition to giving public lectures and readings, authors visit classes, meet with relevant student groups, and participate in other programming.

• WM sponsors an annual symposium on science writing. The symposium features a discussion among several notable science writers, followed by a question/answer session with the audience. This public event is held in conjunction with Caltech's undergraduate science-writing requirement.

• WM also makes a limited number of small grants to support special requests from faculty members or student groups to bring other (typically lesser-known) authors to campus for one-time readings or class discussions.

The Words Matter project is intended to foster a culture of literacy at Caltech, to cultivate students’ interest in writing in its varied forms, and to celebrate the many ways in which words do, indeed, matter.

For more information about the Words Matter project, please contact us at words@caltech.edu