Andrew Fiss

With a background in science studies and first-year writing, Dr. Andrew Fiss works at the intersections of cultural history, rhetoric, technical communication, and education. He has studied the use of podcasting to improve students' scientific and digital literacies, and his work about the rhetoric of mathematics textbooks has appeared in the journals Science & Education and the History of Education Quarterly. His current book project, Math on Fire: Cultures of Textbook Burning and Mathematics Requirements in Nineteenth-Century America, is a cultural history of mathematics requirements, providing a fuller picture of nineteenth-century college life and also a historical perspective on Americans' intense feelings about mathematics. Math on Fire looks to the nineteenth century for the historical roots for educators' arguments about why geometry, trigonometry, and calculus should be common requirements, and it also uncovers the ways that thousands of nineteenth-century students celebrated passing their last required mathematics classes through burning their books. This combination of material allows for an unusual perspective on our present policy debates surrounding mathematics requirements in high schools and colleges throughout the United States.

Dr. Fiss teaches rhetoric, science writing, technical communication, and graduate seminars in public understandings of science and technical and scientific communication. He is a member of the Scientific and Technical Communication Steering Committee and serves as an advisor for the Society for Technical Communication student chapter. As former director of the Humanities Internship Program, he is willing to meet with students about any stage of the internship process. Lastly, he is very interested in STEAM (STEM + Arts) initiatives at Michigan Tech and beyond.michigan tehc