Course Policies:

Conduct: At all times, you are expected to conduct yourself as adults with a clear sense of your instructor and your fellow classmates as people who deserve your respect.  I will not tolerate discourteous or offensive behavior in the classroom, in on-line postings (including Blackboard discussion posts as well as e-mail) or during office hours.  Obey the golden rule: treat others as you expect to be treated yourself.

Be courteous to your classmates and to me.  Please turn off all cell phones and pagers when you enter the classroom.  If you forget and at some point your cell phone rings, turn it off immediately.  Do not pretend that the cell phone that is ringing is not yours.  Do not answer it and begin having a conversation. 

Attendance: I keep track of attendance in my grade book, but I do not have any elaborate schema whereby X number of absences reduces your grade by X number of points. However, those who miss more than one or two classes generally need no grade reduction as punishment from me – their work is usually sub-standard and they are therefore self-selected for a grade reduction. It is in your best interest to come to class every day, on time, with all of the materials relevant to our discussion fully prepared.  It is also in your best interest to stay for the entire class period. 

Please stay in touch with me if something prevents you from attending class or submitting required work on time. I will not accept late work unless it is accompanied by an adequate excuse for being late in writing. “I had three other papers due this week” is NOT an adequate excuse.  Unexplained absences will be considered unexcused, and will weigh against your class participation grade. Only those with excused absences will be permitted to make up missed work.

Drafts: I am happy to work with you on drafts of all of your written work.  It is most productive if you can meet with me in person.  However, if your schedule does not permit that, I can read drafts over e-mail if I am given at least one week’s notice that you intend to submit a draft in this way.

E-mail: you cannot expect instant gratification from e-mail.  Remember that there are as many as 120 people all of whom, like you, may want my electronic attention on any given day, not to mention the fact that my position requires many duties that prevent me from living on line.  Please allow me at least 24 hours to respond to your message during the workweek, and up to 48 hours if you send an e-mail on Saturday or Sunday.

Academic Honesty:

The use of any person’s ideas other than your own, whether taken directly, word for word or paraphrased, without giving proper credit to the true source is a form of intellectual theft known legally as plagiarism.  This includes material taken from web sites.  Work can be plagiarized from existing print publications, materials published on the worldwide web or from your classmates.  Penalties for plagiarized work range from failure of the assignment in question to failure of the course to expulsion from the university.  If you ever have any question about the proper citation of source materials, including online sources, please consult either me, or a reference librarian.