COURSE POLICIES

CREDIT AND WORKLOAD

EDU 470 is a 4-credit course. Completing this course can fulfill the social science general education requirement, the Summit global learning general education requirement, and count as an Education or Women’s Studies elective.

Participants will spend 3 hours in class sessions each week. Additional work is required in order to make up the fourth credit hour for accreditation purposes:

• Participants will need to use out-of-class course time to prepare for class sessions by reading course materials and preparing to participate in class discussions and activities actively. All readings and weekly assignments ought to be completed before each class meeting. This preparation time should account for 4-6 hours per week.
• Participants will write weekly reflection journal entries (due on Monday by noon each week).
• For their midterm project, participants will also select a special topic/ region to research and present in class. This project should take approximately 10-15 hours to prepare.
• Finally, participants should plan to spend another 8-10 hours of work for each major assignment, which include research on the 3-part auto/biography projects.

INCLUSION

This course adheres to the principles of diversity and inclusion integral to the Agnes Scott community.  We respect people from all backgrounds and recognize the differences among our students, including racial and ethnic identities, religious practices, and gender expressions.  We strive for our campus to be a safe space in which all students feel acknowledged and supported.  At the same time, we understand that course content, critical inquiry, and classroom dialogues give us opportunities to examine topics from a variety of perspectives.  Such discourse is a defining feature of a liberal arts education, and can compel debates that challenge beliefs and positions, sometimes causing discomfort, especially around issues related to personal identities.  While we uphold and preserve the tenets of academic freedom, we request and invite your thoughtful and constructive feedback on ways that we can, as a community of learners, respectfully assist and challenge one another in our individual and collective academic work.

LEARNING COMMUNITY

This learning community is composed of people with a rich variety of backgrounds, identities and perspectives. We are active co-learners working together to create an inclusive learning community. Dr. Sethi is committed to facilitating a learning context that respects diversity and inclusion while building belonging. In this learning community, all participants are encouraged to:

• Reflect on and share their unique experiences, values and beliefs (in writing and verbally).
• Be open and sensitive to the perspectives of other members of our class community.
• Listen mindfully and actively to one another’s viewpoints and allow room for silent reflection.
• Be willing to engage in open dialogues that may challenge our own worldviews.
• Befriend discomfort as an instructive part of the learning process. Discomfort is often a critical aspect of learning and it is in that space that learning and growth may occur.
• Work collaboratively to build a thoughtful and empathetic learning space.
• Value each other’s opinions and communicate in a respectful manner even across differences.
• Keep confidential discussions that the community has of a personal (or professional) nature.
• Use this opportunity to forge new ways in which we can create an inclusive space in this course and across our campus community.

Trigger Considerations: This course will explore global gender inequalities and sexism (in an intersectional analaysis).  To do so, the content and assignments will include might raise issues of racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other kinds of privilege. I invite you to consult me for more information.  If you feel you will be unable to fully participate in the course requirements, let us discuss needed modifications and accommodations.

PARTICIPATION AND ATTENDANCE

Since this course is organized much like a seminar that meets only once per week, attendance and participation are critical to the success of this course. Therefore, timely class attendance is integral to our collective learning. Missing a class session is the equivalent of missing a full week (a complete topic/ theme) of classes. Any participant missing more than one full class meeting an excused absence will receive deduction of one full letter grade per absence beyond two (2). All participants are expected to actively engage in the discussion and to have read the assigned material prior to the class meetings. At random times throughout the course, students will be called upon to present to the entire class a brief overview of the main issues discussed in the readings. We will be doing many in-class activities as well as peer reviewing during class time, so a missed class will impact all of us. In case of illness, religious holidays and family emergencies, please contact the instructor ahead of time and arrange to make up the missed material.

Academic Honesty and Integrity

The Agnes Scott College honor code embodies an ideal of character, conduct, and citizenship, and is an important part of the College’s mission and core identity. This applies especially to academic honesty and integrity. Passing off someone else’s work as your own represents intellectual fraud and theft, and violates the core values of our academic community. To be honorable, you should understand not only what counts as academic dishonesty, but also how to avoid engaging in these practices. Observe the following guidelines carefully:

• Review each course syllabus for the professor’s expectations regarding course work and class attendance.
• Attribute all ideas taken from other sources; this shows respect for other scholars. Plagiarism can include portraying another’s work or ideas as your own, buying a paper online and turning it in as if it were your own work, or not citing or improperly citing references on a reference page or within the text of a paper.
• Do not falsify or create data and resources or alter a graded work without the prior consent of your professor. This includes making up a reference for a works cited page or making up statistics or facts for academic work.
• Practice honest collaboration. This course relies on open sharing of ideas and group work. However, do not allow another party to do your work/exam, or submit the same or similar work in more than one course without permission from the course instructor. Do not facilitate cheating, which can happen when you help another student complete a take home exam, give answers to an exam, talk about an exam with a student who has not taken it, or collaborate with others on work that is supposed to be completed independently.
• Be truthful about the submission of work, which includes the time of submission and the place of submission (e.g., e-mail, online, in a mailbox, to an office, etc.).

Please understand that penalties result from dishonest conduct, ranging from failure of the assignment to expulsion from the college. You should speak with your professors if you need clarification about any of these policies.

Please pledge that you have completed assignments honestly by attaching the following statement to your papers and other assignments:

I pledge that I have neither given nor received any unauthorized aid on this assignment.

(Signed) _________________________________________

Accommodations

Agnes Scott College seeks to provide equal access to its programs, services and activities for people with various abilities. If you will need accommodations in this class, please contact Kelly Deasy Roy in the Office of Academic Advising and Accessible Education to complete the registration process. Once registered, please contact me so we can discuss the specific accommodations needed for this course.

Kelly Roy, Dir. of Accessible Education in Buttrick G-13 404-471-6174 kroy@agnesscott.edu

TITLE IX

For the safety of the entire community, any incidence of or information about sexual misconduct must be reported immediately to Title IX Coordinator Marti Fessenden (mfessenden@agnesscott.edu, 404-471-6547) or Deputy Title IX Coordinator Karen Gilbert (kgilbert@agnesscott.edu,404-471-6435).

COMMUNICATION

Dr. Sethi aims to be an accessible and responsive instructor. I hold regular office hours, and usually stay after class to respond to questions. I will send a weekly reminder e-mail to all students with any updates or changes to the week’s readings and assignments. All participants are expected to read these messages carefully, and respond as needed. In the event that you need to contact me about a class-related matter, the best way to reach me is by sending an e-mail to gsethi@agnesscott.edu. I will typically respond within 24 hours. If you need to speak with me urgently, calling or leaving messages on my office phone number is not a reliable method of communication. Instead, send an e-mail including your inquiry and a phone number where you can be reached. In order to respect professional instructor-student boundaries, I do not connect with students on social media until after the course and grading processes are complete.

COURSE EVALUATIONS

Students’ feedback about this course is valuable to the professor, the education department, and the college administration.  Students’ comments are taken seriously and the comments are used to improve the course in the future.  Students will be asked to complete evaluations of the course at the end of the semester.