1. Attendance Policy I expect you to attend every class. If you do have to miss class, please let me know in advance. Missing more than two meetings will lower your grade in this course; absences beyond six may result in a failing grade for the semester.

2. Late Work All work must be submitted on the day it is due. I will grant you one extension during the semester if you have a legitimate reason for asking (an overwhelmingly busy week, personal or family crisis, or a medical emergency), but you must contact me at least 48 hours before the deadline. I am sorry but I will not be able to accept late final projects.

3. Completion of the Course You must complete all of the work for the course (including individual blog posts) in order to receive a passing grade. Also, it is the College’s policy on incomplete grades that I may not grant an incomplete unless you have completed 75% of the work for the class.

4. Community Courtesy I want this course to be a place where, for a brief three hours a week, we can freely discuss ideas. I have found that the following basic guidelines of classroom decorum help us all to do our best work:

• Please come on time to class and take your bathroom breaks, coffee runs, and other breaks BEFORE coming to class.  Unless you have an emergency, I ask that you join us for the entirety of class.
• Please come to class prepared to contribute and listen to the contributions of your classmates. Some students feel more comfortable talking, while others learn through listening—what I hope everyone will bring to this course is engagement.
• It is my experience that laptops and other devices create more distraction than learning in the classroom (this is an observation backed up by research–check it out if you are interested in the topic). Unless you have you have made other arrangements with me, you may only use your smartphone, tablet, or laptop if I have indicated we will need them for our class activities that day.

5. Technology I assume that students will have a basic-to-intermediate level of experience with electronic communications and resources for this class. I will periodically send out announcements via e-mail, so it is important that you frequently check your newpaltz.edu e-mail account for important messages about the class. If any of the technologies we are using present a problem for you, please do not hesitate to speak to me as I am happy to help you with these resources.

6. Office Hours/Contacting Me I am always available for your questions over e-mail and after class, so please don’t hesitate to talk to me about any aspect of the course or literature in general. My office hours are really Drop-in Time when you can come and see me without e-mailing ahead or making an appointment. My office hours are available not only for your questions about upcoming assignments, grades, and so on, but also for you to ask a question you thought of after class, make a point that was missed by our discussions, brainstorm paper ideas, or just talk about something that interests you in our class.

7. Plagiarism Plagiarism, according to the College’s advising handbook, is “the representation, intentional or unintentional, of someone else’s words or ideas as one’s own.” You must, therefore, put in quotation marks the words of others and properly cite, using MLA guidelines, where those words come from. If you are paraphrasing someone else’s ideas, you must also give proper citation and credit to the author of those ideas. I will strictly follow the College guidelines in reporting incidents of plagiarism:

Faculty members must report in writing cases of cheating, plagiarism or forgery to their department chair, academic Dean and Associate Dean for Student Affairs. Faculty members are also responsible for making the initial determination of the academic penalty to be imposed in cases of cheating, plagiarism, or forgery and for informing in writing the department chair, the academic Dean, and the student of the alleged violation and the proposed penalty. The academic penalty may range, for instance, from failure of a specific piece of work in a course to failure of the course itself. Cases requiring disciplinary and/or grade appeal action will be adjudicated in accordance with Procedures for Resolving Academic Integrity Cases, a copy of which is available in the office of the Vice President for Students Affairs, the office of the Provost for Academic Affairs, and in the academic Deans’ offices.

At a minimum, I will give a paper that contains plagiarism a failing grade and will report the incident as described above. If you have any questions or doubts about what constitutes plagiarism, please talk to me about anything you are unsure of before you turn it in. When in doubt, it is always best to give credit to a source.

Submitting work that was generated wholly or substantially by artificial intelligence or other computing technologies is a form of cheating that I consider especially egregious in an Honors course because it misrepresents your very voice and ideas. If I find this form of academic dishonesty in an assignment for this course my recommendation to the dean will be for failure in the course.

8.Students with Disabilities I will comply with all provisions of The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Students needing classroom and/or testing accommodations related to a disability should contact the Disability Resource Center (Student Union, Room 210, 845-257-3020) as close as possible to the beginning of the semester. The DRC will then provide students’ instructors with an Accommodation Memo verifying the need for accommodations. Specific questions about services and accommodations may be directed to Deanna Knapp, Assistant Director (knappd@newpaltz.edu) or Jean Vizvary, Director (vizvaryj@newpaltz.edu).

9. Services for Veterans: New Paltz’s Office of Veteran and Military Services (OVMS) is committed to serving the needs of veterans, service members and their dependents during their transition from military life to student life. Student veterans, service members or their dependents who need assistance while attending SUNY New Paltz may refer to http://www.newpaltz.edu/veterans; call 845-257-3120, -3124 or -3074; or stop by the Student Union, Room 100 South.

10. Student Evaluations of Instruction (SEIs) SEIs for this course will be carried out electronically from April 26-May 10. I value your feedback and use it to improve my teaching and planning for future versions of this course.