Course Policies in Animal Behavior at
Austin College
Exam
policies:
If you have a
conflict with a scheduled exam, please see me before the exam is given;
I am usually willing to be flexible within reasonable limits. If you
must miss an exam for reasons that are beyond your control (serious
illness or injury, emergency within your nuclear family), please
contact me before the exam is administered (if possible) to discuss
options. If you cannot contact me before an exam is administered,
contact me as soon as possible afterward – do not let me think you have
missed an exam for no good reason. Exams missed for no good reason
cannot be made up. Good reasons do not include oversleeping, being
unprepared, staying up all night and being exhausted, or any
transportation issue.
You may bring
nothing into the exam room but your clothing and a ballpoint pen to
write with – no notebooks, papers, calculators, nor any sort of
electronic devices are allowed.
Attendance
policy: I
expect you
to attend each class meeting, in spite of the fact that they are at
8:00 am. This is for your own benefit; class attendance is an important
determinant of overall performance. I reserve the right to drop
students from this course for excessive absences; I consider more than
three absences for which you do not have a reasonable excuse to be
excessive. If you miss class and think you have a reasonable excuse,
please tell me what it is. The attendance policy for the laboratory is
described below.
Academic
Integrity:
I expect
you to read, understand, and abide by the Austin College Academic
Integrity Policy as published in the student handbook Environment. Many
conceptual advances in science are a result of discussion of
information and ideas; I encourage such exchange both in class and
outside it. Learning about and doing science should be cooperative and
not competitive enterprises; you should give credit for ideas or for
inspiration where such credit is due. I expect your own work on all
examinations, lab reports, and other written work. Various forms of
cheating, plagiarism, use of downloaded material from the internet,
changing answers on exams after they have been graded, and
inappropriate “cahooting” on written assignments will not be tolerated,
and will result in (at the least) a score of 0 on the exam or
assignment in question. Serious or repeated (e.g. twice) violations of
academic integrity will result in failure of the course.
Written
work: Lab
reports and
project manuscripts are due electronically, as email attachments of MS
Word documents or PDFs (no WordPerfect or TextEdit documents), by 5:00
pm on the due date. Late lab reports and project manuscripts will be
penalized 20% of the possible points per day late (including weekend
days).
Laboratory
Attendance:
It is
imperative that all of you participate in all laboratory activities –
the laboratories are as important if not more so than the lectures. If
you must miss a lab for a valid and foreseeable reason (i.e.
conflicting school-related activities, not family-related travel) you
must notify me in advance of such conflicts, and you are required to
write a 3 page summary (double spaced, in 10 or 12 point font, with
margins of 2.5 cm) of the concepts and data that were the subject of
that day’s lab exercise; this summary will NOT substitute for a lab
report on a data set that you participate in collecting and analyzing.
If you miss a lab for a documented valid reason that is beyond your
control (serious illness or injury, emergency in your nuclear family),
you must notify me as soon as possible of the situation, and you are
required to write a 3 page summary (double spaced, in 10 or 12 point
font, with margins of 2.5 cm) of the concepts and data that were the
subject of that day’s lab exercise; this summary will NOT substitute
for a lab report on a data set that you participate in collecting and
analyzing.
I do not expect
any unexcused (e.g. without valid reasons) absences
from lab, but if this situation arises, the first unexcused absence
from lab will result in a penalty equal to the value of one lab report
(30 points), which will be deducted from your final course point total.
A second unexcused absence from lab will result in your immediate
dismissal from the course. Missing a lab because you overslept, your
car wouldn’t start, you got stuck in traffic, or other instances of
poor planning do not constitute valid reasons. I drive away from the
Baker Hall parking lot at 1:30 sharp, and if you are not in the van,
you have missed lab. A missed lab for an ostensibly valid reason for
which you do not produce a summary (see above) will result in a 30
point penalty; a second such missed lab without summary will result in
your immediate dismissal from the course.
Students with Disabilities:
Austin College seeks to provide reasonable accommodations for all
individuals with disabilities and complies with all federal, state, and
local laws, regulations, and guidelines. It is the responsibility of
the student to register with and provide verification of academic
accommodation needs to the Director of the Academic Skills Center
(Laura Marquez, Wright Campus Center, Room 211) as soon as possible.
The student also must contact the faculty member in a timely manner to
arrange for reasonable academic accommodations. For further information
call (903-813-2454) or visit the Academic Skills Center. College policy
prohibits instructors from accommodating learning disabilities without
first having received the proper written instructions from the Director
of the Academic Skills Center.