It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Humanities 1
HUM 2113
Course Syllabus – Spring 2013
Robert Katz, Ph.D., Instructor
Office: 7132
Phone: 595-7664
Email: or
Office hours: MWF: 11-1:00; TR: 12:30-2:30; and by appointment.
Liberal Arts DivisionOffice: 4107
Phone: 595–7780
COURSE DESCRIPTION
An interdisciplinary survey designed to strengthen the student's fundamental grasp of human values through the study of people’s ideas, discoveries, and creative achievements. Areas of consideration may include architecture, cosmology, dance, drama, film, history, literature, music, mythology, painting, philosophy, religion, and sculpture. Lecture 3 hours. No Laboratory.
TEXTS
Fiero, Gloria K., The Humanistic Tradition 6th edition, Vol 1.(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011).
TexbookReading Schedule (additional readings will also be assigned)
Weeks 1-4 – Introduction, Chapters 1, 2, and 3
Weeks 5-8 – Chapters 4 and 5
Midterm Exam after Chapter 5
Weeks 9 -12 – Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9
Weeks 13-16 – Chapters 10, 11, 12, 13
Final Exam – Monday, May 6 at 10 am
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The Humanities is a general term used to encompass the breadth of creative human endeavor and expression. Emphasis will be on developing the students’ ability to think independently and critically about the arts in a variety of historical and cultural contexts.
- In this class we will begin to examine the nature of human existence from the earliest record of human activity through the Middle Ages, i.e. our systems of social, religious and political organization, with an emphasis on how people have responded to these basic circumstances of life through expression in the arts—literature, music, painting, architecture, etc.
- We will look at the products of human activity developing a means to understanding why people from different times and cultures chose to express certain ideas in particular ways.
- We will learn to recognize the major trends in human cultural development gaining a degree of familiarity with the significant ideas and symbols that have endured and impacted society for centuries.
TEACHING METHODS
Lecture, class discussion, small-group activities, written assignments, audio and video presentations.
EVALUATION TECHNIQUES
Evaluation of your performance will be made based on grades received on a semester-long series of four written assignments, a mid-term exam, a final exam, a research project, occasional quizzes, attendance at a cultural event during the semester, and class participation in groups and open discussion.
GRADING SYSTEMCourse Grading Basis
Assignments100 ptsA = 450– 500 pts
Mid-term exam100 ptsB = 400 – 449 pts
Final exam 100 ptsC = 350 – 399 pts
Project (due 4/5)100 ptsD = 300 – 349 pts
Quizzes 25 ptsF = <300 pts
Cultural event (on or before 4/19) 25 pts
Class participation 50 pts
Total500 pts
GRADING POLICY
Assignments are expected to be handed in on time. Late work will not be accepted. That said; on very rare occasions circumstances preclude a student’s being able to submit an assignment on time. In these rare instances you are responsible for notifying me in advance of the due date that you will be unable to complete an assignment in a timely manner. I will respond to the individual circumstances and make recommendations on an individual basis. In all cases, work permitted to be turned in late will be downgraded by 10% per day.
Class Participation accounts for 10% of each student’s grade. Class participation and class attendance are not the same. In order to receive maximum credit for class participation one must of course attend class but students are also required to both ask and answer questions, engage in discussions with other students related to class topics and generally be engaged with the course material (i.e. read textbook, pay attention to lectures).
ATTENDANCE POLICY
Attendance will be taken at each meeting and may be used to influence final grading considerations. Students should be aware of new policies related to attendance and financial aid. Participation in a minimum amount of class work is now mandatory for the continued eligibility for Federal financial aid (including Tulsa Achieves). Students contemplating dropping/withdrawing from class before the minimum attendance requirement has been met should meet with an advisor or administrator to discuss the effect of such withdrawal on your financial aid eligibility. (See also “CELL PHONES” policy.)
MAKE-UP TEST POLICY
The final exam and the mid-term will be the only in-class exams. There will be no make-up for these exams. If you know in advance that you will be absent for the mid-term, arrangements can be made to take the exam in advance. No other arrangements will be made. A missed quiz cannot be made-up.
EXTRA CREDIT
You may present a total of three extra credit projects to be worth a maximum of twenty-five points (8.33 pts each). Extra credit projects must be instructor approved and presented as either a one page, typed paper or another approved format. Extra-credit assignments may be submitted at any time during the semester up till the final week of the semester. No extra credit will be accepted during the last week of class.
CELL PHONES
Cell/mobile phones must be turned off before the beginning of class. Ringing cell phones are annoying, disruptive, and disrespectful to others in the class. Few matters in life are so important that they cannot wait for you until the end of a 50-minute class. Few people will not understand the need for you to have your phone turned off during class. Except in the case of an emergency, if you leave the class to answer or make a phone call during class, do not return to class that day and you will be marked absent. Texting during class is also unacceptable. Students identified as persistently texting or otherwise using mobile phones during class will be subject to punitive action, possibly resulting in an instructor initiated withdrawal from class.
Course Withdrawal: The deadline to withdraw from a course shall not exceed 3/4 the duration of any class. Check the TCC Academic Calendar for the deadline that applies to the course(s). Begin the process with a discussion with the faculty member assigned to the course. Contact the Advisement Office at any TCC campus to initiate withdrawal from a course ('W' grade) or to change from Credit to Audit. Withdrawal and/or change to an audit from a course after the drop/add period can alter the financial aid award for the current and future semesters. Students may receive an outstanding bill from TCC if the recalculation leaves a balance due to TCC. Students who stop participating in the course and fail to withdraw may receive a course grade of “F,” which may have financial aid consequences for the student. Last day to withdraw from class: April12.
Communications:
- Email communications: All TCC students receive a designated “MyTCC” email address (ex: ). All communications to you about TCC and course assignments will be sent to your MyTCC email address; and you must use MyTCC email to send email to, and receive email from, the instructor regarding this course.
- Inclement Weather: TCC rarely closes. If extreme weather conditions or emergency situations arise, TCC always gives cancellation notices to radio and television stations. This information is also posted on the TCC website (
General Education Goals: General Education courses at TCC ensure that our graduates gain skills, knowledge, and abilities that comprise a common foundation for their higher education and a backdrop for their work and personal lives. TCC’s General Education goals are: Critical Thinking, Effective Communication, Engaged Learning, and Technological Proficiency.
Classroom Etiquette: Open and mutually respectful communication of varied opinions, beliefs, and perspectives during classroom or online discussion encourages the free exchange of ideas that is essential to higher learning and to the ability to learn from each other. Use of any electronic device is at the discretion of the instructor.
Syllabus Changes: Occasionally, changes to the syllabus may be necessary. Students will be notified of any changes to the syllabus in writing.
Disability Resources:It is the policy and practice of Tulsa Community College to create inclusive learning environments. Accommodations for qualifying students in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act are available. To request accommodations, contact the Education Access Center (EAC) at or call (918) 595-7115 (Voice). Deaf and hard of hearing students may text (918) 809-1864.
Academic Dishonesty:
Academic dishonesty (cheating) is defined as the deception of others about one’s own work or about the work of another. Academic dishonesty or misconduct is not condoned or tolerated at campuses within the Tulsa Community College system. Most cases of academic dishonesty are governed by the Student Code of Conduct. Certain forms of authority for disciplinary action are traditionally delegated to faculty, and Tulsa Community College adopts this policy. Such disciplinary actions delegated to the faculty include, but are not limited to:
- requiring the student to redo an assignment or test, or requiring the student to complete a substitute assignment or test;
- recording a “zero” for the assignment or test in question;*
- recommending to the student that the student withdraw from the class, or administratively withdrawing the student from the class;
- recording a grade of “F” for the student at the end of the semester;*
- filing a complaint and requesting that disciplinary action be taken against a student at the administrative level.
(*in this class students whose work is determined to have been plagiarized will be subjected to the above highlighted consequences, the first for the initial infraction, the first andsecond for any subsequent instances)
Some cases of academic dishonesty may be violations of state or federal laws or professional code and may have serious legal consequences.
Faculty may request that disciplinary action be taken against a student at the administrative level by submitting such request to the Dean of Student Services.
Institutional Statement: Each student is responsible for being aware of the information contained in the TCC Catalog, the TCC Student Policies & Resources Handbook, and semester information listed in the class schedule. All information may be viewed on the TCC website:
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a specific type of academic dishonesty. It is claiming, indicating, or implying that the ideas, sentences, or words of another are your own; it includes having another person do work claimed to be your own, copying the work of another and presenting it as your own, or following the work of another as a guide to ideas and expressions that are then presented as your own without citing the original source.
Specific examples of plagiarism include, but are not limited to:
- copying long or short passages from a text without putting quotation marks around them and without documenting;
- incorporating ideas from a text, even when the wording has been changed, without giving credit to the originator of the ideas;
- asking someone to write all or parts of an assignment;
- imitating the organizational structure, key ideas, and style of another work—published or unpublished—and presenting it as your own;
- buying or reprinting all or parts of a paper from an online or other commercial source.
To avoid plagiarism:
- place quotation marks around any language that you borrow from a source, even if you borrow only a short phrase or even a term that would not be considered common knowledge;
- substantially change the wording (sentence structures, clauses, phrases) of the original text so that you express the text’s ideas in your voice, and then document the information;
- mark the beginning of borrowed passages that you put into your own voice (i.e. paraphrases and summaries) by using an introductory or attributive phrase;
- always provide documentation when you borrow anything from another source, including ideas.
What is a “works cited” page?
A works cited page is exactly what it says: a page that lists the works (books, journal articles, web pages, etc.) that you have citedin the text of your research paper. Citing a work means acknowledging the source of quotations, ideas, concepts, formats, etc. that you have used in your research.
If you do not have citations in your paper, i.e. references to the works you have used in preparing your paper, then you CAN NOT have a works cited page. The reason for this is obvious, but I’ll state it here to avoid confusion: if you don’t cite any works, then you can’t list the works you have(n’t) cited! Despite the obvious absurdity of this statement, I receive a large number of research papers each semester without a single in-text citation* of a source used by a student, yet they include a sometimes extensive “works cited” page! This situation gives rise to a couple of problems. First, a research paper that uses extensive sources, yet fails to cite a single source in the text must, logically speaking, be an example of plagiarism (see plagiarism statement). Second, a list of sources consulted but not substantially used in the actual preparation of a research paper is not technically a “works cited” page but rather, a bibliography.
Following the logic of the previous comments, research papers must use a variety of sources as the basis for their content. Therefore, properly prepared research papers must include both in-text citations AND a works cited page. Papers omitting either or both will be graded accordingly. Additionally, papers found to be exhibiting plagiarism will be graded 0 and students will be given a grade of F for the semester, regardless of other grades earned during the semester.
*In-text citation is a technique whereby a specific source is acknowledged at the point it is used in the paper itself (e.g. a quotation from a book). A variety of standard formats are available to students, most common are MLA and APA styles. Consult a style manual if you are uncertain of how to use and format in-text citations and their corresponding entries on the works cited page.