Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.

This course challenges each of us to share in the difficult process of understanding and evaluating important arguments concerning social justice. As a result, class attendance and your participation (both in- and outside of class) are crucial in understanding and retaining course material.

The more you are able to meaningfully engage in this class, the more you will learn and the better you may perform.

Out-of-class participation is done on the social media site Twitter, which is used to determine whether your final course grade has a + (plus) or a − (minus). Please do look over the Grading Scheme for this class, which goes into a lot more detail about how I will calculate grades.

Meanwhile, I will do my best to encourage active and productive participation during our class meetings. If you are shy, do not worry: I will not punish anyone who would rather not speak up. However, engaging in distracting behavior (sleeping in class, chatting while I am trying to lecture, using a phone or laptop without permission, leaving the classroom, doing homework for another class, and so on) may carry penalties, such as the loss of a free pass or being marked as absent.

Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.

Attendance

Given the importance of attendance, I will take roll promptly at the start of each class meeting at 12:45PM. If you are not sitting in your seat at that time, you will be marked absent. If you show up after that—even if you are only late by 5 seconds—then you will be marked as late. However, if you show up more than 10 minutes late, you remain marked as absent.

This means that you get no “free” absences from class. There is one exception: You and I agree on a reasonable accommodation prior to the day you miss class. I will consider arrangements after the fact only in extraordinary, documented circumstances.

Students marked absent from more than 6 class meetings will automatically fail this course. For this calculation, 2 late arrivals will count as an absence.