Classroom Conduct

This course is heavily based on classroom discussion and participation, so I ask that you be respectful of everyone at all times. This includes avoiding offensive behavior, and being courteous and attentive.

Because of this, all mobile devices (cell phones, MP3 players, gaming systems, etc.) should be turned off before class begins unless otherwise indicated. Laptops and tablets are allowed in the classroom, but please keep your screens focused on coursework in order to minimize distractions for others. If used for any other purpose, you will lose laptop/tablet privileges indefinitely and be required to print reading materials and write out assignments by hand until otherwise indicated. You may not make video/audio recordings without written permission from me.

Let’s make this classroom a safe, open-minded space to discuss ideas. To protect this space, I reserve the right to ask disruptive persons to leave and be marked absent for the day. Make an appointment to see me as soon as possible if you find yourself struggling with the class. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any concerns.

Attendance

Attendance is tied to course engagement.

I expect you to communicate with me via e-mail about circumstances related to your attendance and success in this course. You receive two (2) free passes for absences—no questions asked. Beyond that, you have three additional chances to e-mail me within one (1) week of a missed class to receive the essay prompt for your makeup assignment.

Three (3) late arrivals or early departures during class meetings may count as one absence. If you miss more than two weeks straight without notifying me, I may administratively withdraw you from the course.

Everyone’s voice matters here, so arrive prepared, focused, on time, and ready to share your thoughts.

Academic Integrity

Intellectual theft, like any other kind of theft, is a crime. Examples of academic misconduct include any unattributed use of another person’s thoughts or words as your own, excessive use of another’s words without quotation marks, unauthorized collaborations on work, use of ChatGPT or other forms of AI (which are themselves often theft of other’s work), submitting previous work from another course without consent of both instructors, etc. I do not expect to see academic misconduct in this class, and if I do each case will be dealt with on an individual basis, but the MINIMUM penalty will be failure (i.e., a score of zero) for the assignment in question.

Other possible consequences for academic integrity violations include a failing course grade, resulting in an “F” on your transcript. Consult this Plagiarism Tutorial (http://www.lib.unc.edu/instruct/plagiarism/), as well as UIndy’s Academic Misconduct policy (https://myuindyfiles.uindy.edu/CMSMS/uploads/Student_Handbooks/StudentHandbook.pdf).

Confirmed cases of cheating or plagiarism will be reported to the Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Vice President of Student Affairs & Enrollment Management, Vice Provost for Students and Campus Life, and Provost & Vice President of Academic Affairs, as required by the handbook. If you are unsure how to incorporate someone else’s work or ideas into your own, ask me or a librarian. I’m more than happy to help!

On not using AI

My colleague Nate Holdren says it best:

I genuinely want you to succeed in this class. One of my very favorite things about my job as a professor is when students are succeeding and I feel like I helped. I want you to succeed in three senses: I want you to get a good grade, I want you to find ideas that you find interesting, and I want you to learn some content and above all practice some skills that will benefit you in the future. Using AI technology like ChatGPT on any assignments in this class is a big mistake because it works against your success in all three of those ways. Using AI in this class is just bad for you, and none of the institutions making money off of AI care that it’s bad for you. So don’t use AI for anything in this class. I will add, if at any point you feel tempted to use AI in this class, that’s because you’re in a bad spot where something has gone wrong and you’re worried about how to get out of that bad spot. If you find yourself in a bad spot like that, I’m very happy to work with you to resolve the situation, just come talk to me. (I got into bad spots repeatedly in college myself so I get it and I’m not judgmental - really!) Because I want you to understand where I’m coming from here, I’ve written out my thinking on these matters at more length. In my view there are at least five problems with AI technology like ChatGPT right now:

AI-assisted writing is simply bad writing. The technology is basically a form of linguistic averaging: it produces average (ie, mediocre) writing with no distinguishing elements, writing that could have been by anyone at all. That’s bad writing because what makes for good writing is that it involves actual thinking by a unique individual person.
The technology is prone to making up false things and to plagiarizing, both of which can get you in huge trouble in some contexts. (I know of two lawyers who used ChatGPT and were publicly punished for this in ways that hurt their law firm, their reputations, and as a result their careers.)
Being a student in a class where another student uses AI on an assignment is unpleasant in multiple ways – it’s embarrassing, boring, disappointing, frustrating, and more. AI use in a class is an antisocial act that lets down the community of the classroom and worsens others’ experience.
Most important to me personally, AI used on writing assignments in an educational setting prevents learning. The point of the writing in my classes is to enrich your learning the skills and concepts the class works with. Writing and reading the kinds of texts we work with here are skills like any other, like weightlifting or playing piano or learning a foreign language. They’re learned by practice. Using AI to help you in a class is like having someone else go to the gym/piano lessons/language class for you – it saves you time but by doing so it prevents you from learning, because spending the time doing the activity is what creates the learning benefit.
Of almost equal importance to me, AI encourages an adversarial relationship between instructors and students. (For this reason I have previously hesitated to explicitly address the matter of AI usage, but I’ve decided it’s important that we speak honestly about this with each other.) Students using AI want to get away with it. Professors worried about AI use look at students with suspicion. I don’t want any of that in my classroom. It’s unpleasant, and more importantly, an education setting characterized by distrust impedes everyone’s learning.

With that in mind, I have decided to simply trust you. I trust that you understand why using AI for this class is a mistake, so you won’t use AI in this class, and I assume that you respect me enough to honor this trust. (I’ll add that if one or two people abuse this trust and get away with it, I will live with that – I would rather trust 98 honest people and be fooled by two liars than treat 98 honest people with suspicion in order to catch 2 liars.) With that in mind, please do try to assume that I really do trust your intellectual integrity here, because I really do! I’m on your team. Now back to the calendar.

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