COMM 1511: Making good choices

Come to our coursework with a sense of adventure.

Much of what we practice in Public Speaking asks us to engage in mental and physical behaviors that may be new to us and that may feel uncomfortable. Our brains work to protect us from discomfort by shutting down and arguing against doing things that are uncomfortable. If you come to our coursework with a sense of adventure and a willingness to dive into the unknown this class will be less uncomfortable for you and learning the course content will come more easily.

Come to class with a focus on learning and growing rather than doing whatever you have to for the grade.

Cheating, fabricating or falsifying information or sources, improper collaboration, submitting the same paper for different classes without permission, and plagiarism are all forms of academic dishonesty. Plagiarism occurs when writers and speakers deliberately or unintentionally use another person's language, ideas, or materials and present them as their own without properly acknowledging and citing the source. All acts of academic dishonesty shall be reported to the Vice President of Student Services as a behavioral breach of conduct. All work that results from such acts will receive a grade of “0.” No student shall have the opportunity to make up work for which an act of academic dishonesty has been committed. All work for which the student has been assigned a “0” for cheating will be calculated into the student’s final grade. In addition, faculty may report academic dishonesty to the Vice President of Student Services with a recommendation to suspend or remove the student from the course as a penalty for their behavior. If after reviewing the situation with the student, the Vice President concludes that a disciplinary action is appropriate, the administrator shall deliver one or more of the following types of disciplinary action. In this course, most often, your instructor will require oral citation of paraphrased material. In our class you will learn to cite sources carefully, completely, and meticulously; when in doubt, cite. Familiarize yourself with Taft College's Academic Honesty policy.

Grades in COMM 1511 are based on your points in the class. You can track your points throughout the semester on Canvas. At the end of the semester, once all of your work is complete, please don't ask for a higher grade due to external factors (examples: a particular GPA is necessary to: maintain a scholarship, stay active on a sports team, gain admittance to the school of your choice, maintain financial aid eligibility, etc…). If I were to grant that type of grade increase it would be unfair to the other students who earned their grades in our class.

Come to class 

All students whose absences equal one week of time by the census date must be excluded from class. According to the California Code of Regulations, Title 5, Section 58004 (c) 3, if a student permanently leaves a class, it is the student’s responsibility to exclude themselves in the admissions office. Students should never rely on the instructor to exclude them. However, an instructor may exclude a student if the class rules for attendance are violated. 

If things aren't going well...should you take an F or a W?  If you don’t succeed in 67% of classes attempted you could lose your federal financial aid including Pell Grants, SEOG, federal work-study, and loans. Drops in the first 2 weeks of the classes (or the equivalent in compressed classes) do not count against your “course attempts”. However, if you fall below full-time and don’t replace dropped courses with additional coursework you will be expected to return or repay some financial aid.  

There are times that it is better to withdraw than receive a D or an F. If the class is a general education requirement in which you have several choices of courses you can take to meet the requirement and you have succeeded in at least 80% of the classes you've attempted, it is far better to take a W than it is to take an F.  If you take the W you can choose a different course to complete the requirement. If you choose to take a D or an F you will have to take the same course and the grade will negatively impact your GPA until you repeat the course. Some of our transfer institutions don't remove the D or F and average the lower score with the higher score, so choosing a D or an F could negatively impact your GPA upon transfer. See the resources that will help you avoid withdrawing from this course. To see the drop and withdrawal deadlines for this course visit the Taft College webpage. 

If you get called for Jury Duty: If you receive a jury duty summons during the semester, please defer your service to a week between semesters. To defer service, choose the week you would like to serve then call the number on your summons and click through the menu items until you are asked if you would like to defer your service. This process takes approximately 30 seconds.

Please don't take or use video or audio of anyone without their permission: Surreptitious or covert video recording of class or unauthorized audio recording of class is a violation of privacy. The State of California requires two-party consent for the recording of conversations (which means that every person being recorded during a classroom discussion must consent).  However, students with accommodations from Disabled Student Services who have presented those accommodations to me are exempt from the 2-party consent law for educational purposes. Please understand that your comments during class may be recorded.

Responsible Exercise of Academic Freedom (excerpted from the course catalog)

1. Education in a democracy depends upon earnest and unceasing pursuit of truth and upon free and unrestricted communication of truth.

2. Faculty members shall be free to exercise academic freedom, including freedom of investigation, freedom of discussion in the classroom, freedom to select texts and other instructional materials, freedom of assignment of instructional exercises, and freedom of evaluation of student efforts.

3. Faculty members acknowledge that in the exercise of academic freedom they have a responsibility to be accurate and comprehensive in making reports, to be fair-minded in making interpretations and judgments, to respect the freedoms of other persons, to exclude irrelevant matters from classroom discussions and instructional exercises, and to make appropriate distinctions between statements of fact made as faculty subject matter specialists and opinions made as private citizens.

4. The college recognizes the fundamental right of the faculty member to be free from any censorship or restraint which might interfere with the faculty member’s obligation to pursue truth and maintain their intellectual integrity in the performance of their teaching functions.

A classroom environment that supports learning Students and professors often engage in behaviors that inadvertently harm the ability of others in the room to focus and learn effectively. It is important for you to advocate for yourself so that I can better support your learning environment.

If another student creates an environment that harms your learning experience, talk with me about the behaviors that are harming your learning experience. Give me time to work with the other student on the problematic behaviors. If I don't not take action and your learning environment continues to be harmed, contact the Director of Student Life for support.

If I create an environment that harms your ability to learn in the classroom, talk with me about the behaviors that are harming your learning experience. Give me time to shift to more supportive behaviors. If I don't take action and your learning environment continues to be harmed, contact the Director of Student Life for support.

If you create an environment that inadvertently harms another student’s ability to learn in the classroom, expect me to first talk with you about the issue privately, either outside the classroom, via email or on Zoom. Expect me to give you a date by which you’ll need to have modified your behavior. Expect me to work with you to change this behavior during this time.  Expect that, if the problematic behavior doesn’t change you and I will need to make time to have a meeting with the Dean and/or Director of Student Life to build a plan to change the behavior.

If you create an environment that willfully harms another student’s ability to learn in the classroom (through harassment, intimidation, or other act of cruelty), expect me to ask you to leave the classroom for the day.  Expect the Director of Student Life to contact you via your Taft College email address for a meeting to discuss the behavior within 1-2 days of the incident. You and I will need to make time to have a meeting with the Director of Student Life to build a plan to change the behavior before you will be allowed to return to class.  This meeting will not be recorded. Your continued enrollment in the course will be contingent upon your follow-through with the plan. Both the Director of Student Life and I will maintain contact with you via your Taft College email address as you work to change your harmful behaviors.

Clear, easy-to-understand, grading policies: I have developed my grading policies so that any college student looking at your grade totals for the class would be able to follow my grading policies and calculate the same grade I will calculate at the end of the semester.

Communication outside of class: Taft College personnel and offices (like Financial Aid) will only initiate contact with you outside of class via your Taft college email address or “My TC”, unless otherwise stated.   In your TC email settings, find the filter to ALWAYS accept email from your instructor as well as other important TC email addresses (you might also set-up a priority folder for your TC emails). I will initiate electronic communication with you via Canvas announcements, Canvas discussions, the Canvas Inbox. I will respond to messages you send via Canvas Inbox, TC email. Monday-Thursday I will check my messages regularly from 10am-6pm. Friday-Sunday I am less available. 

A classroom that is a SAFE and BRAVE SPACE: My classes are "Safe Spaces" for all individuals, regardless of culture, ethnicity, race, age, physical ability, gender, gender identity, political affiliation and sexual orientation. I will ask people who create an uncomfortable or openly hostile environment due to biased, unsupportive attitudes to leave the classroom and return only after the student and I have had an opportunity to meet with the Director of Student  Life and developed a remediation plan for respectful behavior toward others in the classroom. This meeting will not be recorded.

My classes and zoom office are also “Brave Spaces”. A brave space acknowledges that speaking our own truths is scary and that when we speak our own truths out loud, we may say something that results in unintentional offense and hurt feelings for those whose experiences and truths differ from our own. In a “brave space” we all, you and I alike, take responsibility for the effects of our words, and if we have a strong reaction to something someone says, we are brave enough to let the person who spoke the offense know that we were hurt by their words. No one will ever know that what they said was hurtful unless we tell them that it was.

Support in approaching “Triggering” topics: Often, when people ask for trigger warnings, they are asking to be excused from engaging in conversation about difficult subjects. I will not excuse you from engaging in discussion of difficult subjects. We only learn when we leave our comfort zone and enter a space of stretch that is often uncomfortable. However, if you would like trigger warnings to help you prepare yourself to engage in discussion of subjects that are difficult for you, I will gladly provide trigger warnings in advance. Please send me a list of triggering topics so I can notify you in advance of scheduled activities that might be triggering and work with you to develop a plan to approach these topics.