The goals of this course are available at http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/603A12/goals.html    

Overview: This version of 603 is a leadership/ethics “flag” course devoted to experiential and service learning, requiring students to go out into the community and write a story to facilitate the adoption of a dog or cat who was or is on death row at the animal shelter.

Hence this section of E603 is for students who have already read many of the older masterworks of Western civilization and are ready to move on to literature aligned with four of the six experiences required in the new core curriculum: writing, global cultures, American cultural diversity, and ethics and leadership.** At U.T. and in this class especially we focus on leadership for the benefit of society, not for individual wealth. If the latter is your goal, you might want another section of this course.

     Because our primary approach to ethics will be emotive (compassion) rather than philosophical (rights), emotional literacy will also be one of our goals. Two of our basic ethics questions are [1] What would I have done about the Holocaust if I had been in Germany and known what was going on at the time? [2] What would I have done about slavery if I had been in east Texas and known what was going on at the time? We are trying to learn ethics experientially. In this case, your assignment is to become an actor, acting as if the analogies are basically true. This "willing suspension of disbelief," as Coleridge put it, is essential to the effectiveness of all novels, plays, movies, etc. In this case, We temporarily relinguish our disbelief in order to experience a little of what that person might have thought and felt who lived by a concentration camp or a plantation supported by slavery. We know that a comparison is not an equation, but as we try to accept the connection, as we mount our defenses against the analogies between factory farming and the Holocaust, we can thus consider the possibility that we would have mounted similar defenses had we been that person who lived by a concentration camp or a plantation supported by slavery.

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    In the process, to prepare you for your college and later careers, we will also cultivate digital, information, and print literacy and practice college-level writing, speaking, listening, discussing, and analyzing ideas. Grades will be based in part on meeting the two expectations employers have of college graduates: time management, and the ability to read, analyze, and follow complex, detailed directions.

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    Writing. Your formal writing assignments will be two autobiographical essays each semester. It has been proven time and again that this is the best way to teach writing to your age group. (However, we will add requiements, such as the Chicago Manual of Style, to help you learn to write academic papers). Each will be a minimum of four pages and be revised in response to peer critiques before the instructor's grading and critique. You cannot pass the course without satisfactory essays. In the first semester, essay #1 will be on your "spirit animal," and essay #2 , the ethics essay, will be about the shelter animal. In the second semester essay #3 will be about your passion, and then, inspired by the Leadershape program of the Colleges of Business and Engineering, essay #4 will be a leadership vision to motivate you during your college years and beyond. Class discussion will be conducted to some extent by informal writing: blogging about the readings.

    Digital Literacy. Because the "Five Characteristics of a Successful Student at U.T." include "Good computer skills" as well as "Strong writing skills," essays and blogs will require digital literacy (multimedia and web skills) as well as print literacy. Students will also be expected to check their email frequently (maintaining the correct email address in the U.T. Direct system) along with the course Blogs and the Online Gradebook, especially the day before class. Students should be familiar with keyboarding, operating systems, word processing, electronic mail, web-browsing, downloading and uploading files, and Facebook, where we will have a closed group "to help students develop a small community within the larger whole" (CRUE).

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      Reading. Ram Dass's How Can I Help? will initiate discussions of leadership and ethics. Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass will prompt discussions of leadership, discovery learning, diversity, and the college experience. The Alice books will initiate debates about the ethics of the representation and treatment of animals as well, a topic explored also in Dobie's Longhorns and Mustangs, and J. M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello. (Coetzee, awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, earned his Ph.D. in this English Department.) Costello, set in Africa and Australia, will give us a sense of global cultures, as will our journey to India via Hesse's German masterpiece Siddhartha. We will also construct a brief history of the evolution of compassion for all creatures in world religions, especially Indian mythology, religion, and ethics. Then we will shift to compassion for other humans, exploinge the relation between compassion and family dynamics, especially in the movie, Dead Poets' Society. First-semester analogies between speciesism and racism will frame our discussion as we concentrate on American cultural and gender diversity in masterpieces by Native-, Hispanic-, African-, and Asian-Americans. These texts will be chosen to some extent by the class, but will probably include Black Elk Speaks, Anaya's Bless Me Ultima, Kingston’s Woman Warrior, Bechtel's Fun Home, and The Bluest Eye (by the Nobel Prize Winner, Toni Morrison).

      Required Texts For The First Semester : Students must bring to class on the days they are due the following physical texts: [1] the course anthology*; [2] The Annotated Alice (Norton, 0-393-04847-0 BUY ONLY THIS EDITION); [3] J. S. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello (Penguin 0-14-200481-2); [4] Ram Dass's How Can I Help?; [5] Lester Faigley’s The Little Penguin Handbook (Pearson Longman: any edition); and [6] a planner such as the 2011-2012 Daily Planner, University Co-op. *FOR THE FIRST ASSIGNMENT, students will need the course anthology, which is a collection of xeroxed materials. It will be available from Jenn's, 2000 Guadalupe (basement of the Church of Scientology at 22nd and Guadalupe, 473-8669). It will cost about $60. Jenn’s takes major credit cards, of course. (If you don’t get there within the first few days you might want to call ahead to make sure they have a copy reserved for you.)

Daily class participation grades: up to nine points per class, sometimes more if you demonstrate good listening, sometimes less if you don't. Class discussion rules: students who talk to others while the speaker is talking and/or encourage this rude behavior with a willing ear, will have fifteen points deducted from their class participation/attendance grade for each incident. Egregious behavior such as sleeping in class, reading materials other than ours, using your cell phone, iPod, or computer during class, acting out, disrupting class, etc. will be subject to a thirty-point penalty for each incident. Students who insult, threaten, or harass others will have fifty points deducted from their grade for each incident, and be referred to the Dean of Students.

Being on time: Students prepare for class discussion by being on time.  There will be heavier penalties for being late than for being absent. Why? Basically, because being absent does not disrupt the class and coming in late does, especially if we are watching Earthlings, meditating, doing experiential learning or ......

There are in fact three important reasons for penalizing lateness in this way: [1] To prepare you for the real world. Employers will not tolerate this kind of behavior. [2] To be courteous and respectful of your colleagues, not interrupting the class to make your tardy entrance. [3] To avoid "enabling," to encourage repeat offenders to learn the lessons they need to learn.

The ultimate reasons are found in the essay by Dr. Carl Pickhardt on the website. The key sentences in that document for a teacher are: “Maintain adult demands and expect young people to meet them. Accept no excuses, make no exceptions, and attempt no rescues. Listen respectfully and empathetically and do not criticize the young person for not measuring up to what college expected. Encourage learning more responsibility from facing consequences of how one chose to act. And support the courage to keep growing forward in life.”

Hence, there will be no attendance or class participation credit for the first late appearance, -5 points for the second, double the penalty for the third, triple for the fourth, etc.  If anyone chooses to open the door for someone who comes late for the third time or more, they will receive the same penalties as the one who arrives late: no attendance or class participation credit for the first disruption, -5 points for the second, -10 for the third, -20 for the fourth, etc.

Discovery learning. Students' "spirit animal" essay and probably their leadership visions will require discovery learning. For these assignments especially, students should be prepared to think for themselves. Discovery learning means that there will be fewer instructions about the content of projects than what students may be used to from other courses. This can be frustrating for some, especially those who want a detailed formula that will guarantee them a good grade. Instead, students will be encouraged to be creative and write about what is most important to them. However, all students will be expected to follow very detailed instructions about the form and format of the essay.

Requirements:

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For the dates of exams and assignments, and the subjects of each discussion, see http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/603A12/schedule.html For policy on cell phones etc. in class see the Class Participation and Class Discussion document: http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/SL.html

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Policies:

Honor Code. The core values of The University of Texas at Austin are learning, discovery, freedom, leadership, individual opportunity, and responsibility. Each member of the university is expected to uphold these values through integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, and respect toward peers and community. Our training in practical ethics will include evaluation of student behavior in the course, especially actions that hurt other students' educational opportunities, including interrupting class by coming late or not completing peer critiques.For the UT Honor Code (or statement of ethics) and an explanation or example of what constitutes plagiarism go to http://registrar.utexas.edu/catalogs/gi09-10/ch01/index.html

Academic Integrity: Our training in practical ethics also means that any work, any paragraph, any sentence submitted by a student in this course for academic credit must be the student's own work, unless the source is explicitly acknowledged. Plagiarism will be punished severely (See "Paraphrasing vs. Plagiarism" in the course anthology). For additional information on academic Integrity, see

http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/acadint.php

Disabilities: The University of Texas at Austin provides upon request appropriate academic accommodations for qualified students with disabilities. For more information, contact Services for Students with Disabilities at 471-6259 (voice) or 232-2937 (video phone) or

http://www.utexas.edu/diversity/ddce/ssd

Religious Holy Days: By UT Austin policy, you must notify the instructor of your pending absence at least fourteen days prior to the date of observance of a religious holy day. If you must miss a class, an examination, a work assignment, or a project in order to observe a religious holy day, you will be given an opportunity to complete the missed work within a reasonable time after the absence.

Course Web Site: www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/603A12/

Instructor: Jerome Bump. bump@mail.utexas.edu Office: Par 132. Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 12:15-1:45, and by appointment. Office Phone: 471-8747.

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About the Professor: Jerome Bump has been awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, a N. D. E. A. Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, the Jeanne Holloway Award for undergraduate teaching, the Dad's Association Centennial Teaching Fellowship for instructing freshmen, the Rhodes Centennial Teaching Fellowship for directing the Computer Writing and Research Laboratory (devoted primarily to lower division instruction), and chosen as a Mortar Board Preferred Professor. He was an editor of Texas Studies in Language and Literature and has written Gerard Manley Hopkins and sixty articles. His current project is Alice the Conqueror, about the representation of animals in the Alice books. For more information about him, his publications, his teaching philosophy, or his courses see http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~bump/

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**In 2004 the Commission of 125 recommended a new undergraduate core curriculum: so that students would be better prepared for a changing world: ”Our students live in a world that has undergone a technological revolution. They live in closer proximity to other nations and cultures. They live in a state and country that are more culturally diverse. And they study in an intellectual world where long-established boundaries between scholarly areas are less distinct. The core curriculum should . . . ensure that all of our students, whatever their areas of specialization, graduate with the flexible skills they need to be leaders in our communities.” The new curriculum includes required freshman courses to “expose each entering UT student to the broad goals and possibilities of a university education, while promoting a greater sense of intellectual community among undergraduates. They will make students aware of the high standards necessary for college-level academic work and help students cultivate skills to meet those standards." Also required are courses marked by “flags” in six categories: 1. Writing—3 courses; 2. Quantitative reasoning ; 3. Global cultures; 4. Multicultural perspectives and diversity 5. Ethics and leadership; 6. Independent inquiry.

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***These daily decisions will help us fulfill the requirements for the Ethics and Leadership flag: "at least one-third of the course grade must be based on work in practical ethics, i.e., the study of what is involved in making real-life ethical choices.”

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