Rules

Reading assignments are given on the schedule and should be completed before the designated class meeting.

Your final grade will be based on five components

• To guarantee faithful work throughout the semester, periodically you will be asked at the beginning of class meetings to write briefly on questions addressed in the reading; performance on these exercises is worth 25% of the final grade; missed writing checks because of absences cannot be made up.
• An essay based on the Manuel et al. collection of country studies in which you develop a testable argument about some aspect of the Cathoic church as a political institution; details on this work, worth 15% of the final grade, will be provided later
• A seminar paper on a topic of your choice but approved by the instructor, worth 35% of the course grade; a schedule for carrying out this work will be provided shortly
• Related, 10% of your course grade will be based on the effective quality of your presentation of your reseach paper
• The balance of the final grade, 15%, is based on the quality of your participation in the seminar

I reserve the right to refuse work submitted late.

At some points in this class, we will make use of BbLearn, a web classroom.  Announcements, beyond the basic course information, will be posted there, and we will likely engage in some conversations using its Discussion Board feature, in particular to articulate and resolve problems (analytical, operational) you may have at one point or another.  When you enroll in this course, once you have activated your digital ID, you are automatically registered for its Blackboard8 component.  You can only access Blackboard8 by using logging into your ASU smail account.  (You are responsible for having such an account in good order and making sure that you have cleaned out your account well enough that you have not used too much space such that new messages are kicked back.)  On occasion, I may post announcements or some materials with which I want you to be familiar for the next class.  You are responsible for being aware of any postings I make to Blackboard6 at least twenty four hours prior to class.  This means you should check Blackboard sometime between 9:30 am Sunday (Tuesday) for the Monday (Wednesday) class.

Academic responsibility

Note the department’s policy on plagiarism, violations of which will result in a filing of charges with Student Affairs.  In giving credit to sources, you may use whatever citation system you prefer, but please be consistent. In citing internet sources, it is also good practice to show the date the site was accessed.

Disability services

Inclement Weather Policy: Information on campus closure can be found on the ASU web page, KASU, and local radio and television stations.  If inclement weather prevents you from being able to come to class and campus is not closed, please call me at             870.972.2147             ..

This building used to be McKinley Elementary School in the Abington School District where I was in the fifth grade when Abington v Schempp was decided by the US Supreme Court. And now: