ANNOUNCEMENTS

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Dear All:

Welcome, welcome to this Fall 2025, AAS199 UB Seminar course.

Below is (a) a summary of the basic course requirements from the syllabus; (b) homework assignments and test schedule for the first few weeks; (c) a very important note about emails; and so on. There are images toward the bottom of this web page, you must go through them too. Note: the material on this class home page is a copy of  the long format of the syllabus, which will be available shortly (via a link on this page below).

Scroll through this entire page to the very end below to see all the different sections and images. This page has not been designed for cell phones and similar devices; therefore, you must use a computer. If you don't have access to a computer, please use the campus computers.

Please note that by registering in this course, it is understood that you have agreed to abide by all requirements indicated on this class home page (plus all university regulations applicable to all students).

Sincerely,
Instructor.
PS> Do not access this website via your cell phone or a similar device, because this site is formatted for desktop and laptop computers. Most communications about this course will be via course announcements on this page and/or via emails to you as it progresses.

Introduction

While I am aware that most of you are taking this class in order to fulfill one of your Gen Ed requirements, I nevertheless want to emphasize that this is one of the most important classes you will ever take in this school (provided of course you do all the required work).

Below, I have provided you with the basic requirements of this course. Before you go through them, I want to emphasize one foundational aspect about taking this class with me: attendance is absolutely and totally mandatory. <-- Read this sentence again! Please note that University policy on attendance specified in the Undergraduate Catalog states:

“Students may be justifiably absent from classes due to religious observances, illness documented by a physician or other appropriate health care professional, conflicts with university-sanctioned activities documented by an appropriate university administrator, public emergencies, and documented personal or family emergencies. The student is responsible for notifying the instructor in writing with as much advance notice as possible. Instructors may determine a reasonable amount of coursework that should be completed in order to make up the student’s absence. Students are responsible for the prompt completion of any alternative assignments.” (Emphasis added.)

Several other points about this class I want to emphasize:
(a) Although I have decided not to assign you any textbooks (yay!) it does not mean that you will be exempt from homework.
(b) It is always my practice in my classes to introduce you to the workings of a research university and how to succeed in such a university. A research university is different from a teaching university. Compared to a teaching university, the responsibility for learning falls heavily on your own shoulders because faculty are expected to spend only about 40% of their time teaching; they must devote the rest of their time to research and service. If you haven’t already figured it out, unlike say a community college, this is not a “hold-my-hand-and--pamper-me” type of educational institution.
(c) I have a dry sense of humor; so please, don't have a cow (smile) when I tell you something that appears to be so silly--because it will be silly--to drive home a point. What is a dry sense of humor, anyway?

Credits: 3

Official Course Title: UB Seminar: The American Image: Art, Media

Date, Place, and Time: Tuesdays & Thursdays / Capen 108 / 11:00 am to 12:20 pm.

Official Course Description:
The school requires instructors to make sure that their courses adhere, for the most part, to the official descriptions published in the Undergraduate Degree & Course Catalog (and which are reproduced on HUB in your course schedules). So, here is the official description of this course in generic terms:

“The three credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps students with common learning outcomes focused on fundamental expectations for critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and oral communication, and learning at a university, all within topic focused subject matter. The Seminars provide students with an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 199 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester.”

Syllabus Course Description (What this specific course is about)
Our purpose in this course is to explore the societal significance, in terms of culture, identity, politics, etc., of select images and symbols that dominate the media (both traditional media and social media) from the perspectives of such social structural markers as ethnicity, race, gender, disability, class, and so on, against the background of, to quote the official course description above, “common learning outcomes focused on fundamental expectations for critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and oral communication, and learning at a university.” Ultimately (that is in the final analysis), this course at the sub-textual level seeks to explore the meaning of democracy in terms of these two of several very consequential and revolutionary quotes that mark the long blood-soaked journey of this country toward peace and democracy, as we understand it today:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [persons] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among [the people], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" (from the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence, signed August 2, 1776--emphasis in this quote is not in the original).
"[T]hat this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" (from the address by President Abraham Lincoln, delivered on November 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, at the height of the U.S. Civil War--emphasis in this quote is not in the original.)

Pedagogy (How this course will be taught)
(a) This course will be taught from an inter-disciplinary perspective (combining primarily political science, history, sociology, and law). That is, it will introduce you to whatever insights, concepts, and theories relevant to the study of a given topic, regardless of their disciplinary location.
(b) From a structural point of view, the course has three parts to it: (a) class lectures, (b) course readings, and (c) audio-visual material. While each of these three parts will, of course, be related, they, however, will not have identical content. For example: class lectures will not always be a repetition of material in course readings. In fact, my primary concern during class lectures/discussions will be to highlight macro-societal processes and events (leaving the rest of the heavy lifting to assignments). Therefore, attendance in this course is absolutely mandatory. Missing the audio-visual material, for instance, will have severe repercussions on test-performance. (NOTE: Audio-visual material screened in class will not always be available outside class.)
(c) Please note that the course will also briefly introduce you, as the course progresses, to what may be called “the ways of a research university” (research, publication, service, tenure, governance, and so on).

Basic Course Requirements, plus Grading Policy:
(a) 60% of course grade: written and/or multiple-choice quizzes; tests; etc. Missed tests/quizzes cannot be made up, unless, with rare exception, you have an excuse backed up by written documentation. <-- Read this sentence again.
(b) 20% of course grade: attendance and participation. 1
(c) 20% of course grade: a test-based writing project.
(d) You are NOT permitted to use AI (artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT) to fulfill any of the requirements for this course--including homework, tests, term paper, etc.
(e) Letter grade equivalents of percentage points in this course:  A =97-100   A- =93-96    B+ =90-92  B =85-89   B- =80-84    C+ =73-79    C =66-72    C- =60-65    D+ =55-59   D =51-54   F =0-50
(f) Course Requirements may be subject to change, at instructor’s discretion, but with prior notice.

Disability:
If you have a disability, reasonable accommodations for equal access to this course should be requested through Accessibility Resources in Capen Hall. However, providing me with a note from Accessibility Resources may sometimes not be enough. Why? Because, if necessary, you must also indicate how I can best accommodate your needs.

Textbook:
Given the wide range of topics this course will cover, there is no required text in this course. Instead, all homework materials will be available to you online 24/7. In other words, you don’t have to purchase any homework materials. Therefore, for copyright reasons, to access all homework assignments, you will have to visit the Class Home Page (CHP) at a different site. Link for this site is available via Announcement No. 1 on the course page of UB Learns. Please note: ALL homework assignments are mandatory--unless indicated otherwise.

Supplementary Course Requirements (may have an impact on your final course grade):
(a) Keeping up with current affairs. A lot of material we will be covering in this course will have relevance for comprehending what is going on outside the classroom (locally, nationally, and internationally) and vice versa; therefore, you are required to be current with national and international news by visiting these three websites on a regular basis: www.npr.org; www.pbs.org/newshour; and www.bbc.com
(b) If you claim that you cannot see a link for an item (or some other essential information), send me a clear picture of your ENTIRE computer screen, edge to edge (meaning EVERYTHING visible to you on your screen must be included in the picture), as an email attachment. Reminder: IF, in the extremely rare instance, there is a missing link (or some other information) it will affect the entire class, not just you. (The internet does not discriminate against specific individuals, whoever they may be.)

About emails
(a) To foster professionalism, when you send me e-mails, they must be in a professional format; otherwise, you may not get a response. Example of professional format: Begin with “Dear Instructor”;… and end with “Sincerely”, …. plus, your name as it appears in school records.
(b) Emails must be sent only via UB mail and NOT via UBLearns or private email.
(c) The subject heading of your email must always include these two items: the course number, and what your email is about in a few words.
(d) Emails will usually be read and answered on the days this course is scheduled. Again, all e-mails must be sent via regular UB email (and not UBLearns).
(e) It is really important that when you write about some clarification you need, you quote the exact sentence or paragraph from the syllabus, announcements, etc. that is relevant to your email. This is super-important. Otherwise, depending on what your email is about, you may not get a response. (Quoting does NOT mean taking a picture.)

Other Ways of Contacting the Instructor
(a) Talk to me before or after class.
(b) In addition to office hours, contact via a zoom appointment is also available; however to discourage learned helplessness, AND to have a record of our discussion, I prefer to use email first to determine if your issue can be resolved quickly.
(c) If you see me anywhere on campus, you are always, always welcome to talk to me. :)

Extra Credit
In light of frequent requests every semester for an extra credit assignment, from time to time, you may be assigned course-relevant material from current news sources or other sources. Quizzes on this material will count toward extra credit earning you bonus points.

Policy on Incompletes
Incompletes will be assigned in the rarest of cases. Note that university policy is that incompletes are assigned at the discretion of the instructor. Moreover, incompletes can only be assigned if the student has maintained a passing grade in the course, and there is a well-defined pathway to meeting the incomplete course assignment(s).

Procedures for Homework/Tests 
Please go through the document available here with a fine tooth comb. A sample of test questions are available here.

General Course Administrative Policies
The University’s “Student Responsibility Statement” (available here) specifies as follows: “By accepting responsibility for their education, students enhance the development of their academic, social and career goals. As a condition of enrollment, students are responsible for reviewing, understanding, and abiding by the university’s regulations, procedures, requirements and deadlines as described in official publications, including the university’s undergraduate catalog, UB websites, and official university email communications. In addition, all students are required to positively affirm their knowledge of UB’s Student Conduct Rules, University Standards and Administrative Regulations (available here) prior to their inaugural semester at UB. Asserting a lack of knowledge of university regulations will not be accepted as a basis for an exception to these regulations.” <-- Folks, read this last sentence again. UB Student Code of Conduct is available here. The Undergraduate Catalog is available here.  In other words: this course strictly abides by university policies on
(a) academic honesty (available here);
(b) discrimination (available here);
(c) sexual harassment (available here);
(d) academic freedom (see below); and
(e) classroom behavior (available here).

Academic Freedom
People, because of the kinds of topics we will be covering in this course (relating to race, gender, class, democracy, the rule of law, etc., etc.) which may sometimes provoke controversy among some of you, it is really important that you understand the university’s policy on academic freedom as it relates to faculty. This policy reads in part: The University supports the principle of academic freedom as a concept intrinsic to the achievement of its institutional goals. This principle implies a trust in the integrity and responsibility of the members of the academic community. Samuel P. Capen, former Chancellor of the University of Buffalo, who is remembered for the tradition of academic freedom he implemented during his leadership of the University, said in 1935:

“Acceptance by an institution of the principles of academic freedom implies that teachers in that institution are free to investigate any subject, no matter how much it may be hedged about by taboos; that they are free to make known the results of their investigation and their reflection by word of mouth or in writing, before their classes or elsewhere; that they are free as citizens to take part in any public controversy outside the institution; that no repressive measures, direct or indirect, will be applied to them no matter how unpopular they may become through opposing powerful interests or jostling established prejudices, and no matter how mistaken they may appear to be in the eyes of members and friends of the institution; that their continuance in office will be in all instances governed by the prevailing rules of tenure and that their academic advancement will be dependent on their scientific competence and will be in no way affected by the popularity or unpopularity of their opinions or utterances….”

Complaints
If you feel you have a legitimate complaint(s) about this course, then you are welcome to talk to me. If, thereafter, you are still dissatisfied, then you can ask to speak to the Director of Undergraduate Studies of my department by visiting the departmental office. For information about the department, check out its website by looking it up at the university’s website.