HSCI 3333w -- New Course

Tue Mar 2 10:03:42 2010

Approvals Received:
Department
on 02-12-10
by Barbara Eastwold
(eastw002@umn.edu)
Approvals Pending: College/Dean  > LE > Catalog
Effective Status: Active
Effective Term: 1109 - Fall 2010
Course: HSCI 3333W
Institution:
Campus:		 UMNTC - Twin Cities
UMNTC - Twin Cities
Career: UGRD
College: TIOT - Institute of Technology
Department: 11142 - Science & Technology, Hist of
General
Course Title Short: Am Sci & Tech in Past Century
Course Title Long: Issues in American Science and Technology in the Past Century
Max-Min Credits
for Course:		 3.0 to 3.0 credit(s)
Catalog
Description:		 Historical approach to understanding science and technology. Emphasizes intellectual, political, and social contexts. Decision-making by practitioners on issues of importance to the profession and the community. Topics relating to popular science, science, and warfare.
Print in Catalog?: Yes
CCE Catalog
Description:		 <no text provided>
Grading Basis: Stdnt Opt
Topics Course: No
Honors Course: No
Delivery Mode(s): Classroom
Instructor
Contact Hours:		 3.0 hours per week
Years most
frequently offered:		 Other frequency
Term(s) most
frequently offered:		 Summer
Component 1: LEC (with final exam)
Auto-Enroll
Course:		 No
Graded
Component:		 LEC
Academic
Progress Units:		 Not allowed to bypass limits.
3.0 credit(s)
Financial Aid
Progress Units:		 Not allowed to bypass limits.
3.0 credit(s)
Repetition of
Course:		 Repetition not allowed.
Course
Prerequisites
for Catalog:		 <no text provided>
Course
Equivalency:		 No course equivalencies
Consent
Requirement:		 No required consent
Enforced
Prerequisites:
(course-based or
non-course-based)		 No prerequisites
Editor Comments: This is the same course as HSCI 3333V, but is not an Honors course. The current plans are to primarily offer it in the summer.
Proposal Changes: <no text provided>
History Information: <no text provided>
Faculty
Sponsor Name:		 Sally Gregory Kohlstedt
Faculty
Sponsor E-mail Address:		 sgk@umn.edu
Student Learning Outcomes
Student Learning Outcomes: * Student in the course:

- Can identify, define, and solve problems

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

Students in this class write several papers, each of which require that they find a theme in primary source materials, focus on an issue to be addressed and then marshal evidence to describe and point out the ethical problems encountered. They work in teams on an assigned historical circumstance in which they tease out ethical dimensions to present in an oral presentation and written paper that posits solutions to the situation described.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

Note that the ethics projects (specifically noted in the syllabus) such as Buck vs. Bell require these elements. This is the Supreme Court case in 1927 that upheld sterilization for eugenic purposes. Students typically present both sides of the case in class and discuss why the defendant's arguments were so persuasive that Oliver Wendall Holmes declared, "three generations of imbicles is enough." This leads us into a broader discussion of community and private incentives (and most recently into a contextual discussion of virus protection ).

- Can locate and critically evaluate information

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

Students write a paper that requires the use of the library (to which they are introduced by a specialist librarian) and the investigation of both primary and secondary sources. They are allowed to use online sources but must describe how they ascertained the credibility of such sources.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

The use of on-line and library sources is evaluated when the students submit their group project and on any other assignment where they use sources that are not part of class assignments.

- Have mastered a body of knowledge and a mode of inquiry

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

A major goal of the course is to provide students with a working knowledge of some ways in which science and technology have intersected with social and political life in the United States.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

There are five units in the course that deal with substantial elements of that history which they demonstrate on a mid-term and final exam as well as in classroom and section discussions. They learn to read and evaluate newspaper, journal, image and other primary evidence as well as to analyze and comment on the methods and arguments of historians using multiple types of historical work including a monograph on eugenics, a biography, a standard textbook source, and a position account of modern biology and bioethics.

- Understand diverse philosophies and cultures within and across societies

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

The course deliberately moves beyond the United States to offer a counterpart in the other dominant political power in the twentieth century, the Soviet Union. The history of this counrty needs to be placed, when appropriate, in global perspective.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

From the outset of the course, there is attention to the interplay of national outlooks on science (Germany on eugenics, for example) as these are both defined in their own context and in comparison with the United States. Two units concentrate on a comparative account, namely in the growth of a technocratic outlook in both the USSR and the USA and in the Space Race after World War II. This allows students to identify some significant (and sometimes uncomfortable) parallels even as they see how different political, social, and economic circumstances lead to different ways of using science and technology.

- Can communicate effectively

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

Students in this class do multiple written assignments, on which they do peer reviews and have extensive written comments dealing both with the substance of their papers and with its effective communication. All students participate in an oral presentation to the entire class and a significant part of their grade relates to their participation in discussion. In all of these modes, we talk about the ways to communicate effectively.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

Students do peer reviews on at least two of the microthemes (these are typically based on on-line primary source materials that can be found on the Moodle website) before they are submitted. In addition, students write evaluations on all the in-class presentations and these are provided (without names attached) to the presenters so that they get audience response as well as faculty response that they can use in writing their final papers.

- Understand the role of creativity, innovation, discovery, and expression across disciplines

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

This is a history class that deals with science and technology. It is fundamental to the course that students recognize how science and technology progress, the methods both used in advancing knowledge and in presenting it to the public (which we see in primary source material) and the distinctive evaluation of practitioners toward their peers. At the same time, they are taught the fundamentals of history, methods used and the chronological and comparative ways in which history is pursued.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

The issue of originality and of perspective is discussed in the assigned readings and in the written work that they produce. Because the class typically has a good mix of students from CLA, CBS, and IT, there is often a useful discussion about how knowledge is viewed and pursued across the disciplines.

- Have acquired skills for effective citizenship and life-long learning

Please explain briefly how this outcome will be addressed in the course. Give brief examples of class work related to the outcome.

This course emphasizes the development of written and oral communication, essential for participation in democratic society.

How will you assess the students' learning related to this outcome? Give brief examples of how class work related to the outcome will be evaluated.

All class work is framed within discussions of ethics that often bring us to the present - including the relationship between early eugenics efforts to improve the biology of society as this is expressed in discussions about individual and group choices relating to cloning, stem cells, and genetic disease detection. The course is intended to let them see the longer-term origins of the issues that do and will face them in our scientifically and technologically attuned society. Knowing that they can, in fact, uncover the basic scientific work that is being done in a way sufficient to make decisions about it is, I think, essential in the twenty-first century. Time will tell.
Liberal Education
Requirement
this course fulfills:		 HIS - HIS Historical Perspectives
Other requirement
this course fulfills:		 CIV - CIV Civic Life and Ethics
Criteria for
Core Courses:		 Describe how the course meets the specific bullet points for the proposed core requirement. Give concrete and detailed examples for the course syllabus, detailed outline, laboratory material, student projects, or other instructional materials or method.

Core courses must meet the following requirements:

  • They explicitly help students understand what liberal education is, how the content and the substance of this course enhance a liberal education, and what this means for them as students and as citizens.
  • They employ teaching and learning strategies that engage students with doing the work of the field, not just reading about it.
  • They include small group experiences (such as discussion sections or labs) and use writing as appropriate to the discipline to help students learn and reflect on their learning.
  • They do not (except in rare and clearly justified cases) have prerequisites beyond the University's entrance requirements.
  • They are offered on a regular schedule.
  • They are taught by regular faculty or under exceptional circumstances by instructors on continuing appointments. Departments proposing instructors other than regular faculty must provide documentation of how such instructors will be trained and supervised to ensure consistency and continuity in courses.

 Historical Perspective     
    History is a window on human dynamics in particular settings, allowing us to understand decision making under quite specific circumstances even as we watch how such decisions play out overtime.  In this course, you will undertake a number of assignments using on-line materials that present visual and textual primary sources that you will use for historical analysis.  Your own conclusions may or may not coincide closely with secondary readings assigned for class, and we will discuss how sources, historiographical methods, and the outlook of the historian may influence conclusions about historical events.  Our readings will also allow us to evaluate the variety of ways history is written, and they will include biography, case studies, and even advocacy accounts using historical materials in order to build critical skills for reading history.  
Criteria for
Theme Courses:		 Describe how the course meets the specific bullet points for the proposed theme requirement. Give concrete and detailed examples for the course syllabus, detailed outline, laboratory material, student projects, or other instructional materials or methods.

Theme courses have the common goal of cultivating in students a number of habits of mind:
  • thinking ethically about important challenges facing our society and world;
  • reflecting on the shared sense of responsibility required to build and maintain community;
  • connecting knowledge and practice;
  • fostering a stronger sense of our roles as historical agents.


 Civic Life and Ethics
    The course meets the Liberal Education requirement for Civic Life and Ethics because woven throughout the course, in every unit, there is a discussion of the way in which normative, legal, and professional ethics intersect with the policies and practice of science.  The class will consider how, in the increasing professionalization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, professional organizations began to elaborate codes of ethics, and then each student finds a code of ethics that relates directly to his or her career aspirations (typically engineering, science, medicine, as well as education, journalism and other fields).  These are brought to class for a discussion of common characteristics and the particularities relating to particular professional arenas. One major component of the class is a group ethics project in which students investigate an actual historical case (such as Pinto, Tuskegee, and Challenger), do an in-class presentation and a final written paper that explicitly discusses the ethical issues and outcomes.  In our final class discussion of contemporary issues in science and technology, we will talk about how ethics, personal and social, play into the decisions being made today.
Writing Intensive
Propose this course
as Writing Intensive
curriculum:		 Yes
Question 1: What types of writing (e.g., reading essay, formal lab reports, journaling) are likely to be assigned? Include the page total for each writing assignment. Indicate which assignment(s) students will be required to revise and resubmit after feedback by the instructor or the graduate TA.

 Students in this class do an intake assignment (1 page), five or six microthemes (350 words; 8 pages), a group research project (10-15 pages), two essay exams, and smaller, in class assignments that are simply graded with check plus, check, or check minus.  One microtheme is peer reviewed and another is TA reviewed before final submission.  The group project is one that they do collaboratively in terms of writing and revising, and the penultimate version is read and graded by the faculty member and TA and then given back for final revisions.
Question 2: How does assigning a significant amount of writing serve the purpose of this course?

 Writing is one way of students finding out what they know, and it is also a way of communicating knowledge and insights to others.  Thus writing helps students learn the material presented to them, helps them formulate and express their own ideas about primary source materials (the microthemes), and requires them to do recall and formulation on exams.
Question 3: What types of instruction will students receive on the writing aspect of the assignments?

 The evaluation is foremost about their ideas, next about formulation of those ideas using the standards of organization (topic sentences, logical development of ideas, use of evidence, awareness of complexity), as well as attention to conventions of writing that are fundamental for written communication.  
Question 4: How will the students' grades depend on their writing performance? What percentage of the overall grade will be dependent on the quality and level of the students' writing compared with the course content?

 As suggested, the two are not readily separable.  At least a half of the grade (exams, group paper, smaller written papers) is tightly connected with the writing assignments.
Question 5: If graduate students or peer tutors will be assisting in this course, what role will they play in regard to teaching writing?

 If the course is not taught by the professor, the person assigned to teach it will be ABD and have strong expertise on the history of science in American culture.  All TAs in the program and recent graduates who might be hired to teach have taken at least one teaching writing and grading writing course from the Writing Center.  Only graduate students or other instructors who have taught previously in courses with significant writing assignments (scrutinized and evaluated by a regular professor) would be allowed to instruct writing.
Question 6: How will the assistants be trained and supervised?

 There will be no TAs involved.    
Question 7: Write up a sample assignment handout here for a paper that students will revise and resubmit after receiving feedback on the initial draft.

 GUIDELINES for ETHICS PROJECT PAPERS
    
Purpose of Project
    This assignment is a team project that will involve several weeks of activity interspersed with other course work.  Our course is designed to meet the Citizenship and Public Ethics requirement, and this project is intended to give you an opportunity to see how some of the more abstract ideas and the codes of ethics that we have discussed apply in the project you collectively investigate and on which you report to the class. It is an opportunity to evaluate the actions of professionals as they do their work in real life. You will do research using primary (contemporary newspapers, manuscripts) and secondary sources (recent historians or other commentators) that reveal where clear ethical concerns emerged that related to science or engineering practice. Your assignment is to determine how problems developed, what public and professional outcomes occurred, and what conclusions may be drawn.  

Schedule of Activities
    We will follow a schedule, below, to enable you to work with your team, to develop your project, and to present it.  You will together do an in-class presentation and write a paper that will allow for somewhat greater detail and a nuanced discussion of issues. This assignment is a collaboration in which everyone makes a significant contribution and everyone is responsible for the quality of the final project.

Section 002
John and Lillian Gilbreth (Sept. 29)
German medical experimentation (Nuremberg Trials) (Oct. 13
Franck Report (Nov.  10)
Section 003
German chemical patents and DuPont (Sept. 29)
Boulder Dam  (Oct. 27)
International Geophysical Year (Nov. 10)
Section 004
German chemical patents and DuPont (Sept. 29)
Dneiper Dam (Oct. 27)
Tuskegee (Nov. 24)

Issues to be Addressed
    Because your topics are sufficiently different, there is no one formula that can govern all of the possibilities.  However, it will be important that you consider of the following questions and decide how to include them in your presentation and, perhaps, in more detail in your final paper.

1) What are the specifics of the case and situation?  Be sure to do solid research that involves looking at multiple approaches to the case so that, for example, newspaper sensationalism is offset by formal agency reports, autobiographical reminiscences, and other sources.

2) What is the larger context?  This is a ¿history¿ piece that considers the context that precedes and surrounds the event you are studying. You will want to consider the social, cultural, political, economic and other factors that seem to play into the decisions that were made.  It is important to ground your event in its time and place to see what range of choices were available to the participants.

3) Who are the key individuals?  Ethical decisions are made by people and we want to learn more about the people involved, if we can.  While institutions can (and do) either encourage ethical behavior or elide the question of ethics, nonetheless it is individuals who ultimately decide what they will do.

4) What are the core ethical issues?  What factors inhibited ethical behavior?  What were the ethical principles and perhaps legal requirements that were or should have been in place?

5) What was the outcome in terms of ethics?  

Audience
    Your presentation and paper should be a college-level audience concerned with science and technology issues. You are writing to alert them to the ethical issues faced by those who have careers in the field because many of them may face similar dilemmas in their own careers.

Format for Oral Presentation
    Your presentation must involve all members of the group.  You should use a format that allows for the audience to see how decisions were made by individuals and groups.  In the past, successful presentations have often been more than a series of mini-lecture. Some have involved, for example, a mock news presentation and interviews with key players, a short play reinacting the critical moments of a decision with a voice-over introduction and conclusion, and a government hearing.  You will have just ten minutes for the presentation and ten to fifteen minutes for discussion and questions from the class.  To ensure that you stay within the time limit, be sure to do one or more practice sessions.

Format for the Final Paper
    The final paper should be ten to fifteen pages in length.  You will find it useful to have subheadings in a paper with several potential elements (these might identify narrative of the event, scientific and public reactions at the time, subsequent analysis by experts, and so forth, although other organizational schemes could work equally well).  The paper should have a clear title and list all the contributors, along with the date and class information.  Most historians use the Chicago Manual of Style or its short version produced by Kate Turabian for the bibliography.  Use footnotes to cite your sources and to add useful definitions or other useful information that might be distracting in the text.  You should save notes, outlines, and drafts written by individuals to submit with two copies of your draft paper and these will be part of a final portfolio submitted at the end of the project, along with three copies of the paper.  

    The presentations and the final papers will be submitted throughout the course.  The oral presentation dates are above. The penultimate drafts of the related papers are due, complete and with bibliography and any images, within one week after the presentation.  We will have them back to you within a week.  You then have one week to work with your team to answer questions, improve the text and respond to any other issues. We will anticipate that with a thorough revision by all members of the team, it will improve substantially.  It is to your advantage to have a strong early drafts so that others can help you strengthen your ideas and presentation.  
    
    We will note an initial grade on the draft submission, a draft that should have been proofread and reviewed by all group members.

Evaluation
    As noted on the syllabus, the group project is 20% of your final grade.  The oral presentation is 5%.  There will also be an opportunity to describe and evaluate the contribution of group members.
Course Syllabus
Course Syllabus: For new courses and courses in which changes in content and/or description and/or credits are proposed, please provide a syllabus that includes the following information: course goals and description; format;structure of the course (proposed number of instructor contact hours per week, student workload effort per week, etc.); topics to be covered; scope and nature of assigned readings (text, authors, frequency, amount per week); required course assignments; nature of any student projects; and how students will be evaluated. The University "Syllabi Policy" can be found here

The University policy on credits is found under Section 4A of "Standards for Semester Conversion" found here. Course syllabus information will be retained in this system until new syllabus information is entered with the next major course modification. This course syllabus information may not correspond to the course as offered in a particular semester.

(Please limit text to about 12 pages. Text copied and pasted from other sources will not retain formatting and special characters might not copy properly.)


 HSCI 3333W (FALL, 2008)

AMERICAN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE PAST CENTURY

Instructors:
Professor Sally Gregory Kohlstedt     
204B Pillsbury Hall (East Bank)     
Phone: 624-9368     
Email: sgk@umn.
Office hours: TTh 10-11; by appt.

Course Description:     

The primary goal of this course on the history of science and technology over the past century is to reveal the fundamental framework of institutions and ideas that have taken us as a nation into the twenty-first century.  Specific assignments will highlight ethical, political, and social issues that give meaning to and in turn are shaped by science and technology.  Beginning with the role of scientists as professional experts in the Progressive era, we consider how ideals of scientific management impacted animal lives and workers¿ bodies.  Fundamental concepts of expertise and control were intimately linked and extended broadly to human society.  Using eugenics as an example, we will reflect upon the interplay between science and social concerns and the legacy of eugenics in light of contemporary genetic testing.  Technology, too, seemed to offer great promise during the interwar years, and we will compare large-scale engineering projects in the Soviet Union and the United States, looking particularly closely at the massive dams constructed in both countries.  Not everyone was equally enthusiastic about the futuristic visions of the 1939 New York World¿s Fair, for example, and existing realities of the depression led some to question the impact of technology in film and other forms of protest.  Still, the unprecedented applications of science in World War II furthered faith in science and technology and created an era of ¿big science.¿  Military patronage had implications for research directions and created a climate of secrecy within even a democratic society, as witnessed by human radiation experiments and nuclear testing.  Citizens struggle to find policies and practices that continue technological and genetic innovations but limit the risks and sometimes inhumane outcomes.  Issues of individual and group ethical behavior and accountability will be a continuing sub theme of the course, as the class considers the intellectual, social, political, economic, and private components of choice in the context of professional expectations of scientists and engineers.

Historical Perspective
    
    History is a window on human dynamics in particular settings, allowing us to understand decision making under quite specific circumstances even as we watch how such decisions play out overtime.  In this course, you will undertake a number of assignments using on-line materials that present visual and textual primary sources that you will use for historical analysis.  Your own conclusions may or may not coincide closely with secondary readings assigned for class, and we will discuss how sources, historiographical methods, and the outlook of the historian may influence conclusions about historical events.  Our readings will also allow us to evaluate the variety of ways history is written, and they will include biography, case studies, and even advocacy accounts using historical materials in order to build critical skills for reading history.  

Civic Life and Ethics

    The course meets the Liberal Education requirement for Civic Life and Ethics because woven throughout the course, in every unit, there is a discussion of the way in which normative, legal, and professional ethics intersect with the policies and practice of science.  The class will consider how, in the increasing professionalization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, professional organizations began to elaborate codes of ethics, and then each student finds a code of ethics that relates directly to his or her career aspirations (typically engineering, science, medicine, as well as education, journalism and other fields).  These are brought to class for a discussion of common characteristics and the particularities relating to particular professional arenas. One major component of the class is a group ethics project in which students investigate an actual historical case (such as Pinto, Tuskegee, and Challenger), do an in-class presentation and a final written paper that explicitly discusses the ethical issues and outcomes.  In our final class discussion of contemporary issues in science and technology, we will talk about how ethics, personal and social, play into the decisions being made today.

Writing Component

    Because I know from experience that writing is an important way to learn and to communicate, I have been involved in the writing intensive programs offered at this university through the Writing Center. You will have opportunities to write very short, informal  papers in class that are intended to help you learn by writing.  Short microthemes and response papers are intended to help you read and analyze visual content and to communicate what you discover. There will also be a project paper based on a visit to the Mill Museum to reflect on re-presented history as experience. After doing this individual writing, you will be part of a team to produce a longer research paper as well as an in-class presentation that will involve investigating an event that raised ethical issues. Some papers will involve at least one and sometimes two revisions. All of these assignments are intended to help you deepen your understanding of history and historical writing and continually enhance your writing abilities.  

Learning Outcomes

History courses typically teach students content, in this case an understanding about how science and technology have become embedded in and influenced by the social and cultural life of the United States, as well as skills that can be applied broadly.  This course in history, particularly in its group project on ethics, is intended to help students identify and solve issues, locate the relevant information, and communicate your results effectively orally and in writing. By keeping the Soviet Union (Russia at the beginning and again by the end of the twentieth century) in view as a comparison, the course both situates the United States in global perspective and makes its own developments place specific.  Science and technology are implicated in innovation and social change, and discussions will take into account the complexity and interdisciplinarity of activities that are often best characterized as technoscience.

Requirements

Students will be expected to complete readings as assigned on the syllabus and come prepared to discuss these in class or to participate in on-line discussions or postings.  Short in-class response papers will be considered part of the discussion process.  There will be three on-line assignments with brief papers (15%), two microtheme assignments (10%), a group project (20%), as well as an hour exam (10%) and a final exam (20%); there will also be brief in class writing tasks throughout the course.  Written assignments are due at the beginning of the specified class period.  Class participation will be included as part of the overall evaluation of each student in the class based on contributions during lectures and in small group discussions held during every class (25%).   There will be short written assignments in class that will get a check, check plus, or check minus and these will also be folded into the class participation grade. Late assignments will be reduced in grade, and an incomplete in the course is possible only in unusual circumstances and with explanations documented in writing. This course meets the historical perspectives, citizenship and public ethics, and writing intensive requirements of the university requirements as defined by the Council on Liberal Education.

Courtesy in the Classroom
When you join a class, you make an implicit contract with the instructor and your fellow students to be on time to class, to listen when others are speaking, to turn off cell phones, and to use any electronic devices only to further classroom work and not for personal communication with others outside the class.


Required texts:

Thomas P. Hughes, American Genesis:  A History of the American Genius for Invention (New York:     Penguin Books, 1990).
Diane B. Paul, Controlling Human Heredity, 1895 to the Present (Atlantic Highlands, NJ:     Humanities Press International., 1995).
Loren Graham, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union     (Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1994).
Jane Maienschein, Whose View of Life? Embryos, Cloning and Stem Cells (Cambridge:  Harvard     University Press, 2004).

On-line class assignments at www.umn.edu/scitech/3333assignments.html


Assignments and Outline for HSCI 3333W

INTRODUCTION

Sept. 2     Welcome, introductions, and background
Shaped by Writing (short film)

Sept. 4     Science, Technology, and National Aspirations
Reading: Hughes, American Genesis, pp. 1-52
Intake writing assignment

Sept.4/5 Science and Invention
Reading: Hughes, American Genesis, pp. 53-95, 150-183

I.  MODERNISM AND PUBLIC LIFE

Sept. 9 Experts, Efficiency and Control in the Progressive Era
Reading handout: Cowan, pp. 201-219     
Writing Assignment #1 DUE

Sept. 11  Scientific Management in Theory and Practice: Taylor and Ford
Reading:  Hughes, pp. 184-248

Sept. 11/12 Technocrats and Scientism in the Early Twentieth Century
Reading: Hughes, pp. 248-294

Sept. 16  The World of Tomorrow (film)

II.  ENGINEERING LIFE

Sept. 18  Social Engineering: An Overview of Eugenics
Reading:  Paul, Controlling Human Heredity, pp. 1-71, and Susan Lederer, ¿Political Animals:  The Shaping of Biomedical Research Literature in Twentieth-Century America¿

Sept. 18/19  Fitter Families
Online Assignment I (Fitter Family Exhibit) DUE; rewrite due Oct. 2

Sept. 23  Tomorrow's Children (film)

Sept. 30 The Practice and Fate of Eugenics in International Context
Reading:  Paul, pp. 72-114

Oct. 2  Ethics: Formal Codes and Personal Practices
Find a code of ethics relative to your possible career and bring a copy to class.

Oct. 2/3  Eugenics and the New Biology
Reading:  Paul, pp. 115-135

III.  TECHNOCRATIC OPTIMISM IN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXTS
   
Oct. 7 Valley of the Tennessee (film)
Hughes, pp. 353-381

Oct. 9  Exam - based on Units I and II

Oct. 9/10 No regular class but you will spend two or three hours visiting the Mill Museum on West River Road north of campus (free passes will be provided)

Oct. 14 Engineering in Service to the Nation
Hughes, pp. 353-381, Graham, pp. 1-65
Writing Assignment #2 DUE

Oct. 16 The Great Competition: American and Soviet Engineering Projects
Reading:  Graham, 67-97

Oct. 16/17 Soviet Science in Perspective
Reading: Review Graham; discuss ethics projects


IV.  SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND WARFARE

Oct. 21  Decision to Drop the Bomb (film) or The Day after Trinity (film)

Oct. 23  World War II and Science
Reading: Hughes, 381-442

Oct. 23/24 War and Ethics
Reading handout:  Rhodes, ¿Tongues of Fire¿

Oct. 28 Post-War Science and the Goal of Internationalism
Reading handout: Jessica Wang, ACompeting Political Visions for Postwar Science@ from American Science in an Age of Anxiety

Oct.  30 NASA and the Space Race
Reading handout: McCurdy, Inside NASA, pp. 1-24, 133-158
On-line Assignment IV (Space Race) DUE

Oct. 30/31 Science and Warfare
Preparation for the ethic project oral and written reports

VOTE

Nov. 4, 6, 11  Ethics Projects in class
Substantial drafts of your final project papers are due Nov. 16 at 6 pm via internet.

Nov. 6/7 Class time to work on papers and discuss format and editorial details

V.  SCIENCE IN THE POST-MODERN ERA

Nov. 13  Loss of Confidence and the Critiques of Science
Reading handout:  Hughes, American Genesis, pp. 443-472
Reading: Graham, pp. 81-97 (review) plus 99-106
Reflection Assignment 1 DUE

Nov. 13/14 Rethinking the Nature and Practice of Science: A Physicist¿s Perspective in
Reading handout:  Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Nov.  18  Computers and the Cold War:
Reading handout: Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America, pp. 43-73
DRAFT Papers Due - in class peer review

Nov. 20     Physics in the Late 20th  Century
Reading handout: Daniel Kevles, ¿The Death of the Superconducting Super Collider in the Life of American Physics¿
    
Nov. 20/21 Discussion of revisions for the team projects.

Nov. 25 The Matrix (Class will being at 8 am to accommodate the feature-length film; independent showing available in library)  

Nov. 27 HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Dec. 2  Biology and Genetics
Reading:  Maienschein, chapters 1- 5
Ethics Project Papers DUE

Dec. 4  Challenges and Possibilities of Biomedical Research
Reading:  Maienschein, chapters 6-8
On-line Assignment III (Genetics) DUE

Dec. 4/5 Who is in Charge?  Science, Engineering, and Public Policy
Reading:  Maienschein, chapters 8 through Epilogue
Sally Smith Hughes "Making dollars out of DNA: The first major patent in biotechnology and the     commercialization of molecular biology, 1974-1980." Isis 92 (2001): 541-575.

Dec. 9 Science and Technology in the News
Reflection Assignment:  Find a recent newspaper or magazine article that discusses some aspect of public policy relating to science and engineering.  What is the public perception of the responsibilities and limits of government with regard to science and scientific products?  You might look for environmental, consumer, health or other issues.  What are the presumed sources of authority and appropriate sanctions for violation of implicit or explicit public policy?  On a 3x5 card highlight what drew you to this article and how it relates to themes in the course.

Optional review session scheduled.

Final Exam, Thursday, December 18, 8-10 am
No electronic devices of any kind are allowed in examinations.




Appendix on Student Services

Student Writing Support
The Center for Writing¿s Student Writing Support (SWS) is available to all students at any stage in their writing process. Students can schedule up to two consultation sessions each week.

Writing Resources
    Student Writing Support (SWS) offers free writing instruction for all University of Minnesota students¿graduate and undergraduate¿at all stages of the writing process. In face-to-face and online collaborative consultations, SWS consultants help students develop productive writing habits and revision strategies.

SWS consultants are teachers of writing: graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants and professional staff. Some consultants specialize in working with non-native speakers, and others have experience with writing in specific disciplines.

Consulting is available in available by appointment online and in Nicholson Hall, and on a walk-in basis in Appleby Hall. More information: http://writing.umn.edu/sws | 612.625.1893

In addition, SWS offers a number of web-based resources on topics such as avoiding plagiarism, documenting sources, and planning and completing a writing project. See http://writing.umn.edu/sws/quick_help.htm.

University Libraries:
The ultimate resource for research, the University library has five major facilities and eleven branch sites with a wealth of reference materials, online resources, books, articles, newspapers, microforms, government documents, maps and more.  Librarians are available and happy to help orient students to all aspects of the library system. You can find research assistance at http://tutorial.lib.umn.edu. The library tutorial, QuickStudy, is a self-paced tutorial covering the research process at the University of Minnesota Libraries. It starts with selecting a topic for a paper and ends with citing sources for a bibliography. Through this tutorial, students can also learn how to use RefWorks (www.lib.umn.edu/site/refworks.phtml). RefWorks is a web-based citation manager that allows you to create your own databases of citations by importing references from MNCAT (the library catalog) and other databases or by entering them using a template. RefWorks automatically generates bibliographies in all major styles (MLA, APA, Turabian, Chicago, etc.) in seconds, and then exports them as several document types (Word, RTF, HTML, etc.).

Hands-on research tutorials with a research librarian are also available.  Sign up at http://www.lib.umn.edu/registration. These workshops focus on effectively using MNCAT, the library catalogs, the Expanded Academic Index, and more.

The library website also has an assignment calculator at http://www.lib.umn.edu/help/calculator/. This tool allows students to break down any assignment for any course into manageable steps. After entering a due date and the academic department in which the course is being offered, students are given a series of suggested stages and deadlines to follow as they complete the assignment--the newest version of this tool will even provide email reminders if students request it.

University of Minnesota Counseling & Consulting Services: 109 Eddy Hall
(612.624.3323) http://www.ucs.umn.edu/
UCCS helps students with their concerns and offers an opportunity to talk with an experienced counselor who can help students select and achieve goals for personal and career development. The center offers three types of counseling: personal counseling, academic counseling, and career counseling. The Learning and Academic Skills Center offers classes, workshops, and individual assistance aimed at helping students achieve academic goals.


 Standard Statement on Course Requirements

1. The two major grading systems used are the A-F and S-N.   Departmental majors must take major courses on the A-F system; non-majors may use either system.  The instructor will specify criteria and achievement levels required for each grade. All students, regardless of the system used, will be expected to do all work assigned in the course, or its equivalent as determined by the instructor. Any changes you wish to make in the grading base must be done in the first two weeks of the semester.
2. The instructor will specify the conditions, if any, under which an "Incomplete" will be assigned instead of a grade. An "I" grades will automatically lapse to "F" at the end of the next semester of a student's registration, unless an instructor agrees to submit a change of grade for a student during a subsequent semester to maintain the grade as an "I".
3. Inquiries regarding any changes of grade should be directed to the instructor of the course; you may wish to contact the Student Dispute Resolution Center(SDRC) in 321 CMU (625-5900) for assistance.
4. Students are responsible for all information disseminated in class and all course requirements, including deadlines and examinations. The instructor will specify whether class attendance is required or counted in the grade for a class.
5. A student is not permitted to submit extra work in an attempt to raise his or her grade, unless the instructor has specified at the outset of the class such opportunities will be afforded to all students.
6. Scholastic misconduct is broadly defined as "any act that violates the right of another student in academic work or that involves misrepresentation of your own work. Scholastic dishonesty includes, (but is not necessarily limited to): cheating on assignments or examinations; plagiarizing, which means misrepresenting as your own work any part of work done by another; submitting the same paper, or substantially similar papers, to meet the requirements of more than one course without the approval and consent of all instructors concerned; depriving another student of necessary course materials; or interfering with another student's work."
7. Students with disabilities that affect their ability to participate fully in class or to meet all course requirements are encouraged to bring this to the attention of the instructor so that appropriate accommodations can be arranged. Further information is available from Disabilities Services (30 Nicholson Hall).
8. University policy prohibits sexual harassment as defined in the December 1998 policy statement, available at the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. Questions or concerns about sexual harassment should be directed to this office, located in 419 Morrill Hall.

You may contact SDRC at 625-5900 for more information on the above services or to find out if any would be helpful in solving your problem.