MEDICAL SOCIOLOGY: PRINCIPLES, PRACTICES, AND PUZZLES
SYO 4402, Section 02, Spring 2014
Monday & Wednesday, 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm, Room 214 HCB
Instructor: Xan Nowakowski, PhD, MPH
E-mail: xnowakowski@fsu.edu
Office: College of Medicine, Room 3300D
Phone: (850) 645-7396
Office Hours: Tuesday 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
OVERVIEW
The concept of “patient-centered medicine”—health care that embraces patients as complete
people—has gained prominence in many parts of the world. Why is how we think about
“patients” so important? What does it mean to provide “quality” medical care? What constitutes
a good health outcome or a bad one? How do people develop health conditions in the first place?
How do they experience these changes on a personal level? Health care requires just as much
attention to social factors as it does to clinical ones, yet researchers have only recently begun to
examine how these forces work together to produce or diminish well-being. “Medical
sociology”—the study of social causes and consequences of health—is an exciting and rapidly
growing discipline that is changing the way people think about health in multiple domains.
COURSE GOALS
This course will orient you to the field of medical sociology, and give you practice in using the
fundamental tools of the discipline. Specifically, it will help you develop basic knowledge about
key medical sociology topics, expose you to current research studies and findings, help you
understand how and when to apply specific sociomedical concepts and models, and encourage
you to think critically about course material. It will also help you synthesize concepts to think
creatively and strategically about central social issues in health and medicine. These include
patient-provider communication, social support, stigma management, medical ethics, health and
wellness measurement, social determinants of health, medical care delivery, paying for health
care, and health disparities. We will explore two broad questions: (1) How do social factors
cause different health states? (2) How does society respond to different health states?
COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of the semester, you should be able to:
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Describe different types of health care organizations, insurance, and financing.
Differentiate individual, group, and institutional influences on health.
Articulate how elements of health and medicine are measured and tracked.
Explain why and how social inequality affects health, and vice versa.
Compare and contrast the attributes and challenges of different health care settings.
Summarize major concepts and theories on important medical sociology issues.
Find and interpret news coverage of current issues in medical sociology.
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Apply sociological concepts and models to health, illness, and disability.
Write basic, brief critical responses to course readings.
Generalize your knowledge about medical sociology to other topics, where appropriate.
Approach learning new material strategically—in medical sociology and other areas.
I teach new concepts by relating them to what you already know, and by helping you organize
information into categories that make sense to you. I emphasize applying and challenging
knowledge so that you can participate actively in class meetings and take full advantage of your
unique strengths as a learner. As Mark Twain once said, “Never let your schooling interfere with
your education!”
REQUIRED READINGS
No textbook is required. All of the following pieces are posted on Blackboard.
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Adler, Nancy E. and Joan M. Ostrove. 1999. “Socioeconomic Status and Health: What We
Know and What We Don’t.” Socioeconomic Status and Health in Industrial Nations: Social,
Psychological, and Biological Pathways 896:3-15.
Akers, Aletha Y., Melvin R. Muhammad, and Giselle Corbie-Smith. 2011. “‘When you got
nothing to do, you do somebody’: A community’s perceptions of neighborhood effects on
adolescent sexual behaviors.” Social Science & Medicine 72:91-99.
Burdette, Amy and Terrence Hill. 2008. “An examination of processes linking perceived
neighborhood disorder and obesity.” Social Science & Medicine 67:38-46.
Bury, Michael. 1991. “The Sociology of Chronic Illness: A Review of Research and
Prospects.” Sociology of Health & Illness 13:451−468.
Busfield, Joan. 2006. “Pills, Power, People: Sociological Understandings of the
Pharmaceutical Industry.” Sociology 40(2):297-314.
Butterfoss, Frances Dunn, Robert M. Goodman, and Abraham Wandersman. 1993.
“Community Coalitions for Prevention and Health Promotion.” Health Education Research
8(3):315-330.
Charmaz, Kathy. 2003. “Experiencing Chronic Illness.” Pp. 277−292 in Handbook of Social
Studies in Health & Medicine, edited by G. Albrecht, R. Fitzpatrick, and S. Scrimshaw.
Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.
Cockerham, William. 2007. Medical Sociology, 10th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Prentice Hall.
Conrad, Peter and Valerie Leiter. 2004. “Medicalization, Markets, and Consumers.” Journal
of Health and Social Behavior 45 (Extra Issue):158-176.
Chrisler, Joan and Paula Caplan. 2002. “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde: How
PMS became a Cultural Phenomenon and Psychiatric Disorder.” Annual Review of Sex
Research 13:274-306.
Ferraro, Kenneth and Tatyana Pylypiv Shippee. 2009. “Aging and Cumulative Inequality:
How does Inequality get under the Skin?” The Gerontologist 49:333−343.
Freese, Jeremy. 2008. “Genetics and the Social Science Explanation of Individual
Outcomes.” American Journal of Sociology 114 Suppl.: S1–S35.
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Freund, Peter, Meredith McGuire, and Linda Podhurst. 2003. Health, Illness, and the Social
Body: A Critical Sociology, 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Iglehart, John. 2010. “The Political Fight Over Comparative Effectiveness Research.”
Health Affairs 29:1757-1760.
Institute of Medicine. 2001. Committee on Quality of Health Care in America. Crossing the
Quality Chasm: A new health system for the 21st century. Washington, DC: National
Academies Press.
Gawande, Atul. 2009. “The Cost Conundrum: What a Texas town can teach us about health
care.” The New Yorker 85(16):36-44.
Geronimus, Arline T., Margaret Hicken, Danya Keene, and John Bound. 2006.
“‘Weathering’ and Age-Patterns of Allostatic Load Scores among Blacks and Whites in the
United States.” American Journal of Public Health 96: 826-833.
Groopman, Jerome. 2007. “What’s the Trouble? How doctors think.” The New Yorker 29.
Hafferty, Frederich. 1988. “Cadaver Stories and the Emotional Socialization of Medical
Students.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29:344-356.
Henderson, Gail et al. 2007. “Clinical Trials and Medical Care: Defining the Therapeutic
Misconception.” PLoS Med 4(11): e324.
Hummer, Robert. 1996. “Black-White Differences in Health and Mortality: A Review and
Conceptual Model.” The Sociological Quarterly 37:105−125.
Josefsson, Ulrika. 2005. “Coping with Illness Online: The Case of Patients’ Online
Communities. The Information Society: An International Journal 21(2):133-141.
Karp, David. 1996. “Illness and Identity.” Pp. 50-77 in Speaking of Sadness. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Link, Bruce G. and Jo Phelan. 2010. “Social Conditions as Fundamental Causes of Health
Inequalities.” Pp. 3−17 in Handbook of Medical Sociology, 6th Edition, edited by C. Bird, P.
Conrad, A. Fremont, and S. Timmermans. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Matcha, Duane. 2000. Medical Sociology. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Nowakowski, Alexandra C.H. 2010. “More Options for Treating Pain.” Hospitals & Health
Networks Weekly. 2 February 2010.
Pearlin, Leonard I. 1989. “The Sociological Study of Stress.” Journal of Health and Social
Behavior (1989):241-256.
Pescosolido, Bernice A., Steven A. Tuch, and Jack K. Martin. 2001. “The Profession of
Medicine and the Public: Examining Americans’ Changing Confidence in Physician
Authority from the Beginning of the ‘Health Care Crisis’ to the Era of Health Care Reform.”
Journal of Health and Social Behavior 42(1):1-16.
Rieker, Patricia, Chloe Bird, and Martha Lang. 2013. “Understanding Gender and Health:
Old Patterns, New Trends, and Future Directions.” Pp. 52−74 in Handbook of Medical
Sociology, 6th Edition, edited by C. Bird, P. Conrad, A. Fremont, and S. Timmermans.
Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Rier, David A. 2000. “The missing voice of the critically ill: a medical sociologist’s firstperson account.” Sociology of Health & Illness 22(1):68-93.
Rosenberg, Charles. 2002. “The Tyranny of Diagnosis: Specific Entities and Individual
Experience.” The Milbank Quarterly, 80:237-260.
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Rosich, Katherine and Janet Hankin. 2010. “Executive Summary: What Do We Know? Key
Findings from 50 Years of Medical Sociology.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior,
Extra Issue, 51:S1-S9.
Ross, Catherine and John Mirowsky. 1989. “Psychiatric Diagnosis as Reified Measurement.”
Journal of Health and Social Behavior (1989):11-25.
Ross, Catherine and John Mirowsky. 2000. “Does Medical Insurance Contribute to
Socioeconomic Differentials in Health?” The Milbank Quarterly 78:291−321.
Shea, Christopher. 2000. “Don’t Talk to the Humans: The crackdown on social science
research.” Lingua Franca 10(6):26-34.
Smith, Allen and Sherryl Kleinman. 1989. “Managing Emotions in Medical School.” Social
Psychology Quarterly, 52:6-69.
Street, Debra, Stephanie Burge, Jill Quadagno, and Anne Barrett. 2007. “The Salience of
Social Relationships on Resident Wellbeing in Assisted Living.” Journal of Gerontology
62B (2):S129-134.
Taylor, John and R. Jay Turner. 2002. “Perceived Discrimination, Social Stress, and
Depression in the Transition to Adulthood: Racial Contrasts.” Social Psychology Quarterly
65:213-25.
Taylor, Miles G. 2008. “Timing, Accumulation, and the Black/White Disability Gap in Later
Life: A Test of Weathering.” Research on Aging: Special Issue on Race, SES, and Health 30:
226-250.
Thoits, Peggy A. “Stress, coping, and social support processes: Where are we? What next?”
Journal of Health and Social Behavior (1995): 53-79.
Tiefer, Lenore. 2006. “The Viagra Phenomenon.” Sexualities 9:273-294.
Topo, Päivi and Sonja Iltanen-Tähkävuori. 2010. “Scripting Patienthood with Patient
Clothing.” Social Science and Medicine, 70:1682-9.
Ueno, Koji. 2010. “Mental Health Differences Between Young Adults With and Without
Same-Sex Contact: A Simultaneous Examination of Underlying Mechanisms.” Journal of
Health and Social Behavior 51(4):391-407.
Wallis, Anne Baber, Peter J. Winch, and Patricia J. O’Campo. 2010. “This Is Not a Well
Place: Neighborhood and Stress in Pigtown.” Health Care for Women International, 31:113130.
Williams, Robert L. and Kim Yanoshik. 2001. “Can You Do a Community Health
Assessment without Talking to the Community?” Journal of Community Health, 26(4):233247.
Woolhandler, Steffie, Terry Campbell, and David U. Himmelstein. 2003. “Costs of Health
Care Administration in the U.S. and Canada.” New England Journal of Medicine, 349:768775.
Zola, Irving Kenneth. 1991. “Bringing Our Bodies and Ourselves Back In: Reflections on a
Past, Present, and Future ‘Medical Sociology’.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior
32(1):1-16.
4 COURSE CONTENT AND OUTLINE
WEEK 1 (January 6 & January 8)
Getting oriented: introductions, course overview, syllabus review
 Reading: Course syllabus (available on Blackboard)
Support for a sociology of health and medicine
 Reading: Humberstone 2007
 Reading: Rosich and Hankin 2010
*** Bring syllabus to class on first day! ***
WEEK 2 (January 13 & January 15)
Foundational concepts and terms
 Reading: Cockerham 2007
 Reading: Matcha 2000
Biomedical, biopsychosocial, and sociological health models
 Reading: Freese 2008
 Reading: Pearlin 1989
WEEK 3 (January 20 & January 22)
Social and organizational changes in medicine
 Reading: Weiss 2009
 Reading: Cockerham 2007
 Assignment 1: Available on Blackboard, complete over next week
*** No class on January 20 (Martin Luther King Day) ***
WEEK 4 (January 27 & January 29)
Epidemiology: transitional patterns and social approaches
 Reading: Freund, McGuire, and Podhurst 2003
 Reading: Geronimus et al. 2006
Introduction to theories of health inequality
 Reading: Link and Phelan 2010
 Reading: Ferraro and Shippee 2009
*** Assignment 1 due by 11:59 pm on January 29 ***
WEEK 5 (February 3 & February 5)
Social patterning of health and illness
 Reading: Adler and Ostrove 1999
 Reading: Burdette and Hill 2008
Measures of health and functionality
 Reading: Taylor 2008
 Reading: Taylor and Turner 2002
5 WEEK 6 (February 10 & February 12)
Dynamics and causes of health inequality
 Reading: Hummer 1996
 Reading: Rieker, Bird, and Lang 2010
Strategies for mitigating health disparities
 Reading: Ueno 2010
 Reading: Akers, Muhummad, and Corbie-Smith 2011
 Assignment 2: Available on Blackboard, complete over next week
WEEK 7 (February 17 & February 19)
People becoming patients and patients managing emotions
 Reading: Charmaz 2003
 Reading: Bury 1991
Coping: types and social resources
 Reading: Josefsson 2005
 Reading: Thoits 1995
*** Assignment 2 due by 11:59 pm on February 19 ***
NB: February 21 is the last day to drop a course without receiving a grade.
WEEK 8 (February 24 & February 26)
History of diagnosis and treatment
 Reading: Weiss 2009
 Reading: Rosenberg 2002
Experience of illness: navigating medical systems
 Reading: Groopman 2007
 Reading: Rier 2000
 Exam I: Available on Blackboard, complete over next week
WEEK 9 (March 3 & March 5)
Biomedical models of illness: problems and alternatives
 Reading: Conrad and Leiter 2004
 Reading: Chrisler and Caplan 2002
Medicalization and its consequences
 Reading: Zola 1991
 Reading: Mirowsky and Ross 1989
*** Exam I due by 11:59 pm on March 5 ***
*** SPRING BREAK is the week of March 10! Get some rest! ***
6 WEEK 10 (March 17 & March 19)
The pharmaceutical industry
 Reading: Tiefer 2006
 Reading: Busfield 2006
Sociomedical research: ethics, review, and funding
 Reading: Henderson et al. 2007
 Reading: Shea 2000
*** Optional course evaluation survey due by 11:59 pm on March 19 ***
WEEK 11 (March 24 & March 26)
Health professions and physician socialization
 Reading: Freund, McGuire, and Podhurst 2003
 Reading: Hafferty 1988
People as “cases”: physician attitudes toward patients
 Reading: Smith and Kleinman 1989
 Reading: Topo and Iltanen-Tähkävuori 2010
 Assignment 3: Available on Blackboard, complete over next week
WEEK 12 (March 31 & April 2)
Models of health care delivery
 Reading: Karp 1996
 Reading: Gawande 2009
Relationships between health services and health outcomes
 Reading: Street et al. 2007
 Reading: Ross and Mirowsky 2000
*** Assignment 3 due by 11:59 pm on April 2 Feb***
NB: April 4 is the deadline for late drop with dean’s permission.
WEEK 13 (April 7 & April 9)
US health care system: unique attributes
 Reading: Woolhandler, Campbell, and Himmelstein 2003
 Reading: Nowakowski 2010
Health care reform
 Reading: Pescosolido, Tuch, and Martin 2001
 Reading: Institute of Medicine 2001
 Assignment 4: Available on Blackboard, complete over next week
WEEK 14 (April 14 & April 16)
Comparative effectiveness research
 Reading: Iglehart 2010
 Reading: Butterfoss, Goodman, and Wandersman 1993
Community health assessment
 Reading: Williams and Yanoshik 2001
 Reading: Wallis, Winch, and O’Campo 2010
*** Assignment 4 due by 11:59 pm on April 16 ***
7 WEEK 15 (April 21 & April 23)
Current events in medical sociology
 Reading: Catch up on any readings you haven’t done yet!
 Activity: Find one news article related to medical sociology!
Course wrap-up
 Exam II: Available on Blackboard, complete over next week
 SPOT Evaluations: Will go out over email at end of semester
FINAL EXAM
*** Exam II due by 11:59 pm on April 30 ***
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Blackboard. You can find all of the course readings in the “Course Library” area on our
Blackboard site. Please let me know promptly if you have difficulty accessing any of the PDFs!
Submit your assignments and exams to Blackboard as requested—I will show everyone where to
find things early in the semester. Make sure you also check Blackboard regularly to keep up with
newly posted information and changes to the syllabus.
Attendance. I will circulate an attendance sheet during every class period. If I take attendance
and you are present for the entire class period and signed the sign in sheet I will give you an
attendance point for that day. Accumulated attendance points will count as extra credit toward
your final grade. You will need a valid written excuse (e.g., attending a conference, having
surgery) to get attendance points for any class you need to miss. If you have an emergency and
cannot attend class, please let me know ASAP (before class if possible) via e-mail, and give me
whatever written documentation you can provide at the next class meeting. Note that class
attendance and grades are very highly correlated, so come when you can!
Class participation. Engaging our brains in discussion of course materials enhances our
learning and makes the classroom experience much more fun. I keep my lecture slides general
and brief because I believe students should drive our journey in the classroom. If you have a
question or comment about what we are covering, signal that you would like to speak, and I will
call on you. To encourage you to engage actively, I give points for class participation. This does
not mean that you need to talk constantly to get full credit! Rather, I want to see evidence that
you are thinking critically about the different course modules and challenging yourself
intellectually. I also recognize that not every student feels equally comfortable speaking in front
of others. It is perfectly okay not to speak up frequently during lectures, but I do expect every
student to participate actively in smaller discussion activities.
Readings. Lectures will highlight and/or build on the readings so you should finish assigned
readings prior to coming to class. Being prepared for class will also enhance your learning
experience and allow you to participate! The instructions for writing response papers are a great
guide for active reading. Think about these topics as you read each article, and take a few notes!
I personally find it works very well to create a matrix with one column for the discussion topics
and another column for brief notes about each topic, but I encourage you to take notes in
whatever way you find most useful.
8 Examinations. There will be two exams, both of which are take-home and should be submitted
through Blackboard. These exams will consist of multiple choice items, with the goal of getting
you to demonstrate knowledge of key concepts and think critically about course materials. You
may use your notes and readings while completing the exams, but note that you will not be able
to complete the exams in the required time if you have not prepared in advance. I will give
extensions on exam deadlines only for emergencies or for extenuating circumstances. In such an
event, you must give me a valid written excuse that I can keep for my records. For more
information, please review Florida State University’s policy on final exams, which instructors
and students are mandated to follow: http://undergrad.fsu.edu/Retention/exam.html.
Assignments. You will complete four written assignments during the semester. For each of these
assignments, you will write a short (1 to 2 pages double-spaced) “response paper” to one of the
readings for that module. Each assignment will ask you to think critically about course readings
and form your own positions on the content.
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Assignment 1: Health/illness models and social epidemiology
Assignment 2: Inequality, medicalization, and coping
Assignment 3: Pharma and health professions
Assignment 4: Health care delivery models and systems
You will have some choice in which readings you address in each assignment. You may use your
notes, book, and any other resources you find useful. I also strongly encourage you to discuss the
course readings with other students! However, you may not collaborate with other students to do
the actual writing—all work must be completely your own. I will discuss the details of these
assignments in class and will post them in advance on the Blackboard site. I will also post the
standards with which I grade these assignments, so you have a clear idea of how to approach the
work.
If you need to submit an assignment late, talk to me beforehand (except in the case of severe
emergencies, in which case you should talk to me as soon as possible). I reserve the right to
deduct points for late submissions. However, I also believe that grades should reflect learning
rather than ability to navigate bureaucracy. Consequently, the more important thing is to take
responsibility for letting me know if you will have a problem turning in an assignment on time,
and to work with me on alternative arrangements.
Course evaluation. I will use Blackboard to administer a course evaluation survey about
halfway through the semester. Since there is no better way for me to improve my teaching—and
thus, your experience in the course—than asking for your feedback, completing this evaluation
will boost your final course grade. You will receive a small amount of extra credit toward your
course grade by completing this evaluation. At the end of the term, you will complete the
mandatory SPOT assessment form for all FSU courses.
9 GRADING & EVALUATION
Final grades will be calculated according to the following formula:
ASSESSMENT
Assignment 1
Assignment 2
Exam I
Assignment 3
Assignment 4
Exam II
Class Participation
TOTAL
TOPICS COVERED
Health/illness models and social epidemiology
Inequality, medicalization, and coping
First half of semester only
Pharma and health professions
Health care delivery models and systems
Second half of semester only
Readings for each session
WEIGHT
15%
15%
10%
15%
15%
10%
20%
100%
I use full letter grades in this course. Cut-points for letter grades are: A = 90-100%; B = 80-89%;
C = 70-79%; D = 60-69%; F < 59%.
You will not receive formal letter grades for exams or assignments; I will add your points for all
exams and assignments to derive your final grade for the course. To help you keep tabs on your
own performance, however, I will compute percentage scores for each assessment and post these
to Blackboard. You can get a bit of extra credit by attending class regularly, and by completing
the optional course evaluation survey on Blackboard midway through the semester.
ACADEMIC HONOR POLICY
The Florida State University Academic Honor Policy outlines the University’s expectations for
the integrity of students’ academic work, the procedures for resolving alleged violations of those
expectations, and the rights and responsibilities of students and faculty members throughout the
process. Students are responsible for reading the Academic Honor Policy and for living up to
their pledge to “. . . be honest and truthful and . . . [to] strive for personal and institutional
integrity at Florida State University.” (Florida State University Academic Honor Policy, found at
http://fda.fsu.edu/Academics/Academic-Honor-Policy.)
CLASSROOM COURTESY
Basic classroom courtesy ensures that everyone has the opportunity to learn without distractions
in a physically and emotionally safe environment. So, please refrain from having “side
conversations”, answering cell phones in class, or otherwise disrupting class activities. On the
other hand, asking questions and participating in class discussion is strongly encouraged!
Likewise, you may use a laptop, tablet PC, and/or e-reader in class to assist you in learning and
taking notes—in fact, I encourage students to avoid printing out articles if at all possible. That
said, I reserve the right to take action if you repeatedly engage in distracting or disruptive
behavior with any technology you bring to class. If you must have a cell phone to receive
emergency calls about children or other loved ones, keep it on vibrate and step out of class to
answer. Please also make a general effort to minimize noise in the classroom—for example, if
you bring food to class, choose snacks that you can eat quietly.
10 Most importantly, respect your fellow students at all times. Hostile comments directed at other
students or population groups will not be tolerated. I refuse to censor anyone, but consider this
fair warning that if you disparage another student in any way, I will call you on it and give
everyone the opportunity to discuss the incident together. I have zero interest in embarrassing or
punishing anyone, so please think about the likely impact of your words before you speak.
EMAIL ETIQUETTE
In every email you send me, please include your first and last name, the course and the section
number or date/time of our class. Generally this course has upwards of 40 enrolled students, so
this is crucial to help me know who you are and how I can help you! Before asking questions
about basic course information, please check the course Blackboard site and the syllabus—be a
strategic learner! These skills will take you far in your future career, and in most cases, you will
get the information you need much more quickly by looking at the course website instead of emailing me.
AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT
Students with disabilities needing academic accommodation should: (1) register with and
provide documentation to the Student Disability Resource Center; and (2) bring a letter to the
instructor indicating the need for accommodation and what type. This should be done during the
first week of class. This syllabus and other class materials are available in alternative format
upon request. For more information about services available to FSU students with disabilities,
contact the:
Student Disability Resource Center
874 Traditions Way
108 Student Services Building
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4167
(850) 644-9566 (voice)
(850) 644-8504 (TDD)
sdrc@admin.fsu.edu
http://www.disabilitycenter.fsu.edu/
FREE TUTORING SERVICES
On-campus tutoring and writing assistance is available for many courses at Florida State
University. For more information, visit the Academic Center for Excellence (ACE) Tutoring
Services’ comprehensive list of on-campus tutoring options: see http://ace.fsu.edu/tutoring or
contact tutor@fsu.edu. High-quality tutoring is available by appointment and on a walk-in basis.
These services are offered by tutors trained to encourage the highest level of individual academic
success while upholding personal academic integrity.
11 EXCUSED ABSENCES
Excused absences include documented illness, deaths in the family and other documented crises,
call to active military duty or jury duty, religious holy days, and official University activities.
These absences will be accommodated in a way that does not arbitrarily penalize students who
have a valid excuse. Consideration will also be given to students whose dependent children
experience serious illness.
INCOMPLETE GRADES
Missing work or completing assignments partially are insufficient reasons for a grade of
Incomplete. An Incomplete grade will not be given except under extenuating circumstances at
the instructor’s discretion. Note that College of Social Science guidelines require that students
seeking an “I” must have completed a substantial portion of the course and be passing the course.
If for any reason you do qualify for an Incomplete in this course, I will work with you to develop
a plan for completing your remaining work.
SYLLABUS CHANGE POLICY
This syllabus is a guide for the course and is subject to change—with advance notice, of course!
Class topics, assignments, reading selections, and scheduling may be modified by the instructor
as circumstances dictate. I will announce any necessary changes via email and in class.
12