BIOL 5472 103: Special Topics in Biology

BIOL 5472 - Special Topics in Biology: Advanced Biomechanics

Fall 2025 Syllabus, Section 103, CRN 17653


Instructor Information

Dr. Jonathan A. Rader

Assistant Professor

Email: jonathan.rader@tamiu.edu

Office: LBVSC 379E

Office Hours:
MWR 8:30AM-10:00AM, T 1:00PM-2:30PM, or by appointment
(subject to change)

Office Phone: TBD


Times and Location

TR 2:50pm-4:40pm in Bullock Hall 206


Course Description

A seminar course on topics of current biological interest. May be repeated when topic changes. No laboratory section included. Prerequisites: Graduate standing and permission of the instructor.
Biology&Chemistry Department, College of Arts & Sciences

Additional Course Information

Course Objectives:

Survey of the diverse ways that plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi use physics to accomplish tasks at the organ and organismal level, including ying, swimming, running, jumping, eating, growing, and reproducing. Basic concepts of solid and fluid mechanics relevant to biological function covered.

Keys to Success:

  1. Attend all classes (attendance will be taken!). 
  2. Participate! Ask questions both in and out of class.
  3. Blackboard is a class resource. Readings and course announcements will be posted on Blackboard. Please also make sure that you have a TAMIU Email account and that you check it regularly. It is the responsibility of every student to VERIFY that the instructor can open any assignment submitted electronically.
  4. Consistency is key. Spread the workload out over the semester into bite-sized pieces. Don’t try to cram everything into a few days before the due dates!

Course Policies

General Expectations:

Learning depends on engagement, and engagement depends on both the relationship between students and instructors and the general learning environment. Engagement is a relationship, and like any other relationship, depends on two people: the instructor and the student. I will do my part to come to class prepared with interesting material and a science-based lecture style that includes active learning techniques. I expect you to come to class prepared by completing the assigned reading before class and by being willing to participate in your own learning. Furthermore, I expect you to cultivate a positive and welcoming learning environment for you and your fellow students. Bigotry, hatefulness, or other discriminatory acts or behaviors that poison the learning environment for others will not be tolerated.

Accommodations for Disabilities:

I am happy to accommodate people with disabilities (learning, physical, etc.), people with chronic illnesses, and people with other conditions or circumstances that will potentially interfere with course work. It is your responsibility to let me know in the first week of the course (potentially including providing me with a letter from ODS), or as soon as you are aware of problems, so that we can plan appropriate accommodations together.

Academic Honesty:

I expect students to conform to all standards of academic honesty outlined in the TAMIU Honor Code on all work for this course. If you are unsure of whether or not your work is academically honest, please come see me before you turn it in.

Electronic Devices (phones, computers, etc):

Please refrain from inappropriate usage of electronic devices during class. I reserve the right to ask you to discontinue the use of any electronic device which becomes a significant distraction to your classmates or me. Switch cell phones to silent/vibrate. You may make audio recordings of the lectures for personal use, but do not share them with others or post them publicly without express written permission from me.

Group Work:

I encourage group work on all assignments and during class, except those explicitly stated to be individual evaluations. You are free to assume that an assignment is meant to be worked on together unless otherwise directed. If you work in groups on an assignment, simply list the members of your group on the top of the assignment.

Attendance/Absence:

I expect you to attend every lecture. Attendance and participation in class discussions will be part of your final grade (see below). For in-class assignments (discussion worksheets), there will no make-up work except under extraordinary circumstances for which documentation exists. I appreciate you making it to class on time, defined as within 5 minutes of the class start time.

Email:

I reply to emails once a day within regular working hours (9 am to 5 pm, M-F). I will try my best to respond within one working day. Please check the syllabus before asking a question about the course. Detailed questions are best asked during office hours, you will get a better and more thorough answer. If your question takes > 3 mins to respond to, I will ask you to come to office hours. Please treat email as formal communication, if you are unsure of how to properly format an email to your professor, please ask me and I will be happy to offer guidance.

AI Policy:

Generative AI has become a pervasive influence in our lives. It tempts us to simplify our tasks by simply prompting it to do the work for us – but you should resist this urge for several reasons. First, the entire point of taking college classes is to learn and grow into a professional ready to begin a career. You learn nothing by allowing AI to do your work, cheating yourself out of a priceless opportunity. Second, AI isn’t actually all that good at doing the work. It is limited by the data that it has available to train itself on, meaning that it is not capable of doing anything truly unique. It also hallucinates. For these reasons, the use of generative AI to complete assignments in this course is strongly discouraged. That said, AI can be a valuable tool. Generative AI can be useful to help you write more concisely, it can help translating between languages, and it can help you wrap your head around what you are trying to say about a complicated topic. I encourage you to use AI as a tool to help you think and work more efficiently, not as a crutch to do your work for you. For the purposes of the term paper, we will be using version control so that the instructor can see and evaluate your writing process. This also means that it will be clear if you have used AI to generate large portions of the text. Resist the siren song!

Student Learning Outcomes

At the completion of this course, students should be able to:

  1. Understand a variety of basic concepts from solid and fluid mechanics.
  2. Identify the connection between basic concepts from mechanics and living examples of function.
  3. Apply the basic concepts from mechanics to understand novel mechanisms in biology.
  4. Understand the importance of physical constraints on the evolution of functional systems.
  5. Appreciate the role of diversity in functional systems.

Important Dates

Visit the Academic Calendar (tamiu.edu) page to view the term's important dates.

Textbooks

Other Course Materials

Assigned Readings:

Instructor will provide all assigned readings.

Grading Criteria

GRADE PERCENTAGE
A 90-100
B 80-89
C 70-79
D 60-69
F Below 60

Assignment of Grades

There will be two non-cumulative midterm exams and a cumulative final exam. The lowest exam score will be dropped. The two remaining exams are worth 30% of the overall grade (15% each). 

Students will also work collaboratively with the instructor to produce a term paper in the format of an NSF research fellowship proposal (details provided by the instructor). Undergraduate students will only write the research proposal, while graduate students will also write a personal statement.

The term paper will be written through iterative drafts in Google Docs (with version control turned on). An initial outline will be worth 5% of the overall grade (10% of the term paper value). Three successive rough drafts will be turned in for the instructor to provide students with feedback on their writing. The frequency of these drafts is intended to provide ample opportunity for collaboration between students and the instructor. The first rough draft of the term paper is worth the remainder of the value of the assignment. Points will be deducted from this draft, and will be returned through the successive drafts.

ASSIGNMENT VALUE
Discussion worksheet assignments 20%
Term paper 50%
Midterm Exam #1 15%
Midterm Exam #2 15%

Schedule of Topics and Assignments

Day Date Agenda/Topic Reading(s) Due
Tue 8/26 Introduction to the class, getting to know each other, What is biomechanics? Syllabus Introduction quizlet - in class
Thu 8/28 A physics refresher: Quantities, Units, Dimensions, Motion, and States of Matter Vogel Ch. 1, 2
Tue 9/2 Size and Scale Vogel Ch. 3 Introduce Term Paper Assignment
Thu 9/4 Fluids: The Interface (Cohesion/adhesion, Wettability, Capillarity Surface Tension); Fluids at Rest (Buoyancy, Pressure & Solubility) Vogel Ch. 4, 5
Tue 9/9 Fluids: Viscosity (Viscosity, Reynolds number, small vs. large swimmers); Patterns of Flow (the no-slip condition, streamlines, vortices) Vogel Ch. 6 Term paper topics due
Thu 9/11 Fluids: Forces of Flow (Bernoulli's principle, Venturi tubes, pressures in flow); Life's a Drag (pressure drag, viscous drag, reducing drag) Vogel Ch. 7
Tue 9/16 Fluids: Near Surfaces (boundary layers, hiding, ejecting); Dffusion vs. Convection (Diffusion, convection, Pêclet number) Vogel Ch. 8
Thu 9/18 Fluids: Internal flows (pipes and plates, Poiseuille's equation, Turbulent flows); Flow in Small Worlds (Stokes Law, flagella, cilia, suspension feeding) Vogel Ch. 9, 11; Ch. 10 optional
Tue 9/23 Fluids: Lift (Circulation, airfoils, other uses of lift); Flight (gliding, soaring) Vogel Ch. 12 Term paper outline due
Thu 9/25 Fluids: Thrust for flying (advance ratio, powered flight, clap'n'ing, power and efficiency); Thrust for swimming (Jetting, drag-based swimming, lift-based swimming Vogel Ch. 13
Tue 9/30 Fluids: Motion at Interfaces (surface waves, energy at the surface) Vogel Ch. 14
Thu 10/2 Midterm Exam #1
Tue 10/7 Fluids: Flight - Evolution of wings Paper Discussion: TBD Dicussion worksheet due in class
Thu 10/9 Writing workshop TBD
Tue 10/14 Solids: Quantifying Solids (Stress, strain, material properties, types of materials) Vogel Ch. 15 1st rough draft of term paper due
Thu 10/16 Solids: Properties of solids (Strength, extensibility, stiffness); Biological materials (Composite materials, crack propagation, crack energy) Vogel Ch. 16, 17
Tue 10/21 Solids: Viscoelasticity (Non-Newtonian fluids, viscoelastic materials, dynamic testing) Vogel Ch. 18
Thu 10/23 Solids: Simple Structures (beams, cantilevers, columns, shells); Thinking about shape (Moments of area, torsion) Vogel Ch. 19, 20
Tue 10/28 Solids: Complicated Structures (scaling, trusses, braces, struts, ties); Multibar linkages (four and five bar linkages, fish, stomatopods) Paper Discussion: TBD Discussion worksheet due in class
Thu 10/30 Solids: Hydrostatic skeletons; Muscular Hydrostats (Muscles as hydrostats, hydraulic linkages) Vogel Ch. 21
Tue 11/4 Solids: Structural systems: adhesion (types of adhesion, failure, friction); Structural systems: staying put (buttressing, flexibility, other supportive systems) Vogel Ch. 22 2nd rough draft of term paper due
Thu 11/6 Mobility and Motility (hydration, osmotic, & molecular motors) Vogel Ch. 23
Tue 11/11 Muscles (molecular mechanism, force, power, work) Paper Discussion: TBD Discussion worksheet due in class
Thu 11/13 Using Muscle (leavers, timing, morphology) Vogel Ch. 24
Tue 11/18 Using Muscle (brakes, batteries) Paper Discussion: TBD Discussion worksheet due in class
Thu 11/20 Terrestrial locomotion Vogel Ch. 25 3rd rough draft of term paper due
Tue 11/25 Midterm Exam #2
Thu 11/27 Thanksgiving holiday - No Class!
Tue 12/2 Last day of class: Review and Paper Discussion Paper Discussion: TBD Term papers due
Discussion worksheet due in class
Tue 12/9 Final exam - 2:50 pm

University/College Policies

Please see the University Policies below.

COVID-19 Related Policies

If you have tested positive for COVID-19, please refer to the Student Handbook, Appendix A (Attendance Rule) for instructions.

Required Class Attendance

Students are expected to attend every class in person (or virtually, if the class is online) and to complete all assignments. If you cannot attend class, it is your responsibility to communicate absences with your professors. The faculty member will decide if your excuse is valid and thus may provide lecture materials of the class. According to University policy, acceptable reasons for an absence, which cannot affect a student’s grade, include:

  • Participation in an authorized University activity.
  • Death or major illness in a student’s immediate family.
  • Illness of a dependent family member.
  • Participation in legal proceedings or administrative procedures that require a student’s presence.
  • Religious holy day.
  • Illness that is too severe or contagious for the student to attend class.
  • Required participation in military duties.
  • Mandatory admission interviews for professional or graduate school which cannot be rescheduled.

Students are responsible for providing satisfactory evidence to faculty members within seven calendar days of their absence and return to class. They must substantiate the reason for the absence. If the absence is excused, faculty members must either provide students with the opportunity to make up the exam or other work missed, or provide a satisfactory alternative to complete the exam or other work missed within 30 calendar days from the date of absence. Students who miss class due to a University-sponsored activity are responsible for identifying their absences to their instructors with as much advance notice as possible. 

Classroom Behavior (applies to online or Face-to-Face Classes)

TAMIU encourages classroom discussion and academic debate as an essential intellectual activity. It is essential that students learn to express and defend their beliefs, but it is also essential that they learn to listen and respond respectfully to others whose beliefs they may not share. The University will always tolerate different, unorthodox, and unpopular points of view, but it will not tolerate condescending or insulting remarks. When students verbally abuse or ridicule and intimidate others whose views they do not agree with, they subvert the free exchange of ideas that should characterize a university classroom. If their actions are deemed by the professor to be disruptive, they will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action (please refer to Student Handbook Article 4).

TAMIU Honor Code: Plagiarism and Cheating

As a TAMIU student, you are bound by the TAMIU Honor Code to conduct yourself ethically in all your activities as a TAMIU student and to report violations of the Honor Code. Please read carefully the Student Handbook Article 7 and Article 10 available at https://www.tamiu.edu/scce/studenthandbook.shtml.

We are committed to strict enforcement of the Honor Code. Violations of the Honor Code tend to involve claiming work that is not one’s own, most commonly plagiarism in written assignments and any form of cheating on exams and other types of assignments.

Plagiarism is the presentation of someone else’s work as your own. It occurs when you:

  1. Borrow someone else’s facts, ideas, or opinions and put them entirely in your own words. You must acknowledge that these thoughts are not your own by immediately citing the source in your paper. Failure to do this is plagiarism.
  2. Borrow someone else’s words (short phrases, clauses, or sentences), you must enclose the copied words in quotation marks as well as citing the source. Failure to do this is plagiarism.
  3. Present someone else’s paper or exam (stolen, borrowed, or bought) as your own. You have committed a clearly intentional form of intellectual theft and have put your academic future in jeopardy. This is the worst form of plagiarism.

Here is another explanation from the 2020, seventh edition of the Manual of The American Psychological Association (APA):

“Plagiarism is the act of presenting the words, idea, or images of another as your own; it denies authors or creators of content the credit they are due.  Whether deliberate or unintentional, plagiarism violates ethical standards in scholarship” (p. 254).  This same principle applies to the illicit use of AI.

Plagiarism: Researchers do not claim the words and ideas of another as their own; they give credit where credit is due. Quotations marks should be used to indicate the exact words of another. Each time you paraphrase another author (i.e., summarize a passage or rearrange the order of a sentence and change some of the words), you need to credit the source in the text. The key element of this principle is that authors do not present the work of another as if it were their own words. This can extend to ideas as well as written words. If authors model a study after one done by someone else, the originating author should be given credit. If the rationale for a study was suggested in the discussion section of someone else's article, the person should be given credit. Given the free exchange of ideas, which is very important for the health of intellectual discourse, authors may not know where an idea for a study originated. If authors do know, however, they should   acknowledge the source; this includes personal communications (p. 11). For guidance on proper documentation, consult the Academic Success Center or a recommended guide to documentation and research such as the Manual of the APA or the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. If you still have doubts concerning proper documentation, seek advice from your instructor prior to submitting a final draft.

TAMIU has penalties for plagiarism and cheating.

  • Penalties for Plagiarism: Should a faculty member discover that a student has committed plagiarism, the student should receive a grade of 'F' in that course and the matter will be referred to the Honor Council for possible disciplinary action. The faculty member, however, may elect to give freshmen and sophomore students a “zero” for the assignment and to allow them to revise the assignment up to a grade of “F” (50%) if they believe that the student plagiarized out of ignorance or carelessness and not out of an attempt to deceive in order to earn an unmerited grade; the instructor must still report the offense to the Honor Council. This option should not be available to juniors, seniors, or graduate students, who cannot reasonably claim ignorance of documentation rules as an excuse. For repeat offenders in undergraduate courses or for an offender in any graduate course, the penalty for plagiarism is likely to include suspension or expulsion from the university.
    • Caution: Be very careful what you upload to Turnitin or send to your professor for evaluation. Whatever you upload for evaluation will be considered your final, approved draft. If it is plagiarized, you will be held responsible. The excuse that “it was only a draft” will not be accepted.
    • Caution:  Also, do not share your electronic files with others. If you do, you are responsible for the possible consequences. If another student takes your file of a paper and changes the name to his or her name and submits it and you also submit the paper, we will hold both of you responsible for plagiarism. It is impossible for us to know with certainty who wrote the paper and who stole it. And, of course, we cannot know if there was collusion between you and the other student in the matter.
  • Penalties for Cheating: Should a faculty member discover a student cheating on an exam or quiz or other class project, the student should receive a “zero” for the assignment and not be allowed to make the assignment up. The incident should be reported to the chair of the department and to the Honor Council. If the cheating is extensive, however, or if the assignment constitutes a major grade for the course (e.g., a final exam), or if the student has cheated in the past, the student should receive an “F” in the course, and the matter should be referred to the Honor Council. Additional penalties, including suspension or expulsion from the university may be imposed. Under no circumstances should a student who deserves an “F” in the course be allowed to withdraw from the course with a “W.”
    • Caution: Chat groups that start off as “study groups” can easily devolve into “cheating groups.” Be very careful not to join or remain any chat group if it begins to discuss specific information about exams or assignments that are meant to require individual work. If you are a member of such a group and it begins to cheat, you will be held responsible along with all the other members of the group. The TAMIU Honor Code requires that you report any such instances of cheating.
  • Student Right of Appeal: Faculty will notify students immediately via the student’s TAMIU e- mail account that they have submitted plagiarized work. Students have the right to appeal a faculty member’s charge of academic dishonesty by notifying the TAMIU Honor Council of their intent to appeal as long as the notification of appeal comes within 10 business days of the faculty member’s e-mail message to the student and/or the Office of Student Conduct and Community Engagement. The Student Handbook provides more details.

Use of Work in Two or More Courses

You may not submit work completed in one course for a grade in a second course unless you receive explicit permission to do so by the instructor of the second course. In general, you should get credit for a work product only once. 

AI Policies

Your instructor will provide you with their personal policy on the use of AI in the classroom setting and associated coursework.

TAMIU E-Mail and SafeZone

Personal Announcements sent to students through TAMIU E-mail (tamiu.edu or dusty email) are the official means of communicating course and university business with students and faculty –not the U.S. Mail and no other e-mail addresses. Students and faculty must check their TAMIU e-mail accounts regularly, if not daily. Not having seen an important TAMIU e-mail or message from a faculty member, chair, or dean is not accepted as an excuse for failure to take important action.

Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to download the SafeZone app, which is a free mobile app for all University faculty, staff, and students.  SafeZone allows you to: report safety concerns (24/7), get connected with mental health professionals, activate location sharing with authorities, and anonymously report incidents.  Go to https://www.tamiu.edu/adminis/police/safezone/index.shtml for more information.

Copyright Restrictions

The Copyright Act of 1976 grants to copyright owners the exclusive right to reproduce their works and distribute copies of their work. Works that receive copyright protection include published works such as a textbook. Copying a textbook without permission from the owner of the copyright may constitute copyright infringement. Civil and criminal penalties may be assessed for copyright infringement. Civil penalties include damages up to $100,000; criminal penalties include a fine up to $250,000 and imprisonment. Copyright laws do not allow students and professors to make photocopies of copyrighted materials, but you may copy a limited portion of a work, such as article from a journal or a chapter from a book for your own personal academic use or, in the case of a professor, for personal, limited classroom use. In general, the extent of your copying should not suggest that the purpose or the effect of your copying is to avoid paying for the materials. And, of course, you may not sell these copies for a profit. Thus, students who copy textbooks to avoid buying them or professors who provide photocopies of textbooks to enable students to save money are violating the law.

Students with Disabilities

Texas A&M International University seeks to provide reasonable accommodations for all qualified persons with disabilities. This University will adhere to all applicable federal, state, and local laws, regulations and guidelines with respect to providing reasonable accommodations as required to afford equal education opportunity. It is the student's responsibility to register with the Office of Student Counseling and Disability Services located in Student Center 126. This office will contact the faculty member to recommend specific, reasonable accommodations. Faculty are prohibited from making accommodations based solely on communications from students. They may make accommodations only when provided documentation by the Student Counseling and Disability Services office.

Student Attendance and Leave of Absence (LOA) Policy

As part of our efforts to assist and encourage all students towards graduation, TAMIU provides
LOA’s for students, including pregnant/parenting students, in accordance with the Attendance Rule (Section 3.07) and the Student LOA Rule (Section 3.08), which includes the “Leave of Absence Request” form. Both rules can be found in the TAMIU Student Handbook (URL: http://www.tamiu.edu/studentaffairs/StudentHandbook1.shtml).

Pregnant and Parenting Students

Under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, harassment based on sex, including harassment because of pregnancy or related conditions, is prohibited. A pregnant/parenting student must be granted an absence for as long as the student’s physician deems the absence medically necessary. It is a violation of Title IX to ask for documentation relative to the pregnant/parenting student’s status beyond what would be required for other medical conditions. If a student would like to file a complaint for discrimination due to his or her pregnant/parenting status, please contact the TAMIU Title IX Coordinator (Lorissa M. Cortez, 5201 University Boulevard, KLM 159B, Laredo, TX 78041,TitleIX@tamiu.edu, 956.326.2857) and/or the Office of Civil Rights (Dallas Office, U.S. Department of Education, 1999 Bryan Street, Suite 1620, Dallas, TX 75201-6810, 214.661.9600). You can also report it on TAMIU’s anonymous electronic reporting site: https://www.tamiu.edu/reportit.

TAMIU advises a pregnant/parenting student to notify their professor once the student is aware that accommodations for such will be necessary. It is recommended that the student and professor develop a reasonable plan for the student’s completion of missed coursework or assignments. The Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity (Lorissa M. Cortez, lorissam.cortez@tamiu.edu) can assist the student and professor in working out the reasonable accommodations. For other questions or concerns regarding Title IX compliance related to pregnant/parenting students at the University, contact the Title IX Coordinator. In the event that a student will need a leave of absence for a substantial period of time, TAMIU urges the student to consider a Leave of Absence (LOA) as outlined in the TAMIU Student Handbook. As part of our efforts to assist and encourage all students towards graduation, TAMIU provides LOA’s for students, including pregnant/parenting students, in accordance with the Attendance Rule and the Student LOA Rule. Both rules can be found in the TAMIU Student Handbook (https://www.tamiu.edu/scce/studenthandbook.shtml).

Anti-Discrimination/Title IX

TAMIU does not discriminate or permit harassment against any individual on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, educational programs, or employment. If you would like to file a complaint relative to Title IX or any civil rights violation, please contact the TAMIU Director of Equal Opportunity and Diversity/Title IX Coordinator, Lorissa M. Cortez, 5201 University Boulevard, Killam Library 159B, Laredo, TX 78041,TitleIX@tamiu.edu, 956.326.2857, via the anonymous electronic reporting website, ReportIt, at https://www.tamiu.edu/reportit, and/or the Office of Civil Rights (Dallas Office), U.S. Department of Education, 1999 Bryan Street, Suite 1620, Dallas, TX 75201-6810, 214.661.9600.

Incompletes

Students who are unable to complete a course should withdraw from the course before the final date for withdrawal and receive a “W.” To qualify for an “incomplete” and thus have the opportunity to complete the course at a later date, a student must meet the following criteria:

  1. The student must have completed 90% of the course work assigned before the final date for withdrawing from a course with a “W”, and the student must be passing the course;
  2. The student cannot complete the course because an accident, an illness, or a traumatic personal or family event occurred after the final date for withdrawal from a course;
  3. The student must sign an “Incomplete Grade Contract” and secure signatures of approval from the professor and the college dean.
  4. The student must agree to complete the missing course work before the end of the next long semester; failure to meet this deadline will cause the “I” to automatically be converted to an “F”; extensions to this deadline may be granted by the dean of the college. This is the general policy regarding the circumstances under which an “incomplete” may be granted, but under exceptional circumstances, a student may receive an incomplete who does not meet all of the criteria above if the faculty member, department chair, and dean recommend it.

WIN Contracts

The Department of Biology and Chemistry does not permit WIN contracts. For other departments within the college, WIN Contracts are offered only under exceptional circumstances and are limited to graduating seniors. Only courses offered by full-time TAMIU faculty or TAMIU instructors are eligible to be contracted for the WIN requirement. However, a WIN contract for a course taught by an adjunct may be approved, with special permission from the department chair and dean. Students must seek approval before beginning any work for the WIN Contract. No student will contract more than one course per semester. Summer WIN Contracts must continue through both summer sessions.

Student Responsibility for Dropping a Course

It is the responsibility of the student to drop the course before the final date for withdrawal from a course. Faculty members, in fact, may not drop a student from a course without getting the approval of their department chair and dean.

Independent Study Course

Independent Study (IS) courses are offered only under exceptional circumstances. Required courses intended to build academic skills may not be taken as IS (e.g., clinical supervision and internships). No student will take more than one IS course per semester. Moreover, IS courses are limited to seniors and graduate students. Summer IS course must continue through both summer sessions.

Grade Changes & Appeals

Faculty are authorized to change final grades only when they have committed a computational error or an error in recording a grade, and they must receive the approval of their department chairs and the dean to change the grade. As part of that approval, they must attach a detailed explanation of the reason for the mistake. Only in rare cases would another reason be entertained as legitimate for a grade change. A student who is unhappy with his or her grade on an assignment must discuss the situation with the faculty member teaching the course. If students believe that they have been graded unfairly, they have the right to appeal the grade using a grade appeal process in the Student Handbook and in the Faculty Handbook.

Final Examination

All courses in all colleges must include a comprehensive exam or performance and be given on the date and time specified by the Academic Calendar and the Final Exam schedule published by the Registrar’s Office. In the College of Arts & Sciences all final exams must contain a written component. The written component should comprise at least 20% of the final exam grade. Exceptions to this policy must receive the approval of the department chair and the dean at the beginning of the semester.

Mental Health and Well-Being

The university aims to provide students with essential knowledge and tools to understand and support mental health. As part of our commitment to your well-being, we offer access to Telus Health, a service available 24/7/365 via chat, phone, or webinar. Scan the QR code to download the app and explore the resources available to you for guidance and support whenever you need it. The Telus app is available to download directly from TELUS (tamiu.edu) or from the Apple App Store and Google Play.