HIST 3370 102: U.S. Women's History

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HIST 3370 - U.S. Women's History

Fall 2024 Syllabus, Section 102, CRN 15618

Instructor Information

Dr. Deborah Blackwell

Email: dblackwell@tamiu.edu

Office: AIC 341

Office Hours:
MW 11:00am-12:30pm
TR 2:45-3:45pm
Also by appointment

Office Phone: 956-326-2628

Times and Location

TR 1:15pm-2:35pm in Bullock Hall 201

Course Description

This course focuses on the diversity of women's experiences in North America from colonial to modern times. The social, economic, political, and intellectual realms of women's worlds, public and private, will be studied. Prerequisites: HIST 1301 and HIST 1302 or permission of the instructor.
Humanities Department, College of Arts & Sciences

Additional Course Information

“If history were past, history wouldn’t matter.  History is the present….  You and I are history.  We carry our history. We act our history.” –James Baldwin, author and critic.

“Well-behaved women seldom make history.” –Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, historian.

SPECIFIC COURSE DESCRIPTION:  This course will introduce students to current scholarship and contemporary debates in the field of United States women’s history, with emphasis on the late 19th and 20th centuries.  The course format will include lectures, readings, discussions, and videos.  While we will focus on the issue of gender difference, we will also examine women's experiences through lenses of race, ethnicity, and class.  Our goal is to answer two questions: “Who are [some of] the women [and events] who are usually overlooked in our study of the U.S. past?” and “What does U.S. history look like when women and their experiences are central, rather than peripheral, to our consideration of the past?”  Students will also write a research paper to broaden their own knowledge and put the lessons of the course to work for themselves.

Student Learning Outcomes

  1. Demonstrate knowledge of facts concerning the history of women of various racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds in United States, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries.
  2. Discuss and explain connections between historical events as well as describe historical changes over time in women’s lives and gender roles.
  3. Analyze primary and secondary historical sources and critique sources using established guidelines for understanding context and argumentation.
  4. Develop written arguments in a variety of formats (e.g., article/book/documentary reviews, discussion boards, research paper).

Important Dates

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

Textbooks

Group Title Author ISBN
Required At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power McGuire, Danielle 978-0307389244
Required Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women's Rights and Family Values that Polarized American Politics Spruill, Marjorie 978-1632863164
Required The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote Weiss, Elaine 978-0143128991

Other Course Materials

  • TopHat subscription: this is being made available to you for free this semester (yay!).
    • Your “join code” for this class (you will need this) is: 347746.
    • We will use TopHat for in-class quizzes, polls, and attendance.  You will be able to access it through your smart phone, your laptop, or your tablet/iPad. More information is available on Blackboard.

Grading Criteria

GRADE PERCENTAGE
A 90-100
B 80-89.9
C 70-79.9
D 60-69.9
F Below 59.9

Grade Distribution

Please read the following thoroughly.  If any of the following information is unclear, please ask questions.  It will be assumed that you have read and understood this information.  NOTE: FAILURE TO COMPLETE ALL COURSE REQUIREMENTS WILL BE GROUNDS FOR FAILURE IN THE COURSE.

Research Paper:  A research paper is required for this class, which will require additional research beyond the class readings on your part.  I will explain the details to you in class and through handouts which will be forthcoming.

Book, Article/Chapter, and Documentary Film Reviews:  On multiple occasions during the semester, I have indicated in the schedule that you will be required to submit reviews of various readings (or in one case, a documentary film).  The point of these exercises is to help you learn to critique historical scholarship and think about the ways in which historical knowledge is written and shaped by the people who write about it (or film it). We will talk about the historiography of women’s history a great deal, so focusing our attention on reviewing much of this scholarship is an important component of your learning process.  Some additional information is available in this syllabus, and more information will be forthcoming.

Quizzes:  There will be a variety of quizzes administered via Top Hat and Blackboard during the course of the semester.  TopHat quizzes will take place most days we have class and will generally consist of one or two questions about material covered in the previous class.  Each of those questions will be worth a maximum of 25 points: 10 points for participation and 15 for correctness.  I will also sometimes ask opinion questions during class where you will get 10 points’ quiz credit for participation.  I will add all your TopHat points at the end of the semester and will set a top number of points based on the class average (so, for example, if the maximum possible at the end of the semester was 750 points, then I might set the top score at 600). In general, quizzes on Blackboard will consist of 5 multiple-choice questions worth 10 points each and will either cover documentary films or asynchronous lectures posted to the Blackboard site.  Each will have a time limit as to its availability and I will announce in class and online when it will open and close.  I will drop AT LEAST one 50-point Blackboard quiz grade for every student.  Because I will only count a certain percentage of the total number of quiz points possible during the semester, quizzes may not be made up under ANY circumstances, nor will I answer any email or phone inquiries as to whether or not there is a quiz posted to Blackboard, so DO NOT ASK ME because I WILL NOT ANSWER.  Each type of quiz will be factored into your grade with your discussion boards (each of which is 100 points) and participation score.  I will also be keeping track of attendance via TopHat, so if you have any difficulties with the technology, please let me know ASAP.

Participation: Attendance in the class and with the online sessions is expected.  Because much of the class will consist of discussion, missing class means you will miss significant information.  Emergencies will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis and will require documentation (to protect you and the other members of the class).  It is up to you to contact me if you must miss class (and do so as soon as is practical); I will not track you down and ask why you were not in class.  In any event, you will be responsible for any material covered in your absence.  A significant portion of each class period will be taken up with discussion of reading and lecture material; it is therefore in your best interest to come to class prepared.  I will be drawing a seating chart during the first week of class to help me keep track of participation.  Incorporated into this element of your grade will be discussion boards; please see below.  Please feel free to question, challenge, and otherwise disagree with the instructor.  However, while all opinions are welcome, this classroom must remain a comfortable place for everyone.  Please express opinions without recourse to derogatory language or remarks. 

Discussion Board Postings: For those days where we are meeting online rather than in person (and occasionally to supplement our in-person meetings), our meetings will take place using the discussion boards on Blackboard.  If you have not used these before, there are tutorials on Blackboard that will lead you through what you need to know to be able to use them.  During the sessions that we are online, the discussion boards will open and close at a stated time; no late or make-up postings will be allowed.  I will post critical thinking questions based on the material assigned for the class.  Your assignment is to submit/post your response to each of the questions and then respond to others’ comments.  Discussion answers will be graded on the thoughtfulness of your initial response, the ability to integrate assigned readings, the thoroughness of your feedback to the other students as well as the overall writing quality of your responses.  Any quotations that you use MUST be cited using proper Chicago Manual of Style format.  More specific guidelines for this assignment will appear at the end of this syllabus.  Note: Discussion boards are REQUIRED and are NOT OPTIONAL!!!

Office Hours:  Professors have office hours for the benefit of their students.  Please do not hesitate to visit me during my office hours, even if you do not have any specific questions.  Feel free to email me as well with any questions or concerns you might have.

Late Papers:  Late book/chapter/documentary reviews will be docked 5 points per day they are late, late research papers will receive a 10 point per day deduction, and I will not under any circumstances accept any book/chapter/documentary reviews or research papers more than one week past their original due date.  In the interest of fairness, these policies will apply in all cases.  Discussion boards and quizzes WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED AFTER THE STATED DUE DATE.  If you must leave town for an emergency, I expect you to contact me BEFORE you leave and as soon as you return in order to make up work missed—my email and answering machine work 24 hours a day.  You would not leave town without informing your employer first; your professors deserve the same consideration.  This is not about punishing you; rather it is about protecting the other members of the class who were required to hand in the assignments on time.

ASSIGNMENT VALUE
Article/Chapter Reviews 25%
Research Paper 25%
Documentary Film Review 15%
Book Review of Elaine Weiss 15%
Participation/Discussion Boards/Quizzes 20%

Schedule of Topics and Assignments

Week of Agenda/Topic Reading(s) Due
8/27 Course Introduction: Why Do We Need Women’s History? Foundational Concepts Part One (lecture & discussion) No reading--get ahead!
9/3 Foundational Concepts Part Two: “Separate Spheres” and the “Cult of True Womanhood” Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood”; Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The Female World of Love and Ritual”
9/10 Foundational Concepts Part Three: Stereotypes and Issues of Race and Class
SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER: Dr. Lorri Glover, St. Louis University, on the historiography of women’s history in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (via Zoom) on Tuesday 9/10		 Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slavery in the Antebellum Era, chapter 1; Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake, prologue, introduction, and chapter 4
9/17 Foundational Concepts Part Three: Stereotypes and Issues of Race and Class
 Deborah Gray White, Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slavery in the Antebellum Era, chapter 1; Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake, prologue, introduction, and chapter 4 Chapter review on Miles, All That She Carried, chapter 4, on Sunday 9/22 at 11:59 pm
9/24 Nineteenth-Century Feminism: The Suffrage Movement Begins on Tuesday 9/24
Panel Discussion: “Reproductive Justice and Education in the US and Latin America,” featuring TAMIU professors Drs. Asli Berktay, Deborah Blackwell, Puneet Gill, Pamela Neumann, and Elizabeth Terrazas-Carrillo on Thursday 9/26; meet in AIC 126 at 1:30pm and plan to stay until 3:30pm if possible.		 Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments (1848); Marriage Protest of Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell (1855)
10/1 Woman Suffrage Triumphs: The Road to the Nineteenth Amendment, part 1 Elaine Weiss, The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, introduction-chapter 11; Lisa Tetrault, The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, chapter 5
WATCH: PBS American Experience, The Vote, Part 1		 Chapter review on Lisa Tetrault, The Myth of Seneca Falls, chapter 5, on Sunday 10/6 at 11:59 pm
10/8 Woman Suffrage Triumphs: The Road to the Nineteenth Amendment, part 2 Elaine Weiss, The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote, chapter 12-epilogue
WATCH: PBS American Experience, The Vote, Part 2		 Book review on Elaine Weiss, The Woman’s Hour, on Sunday 10/13 at 11:59 pm
10/15 Women and Work in the Early Twentieth Century Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, “Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South;” Dorothy Sue Cobble, Feminism Unfinished, chapter 1
WATCH: Triangle Fire
WATCH: The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter		 Chapter review on Cobble, Feminism Unfinished, chapter 1, on Sunday 10/20 at 11:59 pm
10/22 Rethinking the History of the African American Civil Rights Movement Danielle McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance—a New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
WATCH: Eyes on the Prize, episode 1: Awakenings
10/29 Women’s Sexuality and Reproductive Health in the 20th Century Andrea Tone, excerpt from Devices and Desires; Leisa Meyer, excerpt from Creating G.I. Jane; Elaine Tyler May, excerpt from America and the Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation
WATCH: Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues
WATCH: The Pill
11/5 Second Wave Feminism: Women’s Rights and Women’s Liberation Second Wave primary documents (on Blackboard); Linda Gordon, Feminism Unfinished, chapter 2
WATCH: Sisters of ‘77		 Documentary Film Review on Sunday 11/10 at 11:59 pm
11/12 Divided We Stand: The National Women’s Conference of 1977 and Its Legacy Marjorie Spruill, Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values that Polarized American Politics
11/19 Divided We Stand: The National Women’s Conference of 1977 and Its Legacy on 11/19
Women and Popular Culture on 11/21		 Marjorie Spruill, Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values that Polarized American Politics on 11/19
Andi Zeisler, excerpt from We Were Feminists Once on 11/21
11/26 Research Paper Workday: meetings available with Dr. B
12/3 Class Discussion: The Research Process and What We Have Learned About the Importance of Women in U.S. History on 12/3 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 11:59 PM: RESEARCH PAPERS DUE

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, sexual orientation or gender identity in admissions, 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.