Course Syllabus for Geography 491 (Fall 2008)

Special Topics: Military Geography)

Wednesdays 5:00 pm – 7:50 pm

283 Phillips Hall

Instructor:

Joseph P. Hupy Email: hupyjp@uwec.edu

254 Phillips Hall Website: http://people.uwed.edu/hupyjp

Phone: 715-836-2316

Office Hours:

First let me say that you are not restricted to my office hours to come see me about help or any questions you may have. I am often around the office doing some type of work. If you want to set up an appointment, the best thing to do is email. If you do email me to set up an appointment, or for any other reason, be sure to place GEOG 491 in the subject line. If you do not do this, chances are I will miss your message and may not get back with you.

Here are my posted office hours:

Monday – 3:00-4:00 (pm)

Tuesday – 2:00-3:00 (pm)

Required Text:

• A Writers Resource: A Handbook for Writing and Research. Elain P Maimon, Janice H. Peritz, and Kathleen Blake-Yancy.

Course Objective:

This course will focus on the various dimensions of military geography. Rather than maintain the traditional lecture style format, the course will be taught in a seminar fashion, although some lecture and lots of lab time will occur throughout the semester. The three most common dimensions of military geographic thought will be presented, mainly through readings and discussion, as three separate blocks within the semester period. Part one will focus on historical relationships between the military and geography. In addition focus will be placed on traditional military geographic theory; ie connecting the physical landscape to past, present, and future military actions. Part two will focus on the effects of warfare and military training activities on the physical environment. Part three will focus on the causes of conflict with particular emphasis on conflicts over resources and the changing nature of warfare. Students will be evaluated based on participation in classroom discussions, written reports related to class readings, and a final research project. The final research project will focus on a topic related to military geographic theory and/or concepts. This research project can be a literature review, a research paper, or an applied project which will be covered in more detail at the beginning of the semester.

Overall, the objective of this course is to instill within you, the student, the following skills:

· Being able to view the relationship between military affairs and the environment through a lens of critical thought

· Being able to establish a central thesis and defend that thesis through a well established argument

· Being able to look at data in a spatial and temporal manner

· Becoming familiar with and applying geographic information science to geography in an applied sense; eg using ARCGIS

· Constructing and publishing a web page

Rules

• First of all, let me say that I hate rules. However, I have come to find, based on past experiences, that I need to lay down a ground work of rules.
• Rule # 1 (and the most important, related to all others). Respect me like you expect me to respect you. Here is how this works. I am not out to get you - I am here to teach. I do not sit around thinking of how best to make your life miserable. In fact, I sit around thinking, ‘how best can I prepare you for the real world while providing you with ample education’. I expect you to think along the same lines. The following rules relate to this # rule:
• Do not try to turn in papers late. Papers are due at the end of class. For every day they are late after that, I will be deducting 10% of the grade.
• Do not talk while I or others are talking. This is a seminar that requires your undivided attention. Carrying on conversations concerning other topics is highly frowned upon.
• NO CELL PHONES IN CLASS. We have all had our moment when we forget to turn off the phone and it rings in class – fine. What I don’t want to see is this as a repeated instance. I really don’t want to see you answer it. I especially don’t want to see you make a call for, example setting up a tee time at the golf course – even if this is before class. You can do that outside of the classroom. Not only is this rude to others, but it is extremely disrespectful to me since you are in there to learn, not set up appointments.
• Show up with readings printed out on paper. Not only should you do this because the reading should contain lots of questions/comments, but you will want to write on this as well. I can understand if you have a thing with wasting paper for something like this. All I can say is print it out on already used paper then. If you are that squeamish about paper, then bring your laptop with the file as a pdf. Regardless, I want the article in front of you. Failure to comply will result in negative points.
• Cheating: I consider any academic misconduct in this course as a serious offense, and I will pursue the strongest possible academic penalties for such behavior.  The disciplinary procedures and penalties for academic misconduct are described in the UW-Eau Claire Student Services and Standards Handbook (http://www.uwec.edu/sdd/publications.htm) in Chapter UWS 14—Student Academic Disciplinary Procedures.
• Disabilities: Any student who has a disability and is in need of classroom accommodations, please contact the instructor and the Services for Students with Disabilities Office in Old Library 2136 at the beginning of the semester.

Grading

• This is a seminar format style course. There will be minimal lecture component; most of the class is based upon readings and discussion of those readings. Also, throughout the semester you will be engaged in various activities during class. Often these activities will relate to your final research project or the current readings.
• That being stated, you will be evaluated based on your contribution to the class. The grading is broken down into three components:
• 20% of your grade will come from direct participation in the course. What does this mean? It means that if you sit there quietly day after day like a fly on the wall, you will not receive these points. I expect every member of this class to put forth effort into discussions per class. In each class period I will have a chart in front me with names to record your participation for that day. This will also record negative participation; ie disruption of the flow of the course. (See rules below)
• 50% of your grade will come from the write-ups on the assigned readings/assignments. Generally, you can expect several readings per week – one or two per class period, depending on the length and depth. Sometimes these write-ups will be straightforward reviews. Other times I will ask for a given theme that will be discussed in the upcoming session. For each class period, a different member of the course will be expected volunteer towards leading the discussion on that particular topic. This will entail coming up with a discussion itinerary and leading the discussion. If you lead the discussion, this itinerary will also be expected with the write-up. I will also participate toward directing the discussion when deemed necessary.
• 30% of your grade will come from the final project. This project will be a research paper, a book review comparing 2-3 books of my choosing, or a group research project that I will discuss more in the first weeks of class (see note below). I am flexible with the format of the final project. However, the topic must have a military geographic basis and must be cleared by me for approval. While I don’t expect you to come up with anything in the first week of the course, you should start thinking of a topic in the first few weeks of class. I highly recommend discussing this topic with me right away so you can start out in the right direction. During the semester, you will be performing presentations and handing in material concerning these final projects.
• The final project will be presented during the scheduled time of the final exam during finals week
• The group research project is contingent upon enough students participating. If you begin this project, you cannot opt out if you decide later you don’t like it.

Tests, Quizzes, Assignments, and Grades

• There will be NO tests in this course.
• However, to keep everyone up on the readings. Some classes will begin with a small quiz based on the reading material.
• Writeups associated with the readings will form a large percentage of your overall grade. Expect to work on some of these write-ups in class, and follow up on the topic outside of class.
• Often after initial discussion of the reading material, we will work on a related lab assignment, or work on a segment of the final research project. These assignments will be graded in the readings category
• Final Grade Assignment: Grading is based upon what is set by the class average. This not only rewards above average work, but also is designed to make the class ‘fair’ to all. The way this works is I will examine the numbers at the end of the semester and establish an average. The average score will set the break between a B- and a C+. Distribution of points will then follow from above and below this mark. The point breaks depend on the average score, but it is often right around 3.3 % points.