Class Policies

I am deeply invested in the well-being of my students and if you come to me with non-course-related concerns, I will do my best to help. It is important for you to know that all faculty members are required to report any incidents of gender-based discrimination, including discrimination based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation. This means that I cannot keep confidential information about sexual misconduct, intimate partner violence, stalking, or other forms of gender-based discrimination.

To contact confidential resources or make a report to The Office of Civil Rights and Title IX please follow this link. 

Bryn Mawr College is committed to providing equal access to students with a documented disability. Students needing academic accommodations for a disability must first speak with Access Services. Students can email accessservices@brynmawr.edu to request an appointment to begin this confidential process. If eligible for accommodations as per Access Services, students should schedule an appointment with the professor as early in the semester as possible to share their verification form and make appropriate arrangements. Please note that accommodations are not retroactive and require advance notice to implement. More information can be obtained at the Access Services website. Sourced from the Bryn Mawr College website.

Additionally, if you have trouble accessing class resources or require accommodations, I welcome you to consult with me 1:1 on how to adapt the course to serve both you and the needs of the class. 

Attendance

This class is heavily participatory and I cannot assess you progress through the material if you are not here. I do not officially "take" attendance; rather, I give you a participation score each day. If you are chronically absent, your participation grade will suffer (missing more than 1-2 days begins to have an outsized impact on your grade). However, things sporadically come up. If you need to miss class, you do not need to email me or tell me why you are missing class--take care of yourself. You are always encouraged to meet with me in office hours if you are falling behind. 

Tardiness 

I also expect you to arrive to class early, and be situated with notebooks out by the start of the class. We have much to do, so we start on time. 

Late Work

Late work will be docked one point for every day beyond the due date. (ex: if an assignment is worth 10% of your grade, there are 10 points on offer. For every day late you will only have up to 9 pts, 8 pts etc. available).

Extensions

While I have a very strict late policy, I have a generous extension policy. So long as extensions are requested at least 24 hours in advance, I will grant you extra time. You do not need to tell me why you need it. However, late submission are likely to be returned late and this may impact your ability to complete future assignments. 

AI Policy 

AI use, in any instance, is not permitted in the class. Every assignment is designed in order to provide you with the opportunity to engage with the material and develop your own thinking without corrosive interference. Violations of this policy will require in-person discussion and evaluation with me.  

These are some of the considerations behind this policy: 

• This class is designed to improve your writing, thinking, and imaginative skills; if you’re not writing, thinking, or imagining, you’re not improving.
• Using AI opens up academic honesty issues, both because it raises the question of whether the work is "your" work, and also because tools like ChatGPT rely on taking uncredited material from scholars and writers (see here) 
•  Using AI does not produce reliably accurate results (see here, here, and  here).
• ChatGPT has serious negative environmental impacts. For instance, ChatGPT uses 7-10 times more energy than a Google search (see here), uses about one 16 oz water bottle for every 5-50 queries to cool its data centers (see here) and the C02 emissions for training a single large learning model are equal 125 round-trip flights between New York and Beijing (see here). 
• AI is also putting massive strain on the energy grid (see here) and data centers are disproportionately built in poor and rural communities who are already the inheritors of environmental racism and classism (see here, here, and here)
• OpenAI and other AI companies have exploited workers from the global south, especially workers in prisons and refugee camps, and workers in Kenya, the Philippines, Colombia, and elsewhere (see here, here, here, here, here, and here)
• AI companies are actively destroying knowledge archives and historical materials in order to consume, and ultimately degrade, language and discourse (see here). 
• A recent study from MIT (June 2025) found a significant drop in neural connectivity in ChatGPT users compared to those who used their brain only to complete writing assignments, suggesting there is a high cognitive cost to using LLMs (see here). 

*this language is adapted from Olivia Stowell's AI policy

Technology Policy 

No laptops, tablets, phones, or other digital readers are permitted while in this class or to read course materials at home except with explicit permission (which will be granted only in order to meet individual accessibility requirements). Recordings of productions will be available in Moodle and can be accessed on a device of your choosing out of class. All video materials will be projected in class and accessed collectively. 

All in-class notes and commonplace entries must be written by hand. Papers and glossary entries can be typed and submitted through Moodle.