| Course Number | Phil 86.001 (fall 2025), Univ of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Title | First-Year Seminar: Persons and Identity |
| Credit Hours | 3 credits |
| Course Description | See below |
| Prerequisites | None |
| Target Audience | First-year students needing no prior experience with philosophical texts or reasoning |
| Class Times and Location | Mon Wed Fri 11:15 am – 12:05 pm in |
| Instructional Format | In-person, mix of structured lecture and group discussion, with student presentations and collaboration |
| Instructor | Professor Jim Pryor (he/him, email jimpryor@unc.edu) |
| Teaching Assistants | None |
| Course Website | https://phil86.jimpryor.net or Canvas |
| Instructor’s Office Hours | Mon and Fri 12:15–1:15 pm, by Zoom or in Bynum |
| Course Texts | 2 required textbooks and additional readings provided by web links |
UNC students enrolled in the course can access the Canvas site.
Those pages include the Zoom links for any course meetings you need to attend remotely, and for my office hours. These can also be retrieved from this restricted page.
Most of the information for the course will be published on this public website, and can also be viewed by people not enrolled in the course. But I will also link or copy the content into Canvas, so you’re able to access everything though that system if you want to.
This front web page won’t be updated frequently. Regular announcements, readings, and lecture notes will be posted at this page instead.
Here will be a sparser evolving index of all the handouts, webnotes and readings we’ve used during the course (together with some upcoming ones).
You are different now from how you were ten years ago; but still you are one and the same person, who underwent those changes. (You weren’t replaced by an imposter.) What makes you the particular person you are, and the same person as the youth you used to be? What kind of thing is a person, that it can maintain its identity even through such changes? Are we identical to our life stories? Is the idea of a persisting self just an illusion? What would it take for a person to stop existing? Do you have an immortal soul that could survive the death of your human body? Or are you identical to your body? Might it be possible to survive the death of your body by having your brain, or the information in your brain, transplanted into a new body? Or into a computer network? Might amnesia or dementia amount to one person’s being extinguished and replaced by another? Would teleportation like they use in Star Trek be a fast means for you to travel — or would that be another way for you to stop existing and be replaced by a copy? Why do we take special interest in our own continued existence as persons, moreso than the continued existence of people similar to us, or who will push forward our projects? Should we?
The course will place strong emphasis on learning how to read philosophical texts and how to evaluate and produce philosophically compelling arguments. The format will vary between lectures and in-class group discussion.
The course is offered by Professor Jim Pryor (he/him). Undergrads generally address me as “Professor Pryor.”
Professor Pryor can best be reached by email, at jimpryor@unc.edu.
Professor Pryor’s office hours are on
Mon and Fri 12:15–1:15 pm.
(If you have a quick question, you can also ask just after class.)
We will either meet in Bynum 115 132 or elsewhere on campus.
If you’re unable to meet in person or at these times, we can also arrange to meet by Zoom. The Zoom link for office hours can be found on this restricted page.
Note that “Bynum Hall” is not the same as Bingham Hall, where our class meets. (We moved to Wilson 217.)
The Philosophy Department’s usual building, Caldwell Hall, will be under construction this year. Professor Pryor was using a temporary shared office but has now moved to a more stable office Bynum 132. This office may be tricky to locate: it can be found “inside” the room Bynum 133, which is where the mailboxes are.
Feel free to meet me during office hours to discuss anything you like about our course. I’m happy to talk about paper ideas, continue discussion, and so on. Since I may sometimes meet students elsewhere on campus than Bynum 132, it’s prudent to check ahead of time about where. If you find I’m already speaking with someone, please make sure that we know you’re waiting for us to finish.
This course does not presuppose any prior background or coursework in philosophy.
It aims to introduce you to a range of philosophical writing about the nature of persons and the self, and give you experience analyzing and discussing arguments and writing philosophical papers.
Our class meetings will be a mix of structured lecture and group discussion, in which I’ll be both a guide and participant.
Near the end of term, we will also consult closely about your writing.
In addition to group discussions, you’ll also be learning how to give each other constructive feedback on your writing.
You’ll be learning how to engage respectfully and charitably with the arguments of others: both your peers and the historical and contemporary philosophers we study. This includes identifying what the arguments and their underlying assumptions are; clearly explaining these arguments; formulating counter-examples and other reasonable objections; and recognizing how views can best be defended (whether you endorse them or not).
You’ll also be learning how to develop your own independent arguments, objections, proposals, and responses.
All our philosophy courses aim at the acquisition and nurturing of basic philosophic skills. One of the main goals of our philosophy curriculum is to instill and enable the development of skills that are distinct to philosophy, but which are foundational to all forms of knowledge.
These basic philosophical skills involve being able to:
The issues we’ll be studying are primarily in the philosophical subfield of metaphysics (though we’ll also be engaging with philosophy of mind, ethics, and epistemology).
As a First-Year Seminar, this course will address these Student Learning Outcomes:
This course satisfies the Ways of Knowing Focus Capacity (FC-KNOWING). These courses help students develop intellectual humility; learn to question assumptions, categories, and norms that structure their worldviews; and understand the sources and effects of biases. They’ll learn, use, and distinguish strengths and weaknesses of one or more approach(es) to knowledge of the unfamiliar, such as: aesthetically, philosophically, linguistically, historically, or culturally remote forms of knowledge and worldmaking, or formal logic, scientific practice, and similar formalized approaches to countering bias and creating knowledge.
These courses address questions like these:
As an FC-KNOWING course, we will aim at the following learning outcomes:
Alternatively, you may use this course to satisfy the Ethical and Civic Values Focus Capacity (FC-VALUES). These courses help develop your capacity to think carefully and critically about how to make and justify private and public decisions, and address questions like these:
A recurring theme in our course will be to what extent we can expect harmony between public versus private or first-personal justifications for judgments about identity, and further judgments and decisions based on them. In many cases those two kinds of justification will seem to pull in different directions, and we’ll have to figure out how to reconcile them.
As an FC-VALUES course, we will aim at the following learning outcomes:
Every Focus Capacity course includes the following activities:
These elements — referred to as “recurring capacities” — will help you repeatedly practice crucial skills for future study, life, and career success.
These should be available in the Campus bookstore. You can also buy or rent them online.
Total expected cost: approximately $37.
Additional readings will be provided by web links. Some of these are in a restricted section of the course website. The username and password for these will be announced in class and on Canvas.
In addition to philosophy articles and textbooks/dialogues, we’ll also read some science fiction stories and watch two movies that deal with issues that we’re examining in the course. We’ll discuss all these in class.
In different semesters, this course may be offered by different instructors. They will make different selections about what specific issues to explore, and what readings to use, and they will have different teaching styles.
This syllabus only describes how the course will look when I, Prof. Pryor, am the instructor.
When I offer this course, there is a fundamental choice the course is designed around. I’ll explain that choice and its consequences explicitly here in the syllabus, and also in our first class meetings. You’ll need to understand any differences from what you’re expecting, and whether for you, those differences make the course more appealing or less.
That fundamental choice is that this course will be skills-oriented, as opposed to oriented towards facts about which philosophers said what, and what their theories were. The aim of this course will be to begin teaching you how to think, read, and write like a philosopher. The course doesn’t assume you’ve done any philosophical coursework or reading beforehand. It doesn’t assume you have the ambition to become a philosophy major. But it does assume you want to train, for at least this one semester, in the skills that philosophers rely on and that make philosophy a distinctive field. It assumes this, because that is what the course is designed to achieve.
We will be considering some famous philosophical ideas about persons and the self, and things some major philosophers have said about them. The course is organized so that our discussion of earlier ideas will inform and engage helpfully with our exploration of later ones. But those ideas themselves are not what drive the course. What drives the course is the aim of developing your philosophical skills.
Below, I aim to be explicit about this course’s requirements and expectations, and what level of understanding and engagement with the material you’ll achieve; also what grade you can expect to earn. Sometimes there’s a gap between what I’m requesting, and evaluate students on the basis of, and what some students come into the course looking for and expecting they can rely on. This university’s written policies, and the practice of many other professors in our Philosophy department, and those at comparable universities, are on more-or-less the same page as the expectations in place for this course. At the same time, it does happen that you can find courses, especially entry-level GenEd courses in non-STEM fields (sometimes even other Philosophy courses, though usually not ones in our department), where the expectations are lighter.
This course asks you to do what it does not because of my educational tastes, but because that’s what’s needed for you to develop your reasoning, arguing, and writing skills, and to understand our issues with any definite clarity.
What kind of workload does this course ask of you? The University says that a 3 credit course should be expected to demand 9–12 hours of work per week on average, including the time for classroom meetings. This course should be in the middle of that range. That means in a standard week (when no writing is due) you should still expect to be devoting 5–6 hours to this course outside of our in-class meetings. That includes reading (and re-reading, analyzing, and taking notes on) the assigned texts, reviewing any lecture notes from the past few classes, making use of my office hours, discussing the issues with other students, and so on.
When you’re reviewing for the final or working on a writing assignment you should expect to need more time. In past semesters, students who wrote B+ and A- papers mostly reported taking 12–16 hours on each writing assignment, and I expect preparing for the final exam needs similar time. Mortgaging the sum of these efforts across the whole semester, that’s another 2 hours/week on average.
So the expected workload for our course is 3 hours/week in the classroom, 5–6 more hours regularly each week for reading and review, and an average of 2 hours/week for writing and exam prep (though you’ll need this last time in irregular chunks).
It will be important that you attend class meetings consistently. Material not in the readings, or referred to only briefly there, will sometimes only be fully explained in class, and essential background and framing for many of the readings will also be provided.
As stated in the University’s Class Attendance Policy, no right or privilege exists that permits a student to be absent from any class meetings, with these exceptions:
Some authorized University activities: the University Approved Absence Office (UAAO) provides information and FAQs for students related to these.
Students can be excused because of disability, religious observance, or pregnancy, as required by law and approved by the University Compliance Office (UCO); or for short-term military service, as approved by the Dean of Students (see next item).
Students can be excused for significant health conditions (generally, these will require you to miss classes for five or more days) and/or personal/family emergencies, as approved by the Office of the Dean of Students (ODOS), Gender Violence Service Coordinators, and/or the University Compliance Office (UCO).
If you need to miss class because of a more temporary illness, email me directly to let me know. If you want to miss class for other kinds of reasons (like a job interview or to attend a wedding), ask and coordinate with me about it in advance.
If you do miss a class, you will be responsible for catching up with missed content; and permission to miss a class doesn’t excuse you from quizzes or writing done during, or due before or after the class.
Sometimes I’ll record our class meetings with Zoom or similar methods, and if you needed to miss a meeting in-person, you can ask me on a case-by-case basis for access to each recording. I used to make it possible for students to Zoom into lectures synchronously, but — despite my strong and repeated warnings that this wasn’t a great replacement for the lectures, but only meant as a last-resort backup — many students abused the option and made it their dominant way to consume the lectures. The course is not designed for that. I don’t want you to think you can get anything like full value from the course by trying to consume lectures that way. So I’m not going to make lectures regularly available by synchronous Zoom anymore.
I aim to provide online summaries of lectures, and will post any handouts I distribute in class to the website. These resources are mainly intended to help you review materials and discussions that you already experienced in the classroom. But they can also be of some use helping you keep up if you have to miss a class.
Note that you can not rely on everything discussed in class also being summarized online. And you should not expect that the online materials fully make up for attending class meetings, nor for reading the assigned texts. Every year some students clearly do try to skip some classes and/or readings (they acknowledge this in their course feedback), thinking that they’re getting all they need from the webnotes. These students can end up passing the course, but perform much less well than they expected, and are disappointed in their grades. So be warned in advance that although the online materials can help you, there’s limits to what you’ll get out of relying solely on them.
When you join our class meetings, you are expected to have read any material assigned for that day, and to be ready to discuss it and/or ask questions about it. See below about regular quizzes we’ll have in class to remind you of this expectation.
It is essential that you ask questions when things in the readings or lectures or our group discussions are unclear, and be ready to participate in discussions. I’ll expect you to actively engage with each other in class, and encourage you to do it outside of class too.
Talking about philosophy is one of the best ways of learning how to do it. Your participation and engagement with the course will make up 25% of your grade. See this page on classroom expectations for more details. (This course won’t have separate “discussion sections” as that page assumes; we’ll integrate discussion into the main meetings.) If you don’t plan to earnestly participate and engage, you should not take this course.
Some people find group discussion more challenging than others. I’m aware of this and try to accommodate it to an extent. You should strive to participate in our discussions where you can. But there are also other ways to be involved: sometimes we’ll discuss in small groups of 2–5 instead of as a whole class; or you can focus more on asking questions; or you can pursue matters further in office hours.
Your participation grade will reflect regular contributions to group discussion, but also these other aspects of how you’re engaging with the course.
See the Policies section below about not using laptops or other devices in class.
The course has a presentation component. These won’t be presentations you prepare in advance; instead they’ll consist of you giving summaries of your small-group discussions, and/or of material presented in recent lectures. Each student will be expected to do this at least twice, and will be given opportunities to do it more.
The course also has a collaboration component. This involves small-group discussion, as well as you giving each other feedback on your writing at the end of term. More on this later.
These two components are required for IDEAs in Action courses.
There will be reading assignments for most class meetings. These readings are often pretty short, but many times require close study. You should read them carefully before we discuss them in class, and expect to read them more than once. For many of the texts, you won’t understand the material sufficiently with just a single reading. A good strategy would be to read a text once before we discuss it, and then go back and read it again after we’ve discussed it. If you don’t plan to do this, again you should not take this course.
I’ll often post summaries of material I presented in class. You should read these materials carefully as soon as they’re available, and expect that you’ll have to read many of them more than once, too.
Here is a detailed guide about how you’re expected to read philosophy papers. We’ll look at that guide again a few weeks into the semester.
As I said above, the online webnotes can’t be relied on to fully make up for reading the assigned texts — reading those texts carefully, usually several times, taking notes while you do so, and thinking about them. Nor can class meetings be relied on to substitute for those efforts.
One student from a previous semester complained I learned more doing my own studying than in lecture!
They may or may not have had legitimate dissatisfactions with lectures. But the particular complaint they’re expressing shows a misunderstanding of the course’s design. Of course you should learn more from your own studying; that’s how this course — and most philosophy courses, and not only them — are meant to work. Lectures (and group discussions and webnotes and the rest) are only there to help you in doing your own studying. If you rely on others to do the intellectual work for you, and spoonfeed it to you in a few hours of classroom meetings each week, or a few pages of online lecture summaries, you’re going to get only a small fraction of the value this course aims to provide.
When I asked students in a previous semester What do you think are the most important things you learned?, the most satisfying response was:
the critical thinking skills necessary to think philosophically, the ability to formulate questions to challenge my fundamental assumptions, to stake out and defend a position to these questions
That is the primary teaching aim of this course. And you can’t learn these things just by absorbing what someone says in lecture. You have to exercise your minds. Most of that exercise will happen in the reading, thinking, studying, and writing you do outside the classroom. If you want this course to be engaging and fully rewarding, you’ll need to put the effort in to do that.
When students in a previous semester were polled about steps they could take to improve their learning, here’s a sampling of their responses:
I could definitely study the more difficult concepts for me more often and maybe reading the material again could help. I just hate rereading things.
I could probably look over my notes for the readings more than I do, or try to connect the concepts in class to those in the reading to see some better usage of some of the arguments.
I could read more, sometimes I just don’t read every reading, especially if I feel like I already have a well thought out opinion on the topic.
Yes, I know that I should probably take notes on the readings instead of simply reading them.
Just hold myself accountable for readings and lectures.
Becoming more active while doing the readings.
Read the text more in depth, ask questions.
Reread the readings and take notes on them.
Stay on top of the readings.
Throughout the semester we’ll have in-class quizzes, to prompt you to keep up with readings and the main lessons of the preceding lectures and discussion. These will be held on most Wednesdays. Specifically, we will have quizzes on these Wednesdays: Sept 3, Sept 17, Sept 24, Oct 1, Oct 8, Oct 15, Oct 29, Nov 5, and Nov 19. We will not have quizzes on Aug 20, Aug 27, Sept 10, Oct 22, Nov 26 (Thanksgiving break), or Dec 3 (last day of class). Wednesday Nov 12 is special, as that day instead of a quiz, you’ll start an in-class writing assignment that we’ll discuss below.
The quizzes will consist of multiple choice questions and occasional short argumentative essay answers (averaging one-half page of writing per quiz). Typically, we’ll start Wednesday classes by giving you the opportunity to ask questions, then you’ll have up to 20 minutes to complete the quiz. If you’ve done your reading and reviewed your notes, this should be well enough time. Then you’ll turn the quizzes in and we’ll discuss the answers together. There won’t be opportunities for you to postpone these quizzes. But to accommodate the fact that sometimes you’ll fall behind in your course prep because of illness, or acute demands elsewhere in your schedule, I’ll ignore your performance on two quizzes you do worst on or miss entirely. Your performance on the remaining quizzes will make up 25% of your grade for the course.
On Wed Nov 12, you will write an essay-style response piece in class, which will be graded. This should sum to 2–3 pages of writing.
You will then at home prompt an AI with the same questions, and critically evaluate its response: what parts are more persuasive or better explained than your response? What parts of your response are better? You’ll continue prompting the AI to get more help, and better refined answers. In the end you’ll craft the best integrated essay you can, drawing from both your initial ideas developed in class, and your interactions with the AI. On Wed Nov 19, you’ll turn in a link to your complete AI session, as well as this final draft. Together these should exceed 5 pages, and both of them will also be graded.
Your grades on the different components of this writing exercise together will make up 25% of your course grade.
Over Thanksgiving week, you’ll read the final drafts of your peers, and when we return we’ll discuss together what these did well and what were the standout opportunities for improvement.
There will also be an in-person final exam, given in compliance with UNC-Chapel Hill’s final exam regulations and according to the final exam calendar. The scheduled exam period for our class is Fri Dec 5 from 4–7 pm. The final exam will make up 25% of your grade for the course.
Where possible, I will try to grade your work without seeing whose work is whose.
Your grades for the different components of the course will be weighted as follows:
25% for overall participation/engagement with the course, including presenting summaries of small group discussion 25% for in-class quizzes done throughout the term, including more than 3 pages writing 25% for in-class response writing on Wed Nov 12 (2–3 pages) together with interaction with AI and revised draft (more than 5 pages) 25% for in-person final exam, including essay-style questions (4 pages writing)
In total, the writing in these assignments will exceed the Focus Capacity requirement ten pages of writing.
Should it be necessary to convert between numeric and letter grades, I assume the following correspondences:
D 63.3 and higher D+ 66.7 and higher C- 70.0 and higher C 73.3 and higher C+ 76.7 and higher B- 80.0 and higher B 83.3 and higher B+ 86.7 and higher A- 90.0 and higher A 93.3 and higher
When converting from letter grades to percentages, I use the middle of the assigned numerical range. Fs are treated as either 0s (if the work was not turned in) or as 50s (when it was turned in but seriously inadequate, or late).
Here is a detailed explanation of how I’ll understand different grades.
Here are aggregate grade distributions for the last few years I’ve offered courses like this one. I leave out the students who stopped turning in assignments or otherwise checked out.
Earned a straight A: 9% Earned an A-: 21% Earned a B+: 29% Earned a straight B: 23% Earned a B-: 11% Earned some kind of C or D: 7%
Generally, the students who earned grades of B or less weren’t consistently making the efforts requested for the course.
They’d do most, but not all, of the assigned reading; and they rarely read texts more than once. They skipped a substantial number of lectures, and/or when they came to class, they multitasked by doing other things on their phone or computer. Their out-of-class writing was completed in a rush (in only one or two sessions, instead of returning to them multiple times over the time they were allotted to work on each assignment). When we had class discussion, they wouldn’t often participate, or they wouldn’t pay much attention to what other students were contributing: the proposals they make, how others respond to them, and how the conversation evolves. They wouldn’t ask many questions, or pay much attention to questions that others ask.
Students who were less ambitious in all of these ways, but turned in their assignments on time, and managed to pass course exams, even with weak results, got some kind of C in the class. Students who were passive in some of the ways, but in other ways put in some more effort, sometimes earned B-s or even Bs.
Students who earned grades of B+ and higher were making all the efforts the course expects. If they worked reasonably hard over the semester, kept up with the readings, completed all their work on time, participated regularly in group discussion, but still ended up only “sort-of getting it” with respect to the positions and arguments we discuss, that corresponds to a final grade of B+. Higher grades than that should also be within anyone’s reach, but they require you to achieve more than “sort-of getting it.” To earn the higher grades, you’ll have to find ways over hurdles in your thinking or understanding you encounter during the course. This may mean reading the texts another time, going over lecture notes another time, making use of my office hours or asking more questions during or after class, and so on. A few people may be antecedently attuned enough to philosophers’ ways of addressing the issues we consider, that the higher grades come with less struggle. But for many students, this isn’t the case. For many, just “going along for the default ride” of the course won’t be enough to get past a B+. Going further will need you to take a more active and aggressive approach.
Grade Appeals: If you feel you have been given an incorrect grade for any part of the course, we can review together how I evaluated your work and applied the announced standards. If this doesn’t resolve the issue, you have the right to discuss with our department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies (currently Professor Markus Kohl), or the department chair, or to appeal through a formal University process. You’ll be expected to make a case that the grade reflects an arithmetic/clerical error, arbitrariness, discrimination, harassment, or personal malice. To learn more, consult the Academic Advising Program website, or this summary of University policies.
Most requests that I and other professors hear for changing grades are based on how good/bad it would be for a student to get a given grade; but it would be unfair and inappropriate for justifications like that to succeed.
This schedule lists due dates for assignments and the rough order of our topics. See this other page for course announcements, context for the main readings, links to optional further reading, lecture notes, and any minor tweaks to the schedule. Check that page frequently.
Enrollment in First-Year Seminars is restricted to first-year students. (It’s ok if they have by-exam or transfer credits that make Connect Carolina count them as sophomores or juniors.) Also, you can only register for one First-Year Seminar or one First-Year Launch course. Not one of each, or more than one of either.
For more information, see the First-Year Seminar website and the Registration and Credit section of this FAQ page for common enrollment questions.
If there’s an open seat in the class but you’re still having difficulty enrolling, write to first-year-foundations@unc.edu.
First-Year Seminars tend to fill up quickly, and do not have wait lists. If you want to enroll in the course, and are eligible to do so, but it’s currently full, then get in touch with Professor Pryor and make sure you come to the first week of classes anyway. There will probably end up being space to accommodate you. (But do also think about a backup plan.)
Whenever enough students are together, and their phones or laptops are out, some of them are going to browse the web, read/send messages, do their homework, or play games during class. Discussion of why this is distracting to everyone doesn’t make it stop; and neither does scolding or embarrassment. So in our classroom, devices cannot be used. No open laptops, tablets, or phones — except when we make special arrangements.
We may do some of the quizzes, and/or the in-class writing, using your laptops with the Respondus lock-down browser through Canvas. If so, you’ll need to install a (University-approved) application prior to the class. Detailed installation instructions and support resources will be provided.
If you’re used to, or just strongly prefer, regularly taking notes on your device, I’m sorry. It undermines the classroom experience too much when others don’t use their devices responsibly, and this is the only policy I’ve found to be effective.
I’ll post summaries of the main outlines of my lectures, to help reduce your need to write down the new material I’m presenting. Whatever your note-taking practices, you should be reviewing these online lecture notes outside of class anyway. An effective use of your time in the classroom is to focus on following my presentations and the class discussion, and actively raising questions when you don’t.
You may not record our class meetings in any format without prior express authorization from me and the department. To request the use of assistive technology as an accommodation, contact the UCO (see below). Students are never permitted to copy or distribute recordings of the class, and must delete any they possess when the course concludes.
As mentioned above, sometimes I will record the lectures myself, and you can request access to these recordings on a case-by-case basis.
If you have two final exams scheduled at the same time, or three scheduled within twenty-four hours:
As discussed above, there will be no mechanism for making up missed quizzes.
What if it turns out that you can’t turn in an out-of-class assignment, but now it’s only hours before (or even after 😮) the deadline?
All Carolina students are expected to follow this AI Use Policy:
The following is information that the University mandates we include with every syllabus. (So you will see a lot of overlap with your syllabi for other courses.)
All students are expected to adhere to University policy and follow the guidelines of the UNC Student Code of Conduct. Additional information can be found at studentconduct.unc.edu.
UNC-Chapel Hill is strongly committed to addressing the mental health needs of a diverse student body. The Heels Care Network is a place to access the many mental health resources at Carolina. Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) is the primary mental health provider for students, offering timely access to consultation and connection to clinically appropriate services. Go to their website caps.unc.edu or visit their facilities on the third floor of the Campus Health building for an initial evaluation to learn more. Students may also call CAPS anytime at 919-966-3658 for immediate assistance.
For free feedback on any course writing projects, check out UNC’s Writing Center. Their coaches can assist with any writing project, including multimedia projects and application essays, at any stage of the writing process. You don’t even need a draft to come visit. To schedule a 45-minute appointment, review quick tips, or request written feedback online, visit writingcenter.unc.edu.
Want to get the most out of this course or others this semester? Visit UNC’s Learning Center at learningcenter.unc.edu to make an appointment or register for an event. Their free, popular programs will help you optimize your academic performance. Try academic coaching, peer tutoring, STEM support, ADHD/LD services, workshops and study camps, or review tips and tools available on the website.
In this course, as in other University programs and activities, you should expect an environment free of discrimination, harassment, and other misconduct. If this expectation isn’t respected, here is some information about University policies, how to obtain support, and file grievances:
As set out in the University’s Policy Statement on Non-Discrimination, the University is committed to providing an environment where all members of our community can learn, work, and thrive. Consistent with these principles and applicable laws, it is therefore the University’s policy not to discriminate on the basis of age, color, disability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or veteran status as consistent with the University’s Policy on Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment and Related Misconduct. No person, on the basis of protected status, shall be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to unlawful discrimination, harassment, or retaliation under any University program or activity, including with respect to employment terms and conditions. The University will consider only relevant factors such as individual abilities and qualifications in admissions, hiring, disciplinary action, and all other decisions and will apply consistent standards of conduct and performance.
If you are experiencing harassment or discrimination, you can seek assistance and file a report through the Report and Response Coordinators (reportandresponse@unc.edu).
Any student who is impacted by discrimination, harassment, dating or relationship violence, sexual violence, sexual exploitation, or stalking is encouraged to seek resources on campus or in the community. Reports can be made online to the UCO or by contacting the University’s Title IX Coordinator (Elizabeth Hall, titleixcoordinator@unc.edu), or the Report and Response Coordinators (reportandresponse@unc.edu).
Please note that I am designated as a Responsible Employee, which means I must report to the UCO any information I receive about the forms of misconduct listed here. If you’d like to speak with a confidential resource, those include Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), the University’s Ombuds Office, and the Gender Violence Services Coordinators. Additional resources are available at safe.unc.edu.
I reserve the right to make changes to the syllabus, including assignment due dates and dates of quizzes. These changes will be announced as early as possible so that students can adjust their schedules.
I welcome your input about the course at any time. You are welcome to approach me directly. I’ll also provide opportunities for anonymous evaluation and feedback during the term.