Professor Jennifer McStotts' Blog

Farewell

profmcs — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:06:38 +0000

Hello all. This is just a reminder (or an announcement, if you didn’t know) that I will be on a leave of absence beginning in the fall of 2008. I may update this blog with interesting tidbits from time to time, but I will not being using it for class posts (obviously) or checking on the comments.
I hope you all had a wonderful summer! Best of luck in the new school year!
Jennie McStotts

Practical Exercise #4

profmcs — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:34:03 +0000

All,
I was wrong about the last email business – I wanted to send some comments about the last PrEx.

1. Re: repatriation of the artifacts and remains – yes, it is required. The key is in the statute; I’m sorry if I confused any of you with my answer regarding a “retroactive clause”. No, there is not clause that says explicitly NAGPRA is retroactive, but there doesn’t need to be. What it says is that museums have to summarize and inventory their collections at the time the law was passed and repatriate in certain conditions. That’s not retroactive per se, so I struggled to answer the question I was asked.

3. I was looking for the triggering of any or all of the following laws:

NHPA and NEPA – not triggered because it’s not a federal action. It doesn’t matter that it’s not federal land. One of you pointed out the tribe might be federally subsidized. If that’s true, then the subsidy might be subject to NHPA or NEPA, such as a grant to build the memory pile, but absent that fact, there’s no trigger.

ARPA and NAGPRA – is this Indian land?

I didn’t expect any of you to bring up AIRFA, as it is primarily instruction to the agencies to provide access. Here there’s really no need for the tribe to be required to give itself access, right?

4(b). What I mean by “internal nature” is the fact that this could be said to be a civil dispute. Does Hague apply to civil (internal) disputes? Yes – any armed conflict, not just “war”. Does NHPA 402 apply if we say this is internal, or is it still 106? I don’t know. Many of these questions (#4) are to test your reasoning. This one had fewer right answers than any other practical exercise.

4(c). Remember that the waiver has two aspects.

Is one party is using the resource in a way that exposes it to danger? If yes, the immunity or protection is waived, but really only if…

It is of unavoidable military necessity that the resource be risked (attacked). That doesn’t mean was it UMN for Naylor to use the buildings as shields; it means is it UMN for the U.S. to attack and risk or cause damage.

4(d). WHL or former NR status may make a difference primarily under 402, but also under the Hague convention. How you answer this will depend largely on your previous answers.

I hope that helps.
All the best!

UP Grades

profmcs — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:19:41 +0000

Hello!
Glossary 2 grades and exam 2 grades are now posted; both should show up under My Grades, and under the assignment itself, there’s a downloadable rubric for the glossary. Two or three of you also got comments back directly on the document, so look for those.

Re: The exam’s curve. The best score in both classes was an 88. Curving the grades so everyone got 12 extra points put the average at 72 and the median at 68. While not ideal, it is acceptable. I did bear in mind if your exam score was lower than your normal grade when making final grades.

If you have questions, please make sure you’ve looked at all of your feedback, double checked your math, and cooled your temper before you email me.

Have a great summer!

PLE Grades

profmcs — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:14:50 +0000

Hello all,
This will likely be the last post you get from me. Your PrEx4 and Indep Project grades are up. I also created a column for poster grades as well. Should all be viewable from My Grades. The PrEx has a rubric you can download for feedback, and the papers have comments in the grade field on the assignment itself.
Re: Your Independent Projects, remember that your final grade for the project as a whole was the paper (the out-of-100 grade posted on WebCT) and your preliminary work (out of 10). To calculate, use this equation:
Prelim + (Paper*.9)
Thanks!

UP Absence Grades Take Two

profmcs — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:50:26 +0000

[ETA: I posted this on Sunday, and though Wordpress says it's published, it's not showing up or sending my email alert, so here's my second try. Apologies if it double posts.]

I’ll be posting the absences grades tomorrow morning, but I wanted to post this explanation of how I calculated the grades.

Normally, my policy is to count each tardiness as .33 absences, but given how many of my 8 o’clock class had that problem, in sympathy I dropped it to .25.

I take the total number of absences, subtract the number of excused absences for which I received documented excuses, add the total number of tardies (times .25), and subtract four for acceptable absences. I’ve decided to also subtract 1 for a reasonable number of tardies (four). The number that remains is the number that I subtract from your total grade, per the syllabus. This number (times negative 1 to indicate that it will be subtracted) is what I’ll be releasing tomorrow morning.

A couple of you have had such good attendance that you will actually be getting extra credit for this. Your numbers will be positive. This is one of those rare cases where a 0 is an acceptable grade.

I’ll post here again next week when Glossary and second exam grades are done.
Best – Prof. McS

PLE – Upload posters?

profmcs — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:43:07 +0000

PLE students,
Don’t feel that you need to upload your posters. If you can or already did, great, but I wasn’t expecting to see them until Monday. On Monday, if I really like them, I’ll ask to keep them, but otherwise, they are yours.

PLE PrEx3 UP!

profmcs — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:06:41 +0000

All,
Practical #3 is fully posted. Took me longer than expected, obviously. If you think you are missing a file, let me know. Many people with As only got the rubric with typed comments. others got PDFs with comments because that went faster. If you think I got something wrong, just ask.
Happy finals and paper writing, and I’ll see you next week.
Oh, and in response to a couple questions I got after class:
1. Yes, I forgot to say it, but I would like the posters to be 2′ x 3′ or something close. 18″x24″ is not close enough, but you could double that and panel them together.
2. You don’t have to dress fancy, but business casual would be best.
See you Monday!
- Jennie

Urban Planning – Lynch and Absences

profmcs — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:17:52 +0000

All,

The Lynch grades are there, but apparently no one can see them. I tried re-revealing them yesterday to no avail, but I have another trick up my sleeve. Unfortunately, I have to wait to get in my office to try it, so just be patient.

As for all the questions I’ve been getting about absences – I’ll post absence grades in a special column on your My Grades WebCT page sometime this week so you can know how much, if any, you’ll be losing for absences greater than four. I don’t post them sooner to give time for all excuses to be processed. I’m not going to reply to individual requests about this except in extenuating circumstances.

That said, I’m not going to WA anyone, though some of you will be facing big deductions. Bear in mind that I look at your before-attendance and after-attendance grades, think about your participation in class, and compare how much of your attendance problem was absence and how much lateness BEFORE I enter final grades.

One last thing – for those of you frustrated by our various WebCT problems, know (1) that I am, too and (2) that the college is replacing WebCT next year with something more reliable and less… clunky. While WebCT worked wonderfully for going paperless last semester, it hasn’t this semester, and I’ve been more sympathetic in grading regarding your own tech problems because of it.

Okay! I’ll post here when Lynch has been reset, then when the glossary grades and exam grades are up respectively.

All the best – happy summer! – Prof. McS

PLE – no Powerpoint

profmcs — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:09:02 +0000

Pres Law folks,
There won’t be a powerpoint today, and depending on the weather, we can go outside if the class wants to. We’ll be talking about the Practical Exercises, both graded and new, which will be up midday. I lost internet last night at home and now have to wait to get into my office to post them.
See you at 2 – Jennie

Urban – Cities in Film/Lit Grades Posted

profmcs — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:46:17 +0000

Thanks for your patience – the grades are up!
Prof. McS
PS We’ll be doing evaluations Friday, so I hope I’ll see you there and at that night’s Meet-and-Greet!