Syllabi

[Jon Bell <jtbell@cs1.presby.edu>]

 B. Esser <besser@creighton.edu> wrote:
> My perception is that many of today's students would not agree with this
> statement.  The typical course syllabus  does not contain any reference
> to "work habits" as one of the expected outcomes of the course.

Is anyone else bothered by the trend towards increasing detail in course
syllabi?  This includes not only schedules, assignments, objectives, etc.,
but also general "administrative" rules.  On the one hand, I sympathize
with the idea that students should know what is expected of them.  On the
other hand, it seems that every year our adminstration (often driven by
SACS, our accrediting body) asks us to include more material in our
syllabi.  Just yesterday we got a notice that we should tell our students
*exactly* what we consider to be an honor code violation (i.e. cheating)
in our assignments.  (The college has been having a rash of these this 
semester.)

Someone said a little while ago that "syllabi are legal contracts", or 
something to that effect.  Does that mean that someday we're going to 
have to have our syllabi approved by college legal staff before 
publishing them?  Whatever happened to common sense?

[Don't worry, I don't usually feel this desperate.  Just a bit of
end-of-semester frustration boiling over...]

-- 
Jon Bell <jtbell@presby.edu>                        Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science        Clinton, South Carolina USA