Bureaucracy

• Course content
• Expectations and Grading
• Waitlists
• Texts and Other Assignments

Instructors

• Professor
  • Robert Bender (rbender)

Issues for Discussion

• Biology of Health (and Disease)
• Public Health and Public Policy Issues
• Infectious Disease
  • Environmentally transmitted
  • Sexually transmitted
• Taboos, Prejudices, and Priesthoods

Subject Matter

• Typhoid Mary
• Cholera, Tuberculosis, Plague, Influenza, and Smallpox
• Ebola
• Syphilis
• AIDS

Expectations

• Background: none
  • “Infinitely smart, but infinitely ignorant”
  • Who are you?
• Workload: substantial
  • Lecture
  • Readings
• Lecture style” interruptable
  • If you don’t ask questions, I will

Political Correctness (NOT observed here!)

Grading Philosophy

• That you learn something is important
  • That you “miss” something is both irrelevant and expected
• More important to “know” than to “understand”
  • feelings vs. facts
• Lecture and Discussion both count

Grading Policy

• Straight scale
  • 60-69 = D
  • 70-79 = C
  • 80-89 = B
  • 90 – 110 = A
• Plus and Minus used
• Anything over 97 points = A+

Basis of Grades

• Four one-hour tests (26 or 27 questions each) REQUIRED!
  • OR
• Optional Final exam (100 questions “recycled but reworded”)
  • Only available if you have taken at least 3 hour exams
  • Do NOT bet it all on the final. You will lose.
• NOTE:
  • You can get a zero on a test and still get 100 in the course!
  • No Makeups given The optional final works in place of a makeup. There is no makeup for the final.

Textbooks (no actual textbook)

• Required Reading
  • Web readings on Typhoid Mary and Cholera
  • Additional assignments from the web
• Useful reference
  • AIDS Update 2014

Using the Bio 118 Website

• What’s there?
  • Lecture outlines
  • Bureaucratic reminders
  • Old test questions