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Vol. 91, Issue 39 | March 4 - March 6, 2013
.com
THE MIAMI HURRICANE PHOTO BRIEF
ACADEMICS
Trekking through mud for veterans
Class customs cross cultural boundaries International students find comfort in hand-raising BY JORDAN COYNE COPY EDITOR
CAYLA NIMMO // PHOTO EDITOR TRUDGE THROUGH THE MUD: University of Miami alumnus Kevin Peterson makes it through the “electric eel” obstacle, which is part of Tough Mudder, a 12-mile obstacle course that raises money for the Wounded Warriors Project. The event took place Saturday morning at Miami Homestead Speedway. To date, participants have raised more than $5 million. All proceeds go toward support programs for thousands of warriors returning from the battlefield. The obstacles were designed by British Special Forces and are tailored to test physical ability, as well as mental toughness.
ACADEMICS
Faculty, students discuss syllabi preview CaneLink leads to registration questions BY ERIKA GLASS COPY EDITOR
Students register for courses hoping to have a certain experience, but realize that the course was different from their expectations. With the integration of the CaneLink system, the question of having syllabi available during registration time has been raised. “Sometimes the class sounds really cool, but when you get to it, the content doesn’t really reflect what you were expecting, and vice-versa,” freshman Daniela Lorenzo said.
Most students share Lorenzo’s sentiments. Richard L. Williamson, the chair of the Faculty Senate, thinks that asking professors to upload their syllabi would be more burdensome than helpful. “Some people, me included for example, don’t have a syllabus the way some other people do,” he said. “So I have a document I call the ‘course requirements’ document, and I have a separate document called syllabus … a listing of what we’re going to do when.” Trying to straighten out all of those differences can be a problem, according to Williamson. He explained that since some professors don’t have a conventional syllabus, the work that would go into fixing those extra details would
outweigh the benefits. “Ideally [syllabi] should be available before classes ever start,” Williamson said. “But there are some problems with making that a requirement.” Because faculty members are often away doing research or projects, it may be hard for them to get their syllabus in before they return, Williamson said. And in smaller classes where the focus is on interactive processes between the professor and the students, a syllabus wouldn’t make a lot of sense. “I think it’d be beneficial,” he said. “The real question is whether you can deal with all of these complexities.”
SEE SYLLABUS, PAGE 4
Freshman Joe Miano has attended schools in three countries: France, Belgium and now the United States at the University of Miami. He noticed that raising his hand is just as prevalent, despite the cultural differences. “Raising my hand has meant the same thing in all three countries and to all of my teachers,” he said. Miano, as one of 1,413 international undergraduates enrolled at UM, was glad to know that his distance from home does not affect the educational customs he has gained in past classrooms, especially hand-raising. Amy Cuddy, a professor at Harvard Business School, described her psychological findings on hand-raising in a TED Talk given in 2010. According to Cuddy, hand-raising is a reflection of students’ personalities and social status within the classroom. She has identified how nonverbal behaviors and “power posing” affects classroom dynamics. From Cuddy’s conclusions, Miano feels comfortable interacting in class, regardless of the classroom style. He came to the U.S. to study neuroscience and has been able to appreciate many learning styles from the more formal hand-raising environment to the more Socratic, student-led discussion format. “It really depends on the teacher and the subject,” he said.
SEE HAND-RAISING, PAGE 2
DRAFT PICK SPRUNG! BEER FESTIVAL TAKES OVER COCONUT GROVE SATURDAY PAGE 7
DEFEATING DUKE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL BEAT NO. 5 BLUE DEVILS THURSDAY 69-65 PAGE 9