Philip MacEwen at pmacewen@yorku.ca

Virtual office hours: Students will be advised by their tutorial leaders regarding office hours.

This course examines some of the major social issues of our time after introducing students to the basics of reasoning.

All required reading is provided on-line as part of course materials. It can be accessed via the course website.

There are five short group-writing assignments, each worth 20% of the grade. Students will be assigned to small writing groups (no more than five members each) by their tutorial leader and will work with their writing groups to complete the five assignments.

This course is divided into two semesters. In the Fall Semester, we will study the nature of reasoning. In the Spring Semester, we examine some of the major social issues of our time, equipped with the requisite reasoning skills. Students will be assigned to tutorials. Each tutorial will have a tutorial leader. Tutorial leaders will present their tutorials on-line early each week and post them on the course website. Students should log on to the course website regularly to access their virtual tutorials. Early each week, the Zoom lecture for that week will be posted on the course website. Students should log on to the course website regularly to access the Zoom lectures.

Times and locations: This course is entirely on-line and asynchronous. There will be no in-person component or activities on campus. Early each week, the Zoom lecture and tutorial for that week will be posted on the course website.

The aims of the course are 1) to help students reason well, something they must be able to do in order to succeed in any professional or academic career, and 2) study some of the major social issues of our time, equipped with this ability.

Additional Information: There is no grade for “attendance” or “participation.” The on-line, synchronous format of the course does not allow for that. However, if students are actively involved in the course, as indicated by submitting the five assignments, and earn a final grade within one point of the next higher letter grade (e.g. 79, 69, 59, etc., but not 74, 64, 54 etc.),  their final grade will be raised to the next higher letter grade (e.g., A, B, C, etc.).

Course policies: Graded assignments with comments will be returned to students shortly after they have been submitted to their tutorial leader. Submissions must be made before the respective deadlines in order for this policy of quick-return to work. Unless students can provide documentation of distress or civic/religious, etc., responsibility for late submissions (e.g., physician’s note for physical/mental/emotional health, judge’s note for jury duty, clergyperson’s note for religious obligations, etc.), in which case the quick-return policy will still apply, they will be accepted and returned to students within two weeks with a grade but no comments.