Introductory Letter

The following letter was sent to all students registered for this seminar on August 8, 2007. It contains a welcome, general information, and the first assignment, which is to be completed before attending the first day of class:

           Welcome to the University of Kentucky.  I am pleased that you have chosen to enroll in my section of the Discovery Seminar Program for this fall.  I am quite excited about this course.  This will be the ninth time that I have had the opportunity to teach in the Discovery Program and I am looking forward to it.  Clearly, there are a number of you who are also excited about it, because the class is almost filled.  I am contacting you now to tell you a bit about what to expect in the course and to let you know what I want you to do to prepare for the first meeting of the class (Thursday, August 23, at 4 pm in Room 137 in the Law School Building — note the room, because at one time the class was listed on-line in another room).

            As you know, the formal subject of our seminar is Civil Liberties in the United States.  However, in a very real sense, the subject is also preparing you for your career at UK; that is why you are also registered for UK 101.066 (section 066, Mondays 12:00-12:50 pm, in Classroom Building room 211; n.b., the first meeting of UK 101 will be on Monday, August 27).  I want to help you to experience the excitement of learning about cutting-edge subjects at a research university.  I also want you to understand your role in the learning process — you must take responsibility for completing the required readings on time, for conducting your own research on assigned projects, for completing all course exercises, and for actively participating in the course.  When you have completed this seminar and the UK 101 class, I want you to have a better idea of the satisfaction to be gained from a UK education and what you must do to realize that satisfaction.

             At the first meeting of the class, we will spend some time getting to know each other and going over what I expect of you in the course. After that introduction, we will have our first substantive discussion.  The subject will be the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is available on-line at http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html You should have read the Declaration before coming to class.  Think about what it says and try to relate that to the current state of human rights in the world.

           Also, during our first class meeting we will be discussing some current civil liberties issue(s).  Your first assignment, to be completed before our first meeting, is to locate an article from a reputable current periodical (newspaper or journal) regarding a civil liberties case or issue that may be of immediate relevance to the course, for example, the rights of persons being held as prisoners by the U.S. government at its naval base in Cuba, or the power of the executive branch of the federal government to spy on citizens, or the practice of the Department of Homeland Security of monitoring students’ anti war protests.  You must have read the article and be prepared to lead a brief discussion with the class as a whole explaining the contents and discussing its significance and the civil liberties issues it raises.  All members of the class will be expected to participate in the discussion (and in all discussions during the semester).  Whether or not you are chosen to lead such a discussion on the first day, you must hand in a copy of your article together with a brief (500 words or less) written discussion of the civil liberties issues it raises.

Most reading assignments will be from the course textbooks:

1. Glasser, Ira.  Visions of Liberty: The Bill of Rights for all Americans.  NY: Arcade Publishing, 1991.  Please note: this book is out of print.  If the bookstore cannot obtain copies, there are many used copies available very inexpensively via Amazon.Com.  This is an extremely important book for the course, so please be sure to get a copy one way or another.  (You should note that this book was published in both hard and soft cover.  The hard cover version has better illustrations, but they both have the same text.)

2. Meador, Daniel John.  American Courts (2nd Edition).  St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1991.

3. Ross, Susan Deller, Isabelle Katz Pinzler, Deborah A Ellis, and Kate L. Moss.  The Rights of Women (3rd Edition).  Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.  1993.

4. Torr, James D. (Editor).  Civil Liberties: Current Controversies.  Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2003. Please note: this book also is out of print.  If the bookstore cannot obtain copies, there are many used copies available very inexpensively via Amazon.Com.

You should go to the bookstore or on-line before class and purchase these books.  Prior to our first meeting, you should familiarize yourself with the books, browsing through them to get an idea of what to expect.

           The last thing that you need to do in preparation for the first class meeting is to be sure that you have established your UK email account.  As soon as you have your account, you are to send me a brief e-mail (rst@uky.edu) introducing yourself before class.  You must attach to your introductory e-mail a digital photograph of yourself, a headshot, please.  Please do not use your high school yearbook photo, because everyone looks the same in those pictures.  When you write to me, you should also send a copy to the peer instructor for our class, Jenna Brashear (jenna.brashear@uky.edu).  Ms. Brashear, a sophomore who took this course last year, will be working with us throughout the semester in our Civil Liberties seminar and in UK 101, in which she will be the peer instructor and will lead several of the sessions.

           The Web site our class at <http://www.uky.edu/~rst/DSP110/Welcome.html> will give you a good feeling for what the course is like, but the syllabus and assignments are last year’s.  I have included them to give you an idea of what to expect.  By the start of the semester, I will post the syllabus, and as the semester progresses, I will be posting this semester’s assignments.  The site will also give you a brief definition of and some background regarding civil liberties in the United States.  I am always working on updating the class Web site.  When I receive them from you, I will use the pictures that you send to me and post them (with your permission) on the "student" page of the site.  I will also add your local and e-mail addresses (again, with your permission), because members of previous years’ seminars said that was very helpful in contacting each other.  I would certainly appreciate receiving any additional material that you want me to consider posting on the site.

           I hope that you have a great summer and come to class prepared for a rewarding semester.  If you have any questions about the course or about coming to UK, please feel welcome to contact me by phone (859 257-5644) or e-mail.  I would be happy to meet you in person, too.  Please feel welcome to stop by my office (114 Bowman Hall).  You may drop by, but to be sure I will be in it might be a good idea to call first.

Sincerely yours,

Prof. Robert S. Tannenbaum
rst@uku.edu     http://www.uky.edu/~rst

Last updated 8/1/06