General Information

Instructor:

My name is Thomas Hunter. My office in the mathematics department is Science Center 157. You can reach me by phone at 328-8244 or by email.

Office Hours:

Monday 11:30–12:30, Tuesday 2:30–3:30, Thursday 10:00–11:00 and Friday 11:30–12:30. Generally speaking, you can be sure to find me in my office during office hours. Other times are often fine, but to be sure that I am available, you should make an appointment with me.

Text:

General Game Plan:

In Artin, we'll cover pretty much all of Chapters 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14. Here is a link to a more detailed plan.

Seminar Meetings:

1:15–4:30 Thursdays in Science Center 149. These meetings will include discussion of problems, open discussion, and some (usually fairly short) formal presentations by students. Here is a link to a more detailed description of the student presentations.

Homework:

The main activities of this course will be reading the text, working problems, and communicating the understanding we arrive at through these activities to each other during seminar. Thus homework is at the center of this course. A very brief listing of the common part of each assignment will be listed on the class schedule. The weekly plans (see the menu at right) will contain a more complete assignment. Here is a link to a more detailed description of our homework policies and practices.

Notebooks:

I ask that each of you keep an organized notebook containing your work for the course. In it, you should keep your notes on the reading and the seminar meetings, your problems and rewrites, your presentation outlines, and anything else pertinent to the course which you choose to include. I reserve the right to inspect your notebooks from time to time during the semester.

Weekly work to hand in:

Each week I ask each student to give to me the following things for evaluation and comment. (See the homework details for more details.)

By 11:45am Friday:: A careful write up of three problems or three pages of the work of which you are most proud.
By 9:00am Thursday:: A list of all the problems you have attempted together with a symbol describing your progress.

Exams:

There will be a final exam, scheduled by the registrar.

Grades:

I will base my evaluation on the exam, the weekly handed-in problems, the presentations (including the handed-in outlines) and class participation (including the quality and veracity of your lists of completed problems).

Late work:

Generally speaking, I will never accept late work and exams may never be taken late. In the case of irreconcilable conflicts you may schedule an exam earlier than the official time, but make up exams will not be given after the regularly scheduled exam except for the most extraordinary circumstances.