Measuring the Stars

 

Instructors	Email	Office	Phone	Office Hours
Edward Murphy	emm8x@virginia.edu	212 Astronomy Building	(434) 924-4890	Tues 2-5 PM Thurs 9:30-11:00 AM
Ricky Patterson	ricky@virginia.edu	243 Astronomy & I-042 Brown SEL (Clark Hall)	(434) 214-0414

 

Class Description:

The dedication of the Leander McCormick Observatory in 1885 marks a turning point in the history of science at the University of Virginia. Before this time, the University did not have any nationally or internationally recognized research programs or facilities. The donation of the Observatory, and the resulting research programs, were the first step in the University becoming the modern research university that it is today. In this course, we will research and document the steps leading to the donation of the Observatory, and the impact that it had in these critical years of the transition to a research university.

Lecture Notes:

A list of lecture dates and topics are provided below.  PDF versions of our PowerPoint slides can be found in the Resources tab at the left.

Text:

None required. Reading Assignments will generally be provided on the Resources tab at the left.

Prerequisites:

None. All essential material is covered in lectures or assigned readings.

Grades:

Your grade will be based on class participation, homework assignments, a capstone research paper, and class presentations. On a 1000 point scale, each is worth:

Class participation	200 points
Homework problems	200 points
Class presentations	300 points
Research paper	300 points

Grades will be posted in the Gradebook which can be accessed with the tab on the left.  Your final grade is based on 1000 points with letter grades assigned as follows:

Letter Grade	Point range		Letter Grade	Point Range
A+	970-1000		C	730-769
A	930-969		C-	700-729
A-	900-929		D+	670-699
B+	870-899		D	630-669
B	830-869		D-	600-629
B-	800-829		F	0-599
C+	770-799		Pass	600-1000

 

 

We will send official correspondence via electronic mail. Therefore, you should immediately activate your U. Va. e-mail account if you have not already done so. If you use a mail service other than the University's, be sure to have your University mail forwarded to it. You will be responsible for reading all materials sent via electronic mail.

Attendance Policy:

Given that the seminar meets only once per week, we expect you to attend each class meeting. Class participation will count for 20% of your grade. If you must miss a class meeting, you must notify us in advance. During most classes you will be given homework problems that will be due the following week. We will not allow students to make up assignments that were missed due to an unexcused absence unless prior arrangements had been made.

You must turn off your cell phone before class begins.

Honor Code:

As graduates of the University of Virginia, we take the honor code very seriously. We assume that all exams and labs are bound by your honor to be your own work, even if you did not explicitly sign the pledge. At times, you will be asked to work in groups in class. In these cases, we expect everyone in the group to contribute to the answer. We would consider it an honor violation if you submit a groups answer but did not contribute to the discussion. If you are not sure what is allowed ask us to clarify.

Homework Problems:

Our goal for this class is to exercise and improve students' research skills. We feel that exams, and multiple choice tests in particular, are not good at developing these skills. Therefore, we have abandoned these metrics in favor of brief research homework assignments that will, we hope, exercise the desired skills. During most classes, you will be assigned homework which will be due at the beginning of the next class meeting. You may use your class notes and supplemental research to answer the questions. If you work in a group with other students, be sure that the answer you submit is your own work. Late homework will be assessed a late penalty of 25% per day.

 

Research paper:

 

The capstone project for our USEM 1580 course is an academic research paper due on Thursday, December 1. The paper is worth 30% of your grade and should be a thorough historical examination of one aspect of the history of McCormick Observatory.

There is no minimum or maximum page length to the paper. Take as much space as you need to define, defend, and document your research, and no more. We believe it would be difficult, though not impossible, to present your research in 4 pages or less. If you believe it will take more than 12 pages to describe what you have found, you might consider focusing on a more narrow topic (see below). You can use any standard format for the citations and bibliography. You will find the Refworks tool useful for collecting citations and formatting your bibliography

The primary thing we will be looking for in the papers is some evidence for critical thought. We are also looking for evidence that you have done significant original research beyond existing publications and presentations. We invite speculation, but it should be well reasoned and supported. Examine and critique both evidence for and against your hypothesis.

It is very important that the topic chosen be narrow enough. For example, you might be documenting the parallax program, but that topic covers 80 years and is much too broad to cover in a research paper (indeed, a whole books could been written about parallax). Pick one aspect of the parallax program that you think is important and document it.

 

Class presentations:

 

In addition to developing students' research skills, we also would like to develop students' abilities to give short, focused presentations. Therefore, each student is required to give 1 short presentation and lead a discussion on their research.  Presentations should be 10-15 minutes long with 5-10 minutes for questions and discussion (20 minutes total).