This internet course will help you understand the many conflicts underlying the impossible expectations we have for the American President. Perhaps the greatest one is simply that we want a strong leader in a democratic republic, that is, a strong leader to tell us what to do when presumably we are in a nation that is indirectly run by the people, not by a strong leader. That dilemma creates conflicts in every aspect of a president’s life, from dealing with the press to negotiating with Congress to running for election. As we discuss the many dimensions of this dilemma, you will also learn about the many responsibilities and powers and limits on power and relationships that the American President confronts, as well as a history of how the office has evolved. You may also learn that most people want a strong president when they like a particular president, but a weaker one when they do not like the president. Go figure! In politics, where you sit usually determines where you stand.

Even though none of us are likely to become a president, the things we learn can help all of us understand and confront challenge of any leadership position – and all of us will be leaders at some point in out lives, if not already. So that makes the course relevant to us all!

Course Objectives

1. To understand and be able to explain the powers, limits on these powers, and various responsibilities facing the American President, to be measured by the essay exams.

2. To understand and explain the many related paradoxes surrounding presidential leadership in a democratic republic, to be measured by the essay exams and Blackboard reading mastery questions.

3. To learn how the office of the president has evolved over history, to be measured by the essay exams and Blackboard reading mastery questions.

4. To successfully complete a close textual reading of our text, to be measured by the Blackboard based questions on the text.

5. To critically apply the principles learned from the text to current events and the current president, as measured by the discussion questions we have for the class.

6. To learn to use the White House website and other politically relevant websites, as measured by the Web exercises that each student must perform and post on the discussion board in Blackboard.

7. To improve your own communication skills -- comprehending, writing, and using the Web. Improved communication should be a goal of every college course. Communication may be the most important quality of an educated person. It is certainly a requirement for a viable democracy, whether it be a republic or a popular democracy. Your performance on the assignments will reveal how well you are achieving most of these communications objectives. When I see your evaluations of this course, I will know how good a job we did in communicating the excitement of presidential politics to you.

How Your Grades Will be Determined

1. Regular Exams (50%). Many on-line distance education (called "ode") courses require that students come to the campus or to some meeting point to take regular exams. I am building this course so that you can do the entire course in your own home or wherever you have access to a computer and an internet connection. Therefore, I cannot use the traditional objective type tests with true/false and/or multiple choice questions. Moreover, I cannot supervise any kind of closed book test. That leaves only open book essay examinations, so that is what I shall use. On the dates announced in the course schedule, all registered students will be sent a set of essay questions by e-mail. Each student will have at least 48 hours to write their essays and e-mail them back to me. The answers will be graded with comments and emailed back to you. The grade will depend upon how well the essay used the factual information in the assigned reading material to provide a logical, well organized, and well written answer. Yes, grammar will count--even on the internet in this case. We will have a midterm and a final, two tests.

2. Reading Mastery Questions (25%). One of the hardest things for teachers to do is to motivate students to read and think about the material before class. Getting students to keep up is one of the hardest parts in totally self-paced on-line distance education (ode). That's what this is all about. You will use Blackboard to answer a series of fairly detailed questions on the reading. Almost all are true-false questions that follow the readings page by page. You can do them on-line as you read, or print them out and answer them on paper and then enter the answers on-line after you complete the reading. These will be graded by the Blackboard program instantly and your grade will be given to you and sent to me. The percentage you get right will determine your grade for this part of the course.

3. On-line discussions and written web or news related exercises on the Blackboard discussion board (25%). For most chapters we will have some kind of discussion question for the whole class to answer using the course blog The discussion questions will require that you write a short essay – at least a paragraph. The written assignments will be self-explanatory, usually requiring that you also write a short essay about what you found, often involving some story in the news. I will grade these subjectively, using one of three grades, S for satisfactory (you made an good effort showing thought and expressing yourself clearly and completely), M for marginal (you threw this together at the last minute with minimal effort, or you did little more than agree with someone else), and U for unsatisfactory (this was just a token effort or you did not do it at all, or it is too late). At the end of the semester I will average the percentage of S’s that you had from all assignments (where an M gets counted as a half S, if you will pardon the bad pun) for this portion of your grade. You get to drop TWO grades with no penalty here.

You must complete all the exercises and post them as comments on the blog by the time and date noted on the page. Late assignments will not receive any credit – an U. If your computer goes on the fritz, you can fax me your work (803-641-3461) or even mail it to my office on campus (Professor Robert Botsch, Political Science, 471 University Parkway, Aiken, SC 29801).

To protect yourself, you should keep a copy of all written work submitted. You can check if it is posted by looking at the blog.

Grading Scale

I will use a 10 point grading scale that works as follows: A: 90-100; B+: 85-89; B: 80-84; C+: 75-79; C: 70-74; D+: 65-69; D: 60-64; and F: less than 60.

Plagiarism

Rules regarding PLAGIARISM apply to all written work. Depending on the nature of the work and the precise offense, the penalty for plagiarism may be as light as a failing grade for the work or as heavy as an F for the course. If you're not sure what this means, e-mail me! The one exception to required notation in this class is that if the material you write is obviously based on what is in the text, you don't need to reference it. However, if you do quote directly from the text or from something on the Internet, you must use quotation marks and give a page number, for example (text 241). Other than this, you must cite sources.

Honor Code

The USCA Honor code (I have neither given nor received any unauthorized help on this work) is in effect for this course on all written assignments and exams.

Disability Policy

If you have a learning or physical disability which might affect your performance in this class, please contact the Office of Disabled Student Services as soon as possible. Once an evaluation has been made, appropriate accomodations will be determined. Call the USCA switchboard (803-648-6851) and ask for that office.

Junior Writing Portfolio Requirement (USCA Students only)

Please remember that the written work that you produce in this class can be included in your rising junior writing portfolio. For further information on the portfolio requirement, please consult your USCA Undergraduate and Graduate Studies Bulletin or visit Dr. Lynne Rhodes (lynner@usca.edu), Director of Writing Assessment, or Karl Fornes (karlf@usac.edu), Director of the Writing Room.

Cell Phone Policy (Not Applicable in a web course)