Announcements

Announcements 22 February 1999 The key to the first exam and important announcements about this and subsequent exams are now posted; click here to see them.

Announcement 25 January 1999 LECTURE EXAMS will be held on the following Mondays: 15 February, 29 March, 26 April.

You may attend within one of either of two time blocks: 1-3 p.m. OR 5-7:30 p.m. I will announce the location(s) once I know them. You do not have to arrive at the start of a time block if you schedule prevents it. You may stay for up to an hour and a half during these time blocks (when I've taught the course in the summer, with one and a half hour lectures, this has turned out to be enough time for everyone.) For at least the first exam, you will need a calculator.

The Friday 1-1:50 lab section was hectic largely because it was overfull this week -- several people enrolled in Thursday's lab had to make the lab up during the Friday 1-1:50 section this week. I'll ask that people enrolled in other sections to please attend the section for which you are enrolled unless you've got a real conflict occasionally. If you have to make up a missed lab on Thursday, and have space in your schedule, please attend the 3-4 lab rather than the 1-2 lab (I know some of you have class then and can't do it; if Fri 1-2 is the only time you can make up that's ok once or twice.) Also, if anyone in the Friday 1-1:50 lab has the time free, isn't too desperate to get out of here on Friday, and would like a less hectic lab experience, you're welcome to attend the Fri 3-3:50 lab instead -- it's practically empty.

Announcement 19 January 1999. I have now sent your first homework assignment back to you via e-mail. There are about three people from whom I haven't received anything -- if you didn't get your homework back, or don't get it soon, you may be one of those people. If you DID send something to me and didn't get something back, DON'T PANIC! Please let me know and send me something again as soon as you can. It is probably safer to e-mail me directly from an e-mail program than to use the e-mail things I've set up from the web pages; those work only if the computer you're on is configured properly. If you DIDN'T send me anything and would like to send me the first week's homework, I'll still take it -- this time, since we're all getting used to this system.

Everyone I e-mailed received the following message. If you didn't get an e-mail from me, READ IT CAREFULLY.

Now that I've looked at your first homework assignment and your schedules I have some general comments to everyone. Please read them carefully. At the end of this message, I'll include specific comments on your first homework -- I'll return what you wrote, with my comments written after each question. I'm also posting general part of this message to a web page (so you may see the same thing there.)

1. You've all made a good attempt to answer these questions; this week, while you're getting the hang of how to answer these, how much detail to put in, and so forth, you all get full credit (2 pts.) I've noted for many of you where you left out part of a question, though. Be sure in the future to check your answer and see that you've answered the whole thing. If you want to try that with questions I've handed back, and get me to look at your answers again, I'd be happy to do so.
2. Your second questions (Chapter II, question 2) required you to apply natural selection to some situation. The ability to do this is crucial to everything we will do in the course, so it would be worth spending some time making sure you can do this. Also, THERE WILL BE A QUESTION LIKE THIS ON THE FIRST EXAM. The situation will be different (a different species) but you will have to apply the four postulates to the situation, explain why they result in natural selection, and explain how fitness and adaptation apply to this situation.
3. The internet connections around campus have been messed up this weekend because the storms in Jackson knocked out some of our connections. This reminds me to tell you something: ALWAYS SAVE A COPY OF EVERYTHING YOU HAND IN TO ME, whether it's over e-mail or a hard copy. My general policy will be: if I didn't get something from you, and you tell me you did give/send it to me, I'll still accept it a little late as long as you've got a copy you can give to me immediately.
4. The links on the web pages that let you mail something to me seem to be working from some computers and not others -- it depends on how you've logged on and set up your computer. It's probably safest to e- mail something to me directly from your account, not from one of the web pages.
5. Now that I've looked at your schedules, I'm setting up the following hours when I will be present at my computer and home phone number: MW 1:30-3:30, Tu 11:30-2:00, F2-3.
6. I didn't get a schedule from everyone. Based on the ones I did receive, it looks as though everyone could make it to at least an hour and a half of at least one of the following two hour times for exams: M 1-3 or M 6-8 p.m. If you can't make one of those times during the weeks of the scheduled exams (see the lecture schedule web page) let me know immediately. If I don't hear from anyone, I'm going to schedule those as the exam times.

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