Course Syllabus

College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Anthropology

 

last updated January 17

 

ANT 599.1 and ANT 355H

 

ARCHAEOLOGY OF ROCK ART

Spring 2006

Wednesdays, 12:40 to 3:10 pm in DuBois Room 30

3 credit hours

 

Instructor: Dr. Kelley Hays-Gilpin, Associate Professor of Anthropology

Office address: 101D Anthropology Bldg. 98D

Office hours: Tuesday afternoon and Weds. morning. Or use e-mail to make an appointment

E-Mail: kelley.hays-gilpin@nau.eduNOSPAM

Phone: 523-6564 at NAU, 774-5211x267 at MNA. Do not use voice mail if you have access to e-mail. Voice mail malfunctions regularly.

Course Web Site: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~kah2/rockart/rockarthome.htm

 

Course prerequisites: ANT 599: graduate standing or senior anthropology or art major or permission of instructor.

ANT 355H: enrolled in Honors program.

 

Course description: This seminar co-convenes Anthropology graduate students with undergraduate Honors students enrolled in ANT 355H. Students will creatively explore and critically evaluate present-day interpretations, management, and conservation of rock art sites by artists, scholars, teachers, Native American spiritual and political leaders, and public land managers.

            Art (a problematic term that we will discuss) is one of several features that distinguish humans from other species. Rock art is one of the most important, highly visible, and long-lived forms of human aesthetic expression, emerging at least 40,000 years ago in the famous cave paintings of France and Spain and newly discovered paintings and engravings of Australia. A rich array of world-class rock art sites in northern and central Arizona span at least 10,000 years. These include imagery made by Native peoples such as the Hopi, Yavapai, and Navajo, which is still understood by elders of these tribes and others. This course will explore rock art studies as an important line of archaeological evidence for prehistoric lifeways the world over. We will study rock art with reference to human aesthetic and religious expression, scientific investigation, interactions with landscape including economic activities, expression of ethnic identities and boundaries, and its significance to native peoples, researchers, Heritage Tourism, and land managers today.

We will examine the dilemma posed to public land managers by Federal mandates to increase recreation opportunities, including public visitation to rock art sites, and to protect Native American sacred sites, raising issues about appropriate interpretation, research, and conservation. Rock art imagery has become a marketable commodity in South Africa, Australia, Europe, and here in the American Southwest. We will discuss ethics, intellectual property, cross-cultural aesthetics, who owns the past, who creates narratives about art made in the past, and who creates new art based on imagery from the past. This course requires students to see rock art in its landscape context. We will take guided field trips to rock art sites and work together to produce a management plan and lesson plans for the Picture Canyon site on the Centennial Forest in Flagstaff.

 

Course objectives:

·         Students will read and discuss a series of books and articles that provide humanistic, scientific, aesthetic, management-oriented, and Native points of view about rock art, and write critical responses (critical thinking, effective writing)

·         Students will be able to describe responsible, ethical behavior regarding public use of Native American sacred places including rock art, and use of imagery derived from the religious traditions of native peoples of many cultures (ethical reasoning).

·         Students will be able to accurately record and effectively display visual imagery using digital photography, mapping, and image analysis, and communicate results via hypertext with integrated graphics (use of technology) or via professional quality brochures that integrate graphics and text.

·         Students will be able to create their own interpretations of ancient imagery using visual media or creative writing, and critique creative reinterpretations of others (creative thinking).

·         Students will be able to compare and contrast theoretical frameworks used to interpret ancient imagery and religious practice, including insights from structuralism, neuropsychology, critical theory, ethnoaesthetics, and Native American, Australian Aboriginal, and South African San cosmologies (aesthetic and humanistic inquiry, valuing the diversity of the human experience).

 

Course structure/approach: weekly lecture/discussion/active learning activities; several required Friday or Saturday field trips, additional optional field trips.

 

Field trips: students must participate in at least one field trip outside of class time, and two field trips during class time. Most of these will incur no cost if we can share transportation. For field trips that require other costs such as guide fees, participants will share the costs. More participants means lower costs. A trip to Hopi for the vernal equinox will cost between $10 and $20 per student.

 

San Juan River trip: this trip will be run by NAU Outdoors. Students wishing to take part must put down a deposit (to be announced) to secure a spot on the trip. Partners, pals, and parents may take part if there is room on the trip. We will camp out on Sand Island, near Bluff, Utah, the evening of April 11, and float the river April 12-14 returning the evening of the 14th. Cost will be between $350 and $450 per student (more participants, up to 20, means lower per student cost). Fee includes equipment, boatmen, food, and transportation.

 

Mentoring: Graduate students will be paired with undergraduate students. Partners should meet once a week for half an hour or so to discuss readings, projects, and skills such as using Powerpoint and computer graphics.

 

Textbook and required materials:

1) Introduction to Rock Art Research, by David S. Whitley. Left Coast Press. 2005.

2) selected articles and book chapters. Some hard copies will be available for checkout from the “readings boxes” at the Anthropology Department, east lounge area. Some hard copies will be available for checkout from the Cline Library Print Reserves. Some items are in the Cline Library Electronic Reserves system and can be accessed via the web. Multiple chapters are assigned from a few volumes. Because we cannot place more than one or two chapters from a single volume on electronic reserve, purchase is suggested, or you may obtain the readings in the “readings box” or use Cline Library Print Reserves. CHECK ALL THREE PLACES BEFORE YOU COMPLAIN TO ME THAT YOU CAN’T FIND SOMETHING. Then if something really is missing that should not be missing, send me an e-mail. Please do not vex the library staff. Contact me and I will contact the library. If I am not available, contact my graduate assistant. If you must discuss missing or defective readings with the staff, please be courteous and patient. They are overworked, underpaid, and sensitive.

 

Recommended:

1) Ambiguous Images: Gender and Rock Art, by Kelley Hays-Gilpin. AltaMira Press. 2004.

 

Optional (books to purchase if you get serious about doing rock art work):

1) Handbook of Rock art Research, by David S. Whitley. AltaMira Press. 2000. 

2) The Archaeology of Rock art, edited by Christopher Chippendale and Paul S. Taçon, Cambridge University Press, 1998

3) A Manual for Rock Art Documentation, by Lawrence Loendorf, Linda Olson, Stuart Connor, and J. Claire Dean, National Park Service and Bureau of Reclamation, 1998.

4) Rock-Art of the Southwest: A Visitor’s Companion. Liz and Peter Welsh. Wilderness Press, Berkeley. 2000.

 

All students will complete all the required reading. Recommended reading is presented as a list of options, i.e. “pick two of the following.” Graduate students must complete the required number of readings on the list. Undergraduates should try to at least skim the required number of readings, but may simply pick one of the optional readings. Try to build your reading comprehension and critical thinking skills using the strategy that’s best for you. Undergraduates should meet regularly with graduate student mentors to discuss readings. Graduate students should clearly explain readings to their mentees, and mentees should ask insightful questions of their mentors. This process builds skills and knowledge on both sides of the relationship.

 

Course outline

 

week 1. January 18: Introduction, definitions, and brief survey of world rock art.

Active learning activity: rock art materials and techniques.

 

week 2. January 25: Looking at pictures and making pictures: style, technology, and iconography

Active learning activity: making pictures and interpreting pictures

 

week 3. February 1: Recording, documentation, image manipulation.

Active learning activity: scale drawing

 

week 4. February 8: Recording in the field. Field trip to a local site.

Active learning activity: work on map, field sketch, scale drawing, photographs, forms

 

week 5. February 15: Classification, identification. Case study: sex and gender

Active learning activity: picture pile sort

 

week 6. February 22: Dating methods, chronologies

Active learning activity: superpositioning

project 1, recording, due

 

week 7. March 1: History of rock art research methods and theories.

Case study: Franco-Cantabrian cave paintings

 

week 8. March 8: Rock art and ethnography

 

week 9. March 15: Interpreting rock art

 

week 10. March 22: SPRING BREAK, no class

 

week 11. March 29: rock art in landscapes

project 2, interpretation, due

 

week 12. April 5: ethics & aesthetics, popular culture and rock art. Case study: “Kokopelli”

Active learning activity: making and critiquing rock art tchotchkes

project 3, creative work, due

 

week 13. April 12: site management: optional San Juan river trip

 

week 14: April 19: site management: significance assessment, condition assessment, conservation, and management plans

Active learning activity: role play “stakeholders”

 

week 15: April 26: SAA meetings, no formal class meeting. Students meet to prepare presentations, project components, and portfolios.

 

week 16: May 3: “end of semester week.”

project 4, management plan component or lesson plan, due

 

week 17: May 10. Finals Week. Class presentations. final portfolio due.

 

 

Evaluation methods and deadlines:

Grading system: class participation 10%, oral presentation 10%, field trip participation 10%, class preparation measured via JIT activities (see below) 10%, projects 60% (there are four short projects and a final portfolio or paper).

Grading scale: 90-100% = A, 80-89% = B, 70-79% = C, 60-69% = D, 59% or lower = F

 

ASSIGNMENTS

 

Class participation: Attendance is mandatory. Each student is expected to come to class prepared and to contribute to class all discussions and activities. You can expect to lose some participation points if you miss more than one class for any reason.

 

Field trip participation: To understand rock art you must experience it in its landscape context. You must take part in at least 1 field trip outside of class time, and two that will take place during class time. If you cannot attend any of the several choices of Friday or Saturday field trips, you should either drop the class, or arrange some trips with like-minded colleagues on some other day and bring back proof of your visit (such as a group photo at the site in question or admission ticket/a note from a guide). Good self-directed field trips include Deer Valley Rock Art Center and South Mountain Park in Phoenix, the V-Bar-V site and Paltaki/Red Cliffs in the Verde Valley. Attendance at one of MNA’s “Stories on Stone” weekend lectures and a trip through the exhibit may substitute for a field trip.

 

Class preparation: To help students prepare for each class meeting, we will take part in JIT (“Just in Time™”) activities. This is a technique used by the U.S. Air Force Academy. Every Sunday night or Monday morning I will e-mail you (and post to the class website) a short series of questions on the week’s readings that require short answers. You will e-mail me the answers by Tuesday night. Some questions will ask for specific information from the readings. Some will ask for an opinion, such as what technical terms stumped you in the readings so you had to look them up? One question will always ask about the questions and concerns you may have about the week’s topic. This will help me facilitate that week’s discussion. I will be able to assess whether students are prepared, who is falling behind, who is doing well, and what topics need clarification. This will help YOU manage your time effectively, figure out what is important to know, and express your concerns confidentially. Obviously (or it soon will become obvious), you have to do the readings FIRST, and then use the questions as guidelines to help you focus on what will happen in class on Wednesday.

 

Projects:

 

Project 1: recording. Record a rock art panel in the field using three or more of the techniques recommended in our readings and class discussion. You must include a panel form and two of the following: site form, scale drawing with ruler, scale drawing with string grid, photo with scale, digitally enhanced photo, direct mylar tracing, photo tracing.

 

Project 2: describe and interpret at least one panel from the Picture Canyon site, or another site you have visited. Design and/or build a short web page produce OR a one page (double sided) color brochure OR a Powerpoint presentation with at least 5 slides (and not more than twenty). Interpretation in this context means making the site or panel accessible and comprehensible to others; it does not imply “reading” the meaning of the rock art imagery. You might focus on age, style, function, or cultural affiliation and context of the art.

 

Project 3: produce a work of art drawing on rock art imagery (from anywhere) and explain it, OR describe, evaluate, and critique some contemporary creative work that uses rock art imagery.

 

Project 4: Group project. Write a significance statement, condition assessment, or page management plan for Picture Canyon OR create a hands-on or web-based lesson plan about rock art for primary school, junior high, or high school, and include “site etiquette” guidelines designed to promote preservation. We will divide up the parts of a comprehensive management and education plan. You will have a choice of working alone or in a small group.

 

FINAL PROJECT and PORTFOLIO: 

 

Group project: students will collaborate to produce a plan for Picture Canyon that includes a significance statement, condition assessment, rock art inventory and site form, visitation plan, interpretation plan, management recommendations, and K-12 lesson plans. Students may work alone on their part of the plan, or work with a partner. In making this decision, as in choosing your part of the project, consider your learning goals, skill levels, schedule flexibility, and learning style. At the end of the class, we will pull together everyone’s pieces of the project and present them to the Centennial Forest committee that is managing Picture Canyon.

 

For your final portfolio, compile your four projects. You may revise them as you like based on feedback from peers and instructor. The goal here is to have one package that presents your best efforts throughout the semester.

 

ORAL PRESENTATION: present a five to ten minute summary of your final project to the whole class and be prepared to field questions from the audience. If you worked with a partner, work out a way to share the work so you both get experience giving a presentation. We will invite some of the “stakeholders” in the Picture Canyon site to attend.

 

 

READINGS

 

week 1. January 18: Introduction, definitions, and brief survey of world rock art.

activity: rock art materials and techniques.

 

week 2. January 25: Looking at pictures and making pictures: style, technology, and iconography

activity: making pictures and interpreting pictures

required:

  • Whitley textbook 2005 Chapter 1
·         Clegg, John. 1991. !Pictures and Pictures of…  In Rock Art and Prehistory: Papers Presented to Symposium G of the AURA Congress, Darwin, 1988.  Edited by Paul Bahn and Andrée Rosenfeld. Oxbow Monograph 10, Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK.

pick one:

  • Smith, Benjamin. 1998. “The tale of the chameleon and the platypus: limited and likely choices in making pictures.” Chapter 12 in Chippindale and Taçon (eds), The Archaeology of Rock-Art. Cambridge.
  •  Chippindale, Chris. 2001. “Studying Ancient Pictures as Pictures.” Chapter 9 in Whitley (ed) Handbook of Rock Art Research. AltaMira.
  • Welsh, Liz, and Peter Welsh. 2000. Rock-Art of the Southwest: A Visitor’s Companion, pp. 1-44.

 

week 3. February 1: Recording, documentation, image manipulation.

activity: scale drawing

required:

  • Whitley 2005 Chapter 2

pick one:

  • Loendorf, Lawrence, L Olson, S. Conner, and J.C. Dean, A Manual for Rock Art Documentation. National Park Service. 1998.
  • Clegg, John. 1983. Recording Prehistoric Art. In Australian Field Archaeology: A Guide to Techniques, edited by Graham Connah, pp. 87-108. Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, Australia.

 

week 4. February 8: Recording in the field. Field trip to Picture Canyon.

activity: work on map, field sketch, scale drawing, photographs, forms

Read: review last week’s readings and lecture notes in view of the tasks at hand.

 

week 5. February 15: Classification, identification. Case study: sex and gender

activity: picture pile sort

required:

  • Whitley 2005 Chapter 3
  • Hays-Gilpin 2004 Chapter 2

pick two:

·         Bahn, Paul G. 1986. No Sex Please, We’re Aurignacians. Rock Art Research: Journal of the Australian Rock Art Research Association 3(2):99-120.
  • Francis, Julie. Style and Classification. Chapter 8 in Whitley Handbook.
  • Welsh, Liz, and Peter Welsh, Rock-Art of the Southwest: A Visitor’s Companion, pp. 45-55
  • Diaz-Andreu, Margarita. 1998. Iberian Post-Paleolithic Art and Gender: Discussing Human Representations in Levantine Art. Journal of Iberian Archaeology 0:33-51.

 

week 6. February 22: Dating methods, chronologies

Active learning activity: superpositioning

required: Whitley 2005 Chapter 4

pick three:

  • Hesjedal, Anders. 1995. Rock Art, Time and Social Context. In Perceiving Rock Art: Social and Political Perspectives. edited by K. Helsog and B. Olsen, pp. 200 - 206. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Oslo.
·         Dorn, Ron I. 1991. Rock Varnish. American Scientist 79:542-553.
  • Chapters 4, 5, 6, or 7 in Whitley’s Handbook of Rock Art Research
  • Chippindale, Chris, “The many ways of dating Arnhem Land rock-art, north Australia. Chapter 6 in Chippindale and Taçon.
  • pp. 1-10 in Loendorf et al., A Manual for Rock-Art Documentation.
  • Welsh, Liz, and Peter Welsh, Rock-Art of the Southwest: A Visitor’s Companion, pp. 57-62

PROJECT 1 (RECORDING) DUE

 

week 7. March 1: History of rock art research methods and theories.

Case study: Franco-Cantabrian cave paintings

required:

  • Whitley 2005 Chapter 5
  • Hays-Gilpin 2005 chapter 3

pick one:

·         Leroi-Gourhan, Andre. 1968. The Evolution of Paleolithic Art. Scientific American, February:58-70.
  • Clottes, Jean, “’The Three C’s’: fresh avenues towards European Paleolithic rock art,” Chapter 7 in Chippindale and Taçon.

 

 

week 8. March 8: Rock art and ethnography

required:

  • Whitley 2005 Chapter 6

pick one book or three articles/chapters:

  • Hays-Gilpin 2004 Chapter 5 or 6
  • Vinnicombe, Patricia, and David Mowaljarlai. 1995. That Rock is a Cloud: Concepts Associated with Rock Images in the Kimberley Region of Australia. In Perceiving Rock Art: Social and Political Perspectives. edited by K. Helsog and B. Olsen, pp. 228-246. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Oslo.
  • Meehan, Betty. 1995. Aboriginal Views on the Management of Rock Art Sites in Australia. In Perceiving Rock Art: Social and Political Perspectives. edited by K. Helsog and B. Olsen, pp. 395 - 315. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Oslo.
  • Layton, Robert. 2001. Ethnographic Study and Symbolic Analysis. Chapter 11  in Whitley Handbook.
  • York, Annie, C. Daly, and C. Arnett. 1993. They write their dream on the rocks forever: rock writings in the Stein River Valley of British Columbia.
  • Young, M. Jane. 1988. Signs from the Ancestors: Zuni Cultural Symbolism and Perceptions of Rock Art. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
  • Stoffle, Richard, M.N. Zedeño, and D.B. Halmo. 2001. American Indians and the Nevada Test Site: A Model of Research and Consultation. USGPO. See especially Chapter 9.

 

week 9. March 15: Interpreting rock art. Case study: shamanism

required:

  • Whitley 2005 Chapter 7

pick two:

  • Hays-Gilpin Chapter 9 or 10
  • Haviland, William A., and Anita de Laguna Haviland. 1995. Glimpses of the Supernatural: Altered States of Consciousness and the Graffiti of Tikal, Guatemala. Latin American Antiquity 6:295-309.
  • Roach, Mary. 1998. Ancient Altered States. Discovery: the World of Science 19(6):52-58.

 

week 10. March 22: SPRING BREAK, no class

 

week 11. March 29: rock art in landscapes

required:

  • Whitley 2005 Chapter 8
  • Hays-Gilpin Chapter 8

pick one:

  • Ouzman, Sven. 1998. “Towards a mindscape of landscape: rock-art and expression of world-understanding.” Chapter 3 in Chippindale and Tacon.
  •  Taçon, Paul, and Sven Ouzman. 2004. “Worlds within stone: the inner and outer rock-art landscapes of northern Australia and Southern Africa. In The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art: Looking at Pictures in Place, edited by C. Chippindale and G. Nash, pp. 39-68. Cambridge.
  • Flood, Josephine. 2004. “Linkage between rock-art and landscapes in Aboriginal Australia. pp. 182-200, same volume.
  • Loendorf, Lawrence. 2005. “Places of power: the placement of Dinwoody petroglyphs across the Wyoming landscape.” pp. 201-216, same volume.

PROJECT 2 (INTERPRETATION) DUE

 

week 12. April 5: ethics & aesthetics, popular culture and rock art. Case study: “Kokopelli”

Active learning activity: making and critiquing rock art tchotchkes

required:

  • Hays-Gilpin chapter 7

pick one:

  • Lewis-Williams, J. David. 1995. Some Aspects of Rock Art Research in the Politics of Present-day South Africa.” In Perceiving Rock Art: Social and Political Perspectives. edited by K. Helskog and B. Olsen, pp. 317 - 337. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Oslo.
·         White Deer, Gary. 1997. The Return of the Sacred: Spirituality and the Scientific Imperative. In Native Americans and Archaeologists: Stepping Stones to Common Ground. Edited by N. Swidler, K. Dongoske, R. Anyon, and A. Downer, pp. 37-43. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California.
·         Frederick, Ursula K. 1998. Cape York to Cairns: Reinventing Meaning in Contemporary Aboriginal Art. In Redefining Archaeology: Feminist Perspectives, edited by Mary Casey, Denise Donlan, Jeannette Hope, and Sharon Wellfare, pp. 205-214. Research Papers in Archaeology and Natural History 29, PSPAS, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.

PROJECT 3 (CREATIVE WORK) DUE

 

week 13. April 12: Site significance and management: choose San Juan River Trip OR class trip to Picture Canyon.

Required:

  • Whitley 2005 Chapters 9 and 10

recommended:

  • Welsh, Liz, and Peter Welsh, Rock-Art of the Southwest: A Visitor’s Companion, pp. 79-107

 

Those not going on the river trip will meet at Picture Canyon to discuss readings and prepare a list of possible “stakeholders” for Picture Canyon, and prepare a draft significance statement for that site. Those going on the river trip will do the same exercise for the Butler Wash petroglyph site.

 

week 14: April 19: site management: significance statements, condition assessment, conservation, and management plans.

Active learning activity: role play “stakeholders” for the two sites and compare results

Pick three:

  • pp. 65 – 86 in Loendorf et al. Manual for Rock Art Documentation.
  • Australia ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites). 1996 Charter for the Conservation of Places of Cultural Significance (The Burra Charter). http://www.icomos.org/burra_charter.html
  • Mowaljarlai, David, and Cyril Peck. 1987. Ngarinyin Cultural Continuity: A Project to Teach the Young People the Culture, Including the Re-painting of Wandjina Rock Art Sites. Australian Aboriginal Studies 2:71-78.
  • Mowaljarlai, David, Patricia Vinnicombe, Graeme K. Ward, and Christopher Chippindale. 1988. Repainting of Images on Rock in Australia and the Maintenance of Aboriginal Culture. Antiquity 62:690-696.
·         Mowaljarlai, David, Patricia Vinnicombe, Graeme K. Ward, and Christopher Chippindale. 1988. Repainting of Images on Rock in Australia and the Maintenance of Aboriginal Culture. Antiquity 62:690-696.
  • Loubser, Jannie. 2001. “Management Planning for Conservation.” Chapter 3 in Whitley Handbook
  • Harry, Karen G., Evelyn Billo, and Robert Mark. 2001. “The Challenge of Long-Term Preservation: Managing Impacts to Rock Art at Hueco Tanks State Historical Park.” American Indian Rock Art 27:151-159. American Rock Art Research Association, Phoenix.
  • Gale and Jacobs (1987) Tourists and the National Estate: Procedures to protect Australia’s National Heritage
  • Hays-Gilpin 2004 Chapter 11

 

END formal reading assignments

 

week 15: April 26: SAA meetings, no formal class meeting. Students should meet to prepare project components, presentations and portfolios. Students attending the SAAs in San Juan should meet early.

 

week 16: May 3: “end of semester week.” Class meeting to discuss project progress and articulation.

DRAFT OF PROJECT 4 (your part of the group MANAGEMENT PLAN/LESSON PLAN) DUE

 

week 17: May 10. Finals Week. Class presentations. FINAL PORTFOLIO DUE.

Course policy: attendance is mandatory. Some field trips are mandatory. Some are optional. If you miss announcements about which is which, ask.

Late assignments will not receive full credit.

Attendance: required

Statement on plagiarism and cheating: plagiarism and cheating will not be tolerated.

 

 

 

Safe Environment Policy

NAU’s Safe Working and Learning Environment Policy seeks to prohibit discrimination and promote the safety of all individuals within the university.  The goal of this policy is to prevent the occurrence of discrimination on the basis of sex, race, color, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or veteran status and to prevent sexual harassment, sexual assault or retaliation by anyone at this university.

 

You may obtain a copy of this policy from the college dean’s office.  If you have concerns about this policy, it is important that you contact the departmental chair, dean’s office, the Office of Student Life (523-5181), the academic ombudsperson (523-9368), or NAU’s Office of Affirmative Action (523-3312).

 

Students with Disabilities

If you have a disability, you can arrange for accommodations by contacting the office of Disability Support Services (DSS) at 523-8773 (voice) 523-6906 (TTY).  You are encouraged to provide documentation of the disability to DSS at least 8 weeks prior to the beginning of the semester so arrangements can be made to meet your individual needs.  You must register with DSS each semester you are enrolled and wish to use accommodations.

 

Faculty are not authorized to provide accommodations without prior approval from DSS.  Students are encouraged to notify their instructors a minimum of one week in advance of the need for accommodation.  Failure to do so may result in a delay in provision of the accommodation.

 

Concerns may be brought to the attention of the office of Disability Support Services or to the ADA coordinator in the Affirmative Action Office.

 

Institutional Review Board

Any study involving observation of or interaction with human subjects that originates at NAU—including a course project, report, or research paper—must be reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the protection of human subjects in research and research-related activities.

 

The IRB meets once each month.  Proposals must be submitted for review at least fifteen working days before the monthly meeting.  You should consult with your course instructor early in the course to ascertain if your project needs to be reviewed by the IRB and/or to secure information or appropriate forms and procedures for the IRB review.  Your instructor and department chair or college dean must sign the application for approval by the IRB.  The IRB categorizes projects into three levels depending on the nature of the project:  exempt from further review, expedited review, or full board review.  If the IRB certifies that a project is exempt from further review, you need not resubmit the project for continuing IRB review as long as there are no modifications in the exempted procedures.

 

A copy of the IRB Policy and Procedures Manual is available in each department’s administrative office and each college dean’s office.  If you have questions, contact Carey Conover, Office of Grant and Contract Services, at 523-4889.

 

Academic Integrity

The university takes an extremely serious view of violations of academic integrity.  As members of the academic community, NAU’s administration, faculty, staff and students are dedicated to promoting an atmosphere of honesty and are committed to maintaining the academic integrity essential to the education process.  Inherent in this commitment is the belief that academic dishonesty in all forms violates the basic principles of integrity and impedes learning.  Students are therefore responsible for conducting themselves in an academically honest manner.

 

Individual students and faculty members are responsible for identifying instances of academic dishonesty.  Faculty members then recommend penalties to the department chair or college dean in keeping with the severity of the violation.  The complete policy on academic integrity is in Appendix F of NAU’s Student Handbook.

Revised 10/99