Attendance
You are expected to show up for every scheduled session (these have been put on your Google calendar). Optional events and sessions are marked in the calendar with a blue arrow on the website schedule, all other sessions are mandatory to attend. You are excused for the following:
- If you are feeling sick, don’t come to any sessions! Prioritize resting so that you don’t jeopardize your physical and mental health or the physical and mental health of your peers and facilitators. (Student Health and the Counseling & Student Development Center have summer hours)
- You are observing a holiday or religious practice that conflicts with our schedule, the Bucknell holidays schedule doesn’t cover everything and we want to give you time to observe whenever possible. We will give you time off for Juneteenth (June 19th), Independence Day (July 4th), and July 5th.
- Something else unavoidable comes up. Things happen!
For any of the reasons above, you must let us know ahead of time (or as soon as you know) that you will be missing a session. The same applies to running late to a session. There are only six of us, so if someone is late or missing from a session, we might wait for them – make sure you communicate what’s going on instead of wasting the time of your peers, facilitators, and guest speakers!
You don’t have to tell us everything about the situation, but check in with us so that we know you’re ok and that something has come up. If you miss more than 3 sessions, we will schedule a check-in meeting with you to discuss the situation and your plan for the rest of the summer.
Hours
Besides scheduled sessions, you are free to complete your work at any time of the day. You do not need to clock in and out, but we expect you to work about 35 hours each week (including scheduled sessions).
On our scheduled holidays (Juneteenth and Independence Day), you are not expected to come to any sessions, meetings, or do any work for DSSRF. You can work on your project if you wish, but Carrie and Claire will not be working over holidays and you should feel free to take a break.
Carrie and Claire work typical business hours (about 8:00am to about 5:00pm) and will be most able to respond to your emails in those time ranges. We may be able to respond to you after hours or on a weekend, but expect a much slower response. The same will be true for our faculty/staff colleagues and guest speakers.
Locations
You can complete the independent part of your work wherever you choose to. We have room 113 in the Humanities Center reserved from 9:00am – 4:00pm every weekday during the program, so you are welcome to use that space to work. The Library is open during the summer, but on a different schedule than you may be used to (the 24-hour space remains accessible).
Expectations
We do not assign you a grade for your work in DSSRF, but you will have a final presentation! Our expectation is that you will complete a project that you are proud of to show off at the end of the summer. “Complete” does not mean that every part of the project has to be 100% finished, but your project should be ready to show by July 18th.
By the end of eight weeks, you should have a complete body of work to show at our presentation session on July 18th (this can include discussions of future work). We will discuss project scoping and how much work is feasible to complete this summer, along with options if you find you want to continue your work on a larger scale in the future.
In addition to your main project, you are expected to complete all blog posts and homework assignments given. Most of these assignments will help you build your project or reflect on your process, and we chose them with purpose.
We’ve set aside time for 5-minute check-ins every Tuesday; you will give a verbal update to the group about what you’re working on and planning for the next week. For the peer-to-peer progress sharing sessions every other Thursday, you should have some part of your project to show or share in more detail about. Please use your individual check-ins with Carrie and Claire to show us your progress, ask questions, and get help with the direction of your project.
Ethics
Remember to abide by the Bucknell Honor Code:
As a student and citizen of the Bucknell University community:
- I will not lie, cheat or steal in my academic endeavors.
- I will forthrightly oppose each and every instance of academic dishonesty.
- I will let my conscience guide my decision to communicate directly with any person or persons I believe to have been dishonest in academic work.
- I will let my conscience guide my decision on reporting breaches of academic integrity to the appropriate faculty or deans.
This includes citing your sources and crediting the work of others! You will be reading and using a lot of research, websites, images, and other media during the creation of your project, so be sure to include a robust works cited, and in-text citations where appropriate.
If you decide to use artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool in your research, you must cite it as one of your sources. While AI can be a useful aid in your work (for example, checking punctuation on Grammarly or using ChatGPT to help suggest titles for sections), we must use it ethically and responsibly to avoid plagiarism, whether committed intentionally or unintentionally. If you have questions or want to discuss the use of AI in your research, come talk to us and we can figure out your specific use case.