Welcome, Math 427L students!

I'm glad to be teaching this course again, and glad as well that the
Covid pandemic is over and we can return to the classroom together, and
can teach and learn just like we did in the good old days (through 2019).

Just kidding. I *thought* we'd be back to normal now, but the virus
has mutated into something which spreads even faster, and not enough
people are vaccinated, and there's a lot of finger-pointing and
name-calling going on. So as long as all the ICU beds in the nearby
hospitals are filled with Covid patients, we here at UT are going to
have to do our part to slow the spread of the disease.

In M427L we will deal with the current situation by following 2 Rules:

   Rule #1: There's no point in having the course if we can't actually
   teach and learn together. So as much as possible we will keep to a
   traditional syllabus for this course, meeting together as a class,
   having in-person office hours, taking exams in a classroom,
   etc. However,

   Rule #2: We have to keep things in perspective: vector calculus
   is beautiful and useful and all that, but I can't say it's worth
   sacrificing anyone's health and safety.  Part of being a good
   citizen here is to accept that each of us will make relatively
   small sacrifices so that no one will have to pay a big price.

So, regarding Rule #1: Class will meet three times per week, in the
scheduled classroom in Painter Hall. You will also meet twice a week
with the Teaching Assistant. If you have to miss a class, please
consult the syllabus to find what you missed and read the book to
catch up. There will be weekly homework assignments for you to turn in
through Quest (quest.cns.utexas.edu). I will hold regular office hours
and hope to see many of you there. There will be two midterm exams and
a final, as shown in the syllabus. The exams will be taken in
person. In short, all the core components of the course will be
present in just the form they were in the pre-covid days.


But, as for Rule #2, we will adjust how we usually carry out this class
so that we may implement the five main public-health strategies:


A. Vaccines are tremendously effective at preventing lethal and
other other serious Covid cases. They are also reasonably effective
at preventing slight infections. They are only moderately effective
at preventing the virus from colonizing your exterior respiratory
tract, which is why *everyone* must be inconvenienced (see below)
whether vaccinated or not. But let's be honest: if more people were
vaccinated, the hospitals would not be full, so the citizenry would
not be alarmed, and so the University would not be making us do all of
this. Therefore: please go get vaccinated and encourage your family
and friends to do likewise. I would be happy to arm you with facts to
help you persuade them.

In Texas, there is no law that forces motorcycle riders to wear helmets.
Sensible riders do, but each rider can choose for himself or herself.
It is, however, irritating that all of us pay higher insurance premiums
and higher taxes because of the additional hospital stays those "freedom"
riders require. I think you can imagine the public outcry against
them if they occupied some 40% of the available ICU beds, leaving
*none* available for any person who had need of those hospital services.


B. In order to stop the spread of a communicable disease, it is
important to discover early who is infected and to isolate them.
Please consider regular testing. It's free and easy on campus. 
(They use the spit test, not the nasty brain-scraping technique.)
If you find that you are sick, please do not come to campus, except
to get tested for covid or to seek treatment. If you get sick on
the day of an exam, just let me know, and bring a doctor's note
with you when you are back in class and ready to take the exam.

The rules apply to me, too! I may have to conduct class from my home
via Zoom, or arrange for a substitute. (But I have been following
all five of these guidelines, and remain healthy.)

Note: statistics show that if we all got tested today, there is a
better-than-even chance that at least one person in this class is
infected. Is it you? Are you sure? Do you want to be the Typhoid Mary
in our class?


C. To tamp down the spread of a disease, it is very helpful to
implement Contact Tracing. That means identifying the people who have
recently been in contact with a disease carrier, and having those people
tested, preferably while still asymptomatic. You can aid this effort
in the classroom by getting to know the students around you. You'll
probably do so anyway but let me encourage you to sit in the same seat
each class. That way if you do find you have contracted covid, we will
know which students were most likely to have been around you when you
first started carrying the virus. Notify me as soon as you get a
positive test result, and I will reach out to your classroom neighbors
and urge them to get tested too.


D. Masks greatly reduce the chance that the wearer can spread this
virus (and also reduce the wearer's chance of inhaling it).
Therefore, masks will be worn at all times in the classroom. 
I will also insist on masks in my office.

I will do my best to speak clearly in class. If something I
say is muffled, please ask me to repeat it. 

Since you can't see my whole face, you won't always be quite sure
of my emotion when I say something. If you think that what I just
said sounded kind of odd, it was probably a joke that made reference
to some 1970s pop tune or a classic Milton Berle joike (who?) or
something. Just smile and nod and don't worry about it. Beyond
that, whenever I'm talking about mathematics and its history and
applications and so on, you can be sure that I have an enthusiastic
smile on my face. I think this stuff is cool!


Finally, we come to

E. Social-distancing decreases the likelihood that the virus
can be transmitted to another person. But we cannot adequately
distance ourselves in the classroom assigned to us this summer
(and no larger rooms are available). Therefore, only one-third
of the class will be in the classroom at any one time. Seats will
be reserved for students according to the following schedule:
  Last name A-G : Monday
  Last name H-N : Wednesday
  Last name O-Z : Friday
Students who are not present in the classroom are expected to
still attend the course via Zoom. Here are the meeting IDs:
   uniqid 55370: 95483144976
   uniqid 55375: 95764494522

On your day to be in the classroom, please use only the seats
I have colored green in the seating charts
for our classroom.

The Tuesday/Thursday sessions with the Teaching Assistant will
all be done via Zoom until further notice. (The current
expectation is that Zoom meetings will last two weeks.)
We hope to have students meet the TA in a classroom soon.

Please know that I very much regret the use of Zoom here. I know from
both the teacher's and the students' ends this is not as effective a
means of education. We're just trying to make the best of a bad situation.
Zoomers can make it better by truly *participating*: sit at an actual
desk, log in on time, turn on your camera, and by all means ask
questions.

Those who *prefer* Zoom are welcome to use it at will. I don't take
attendance. In fact, I expect that after each alphabetical group
has come to class at least once, some people will start staying
home on class days, and thus there will be available seats in
the classroom. Students who wish to be in the classroom on their
"off" days are welcome to claim the open seats on a first-come,
first-served basis, within reason: give the designated students
until the top of the hour to arrive, if you've already taken extra
seats frequently let someone else have them next. And please wait
in the halls in an orderly, socially-distanced way.

If in-person attendance is consistently below 2/3, we will
switch to every-other-day seating (A-K one day, L-Z the next).
The University administration, guided by public-health officials,
may (I hope!) give us the go-ahead to increase classroom density;
then we will likewise switch to every-other-day seating and maybe
eventually to having the whole class together.

Social distancing rules apply in my office as well: I encourage
you to come to my office whenever you need help, but my office only
seats two students with me at a time. Please do not congregate in
the hallway. If there is a crowd, I may have to ask students to rotate
through fairly quickly. If there is demand I will schedule additional
office hours.

The social-distancing requirements will make it difficult
for us to administer exams (if we are still constrained by then!)
The exams will be taken in-person and by everyone at once. In order
to do so we will almost surely have to schedule the exams at an
EVENING hour. I have been advised by the room-scheduling staff 
that I cannot make a reservation until approximately Aug 25, so
I don't have the details for you yet, but will share them when I get them.

                     ----------------
        
All summer I thought we'd be back to normal by now, and I was very
much looking forward to teaching that way. Sadly, Mother Nature and
human folly have conspired to leave us as a society still
(needlessly!) suffering both the pandemic itself and the unpleasant
life changes needed to fight it. But let's be of good cheer and move
forward with our studies and learn the beauty of Vector Calculus!