Miami Hurricane, March 4, 2013

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TRUDGE THROUGH THE MUD: University of Miami alumnus Kevin Peterson makes it through the “electric eel” obstacle, which is
part of Tough Mudder, a 12-mile obstacle course that raises money for the Wounded Warriors Project.
The event took place Saturday morning at Miami Homestead Speedway. To date, participants have raised more than
$5 million. All proceeds go toward support programs for thousands of warriors returning from the battlefi eld. The obstacles
were designed by British Special Forces and are tailored to test physical ability, as well as mental toughness.
PHOTO BRIEF ACADEMICS
CAYLA NIMMO // PHOTO EDITOR
Trekking through mud for veterans
ACADEMICS
Class customs
cross cultural
boundaries
Freshman Joe Miano has attended schools
in three countries: France, Belgium and now the
United States at the University of Miami. He
noticed that raising his hand is just as prevalent,
despite the cultural differences.
“Raising my hand has meant the same thing
in all three countries and to all of my teachers,”
he said.
Miano, as one of 1,413 international
undergraduates enrolled at UM, was glad to
know that his distance from home does not
affect the educational customs he has gained in
past classrooms, especially hand-raising.
Amy Cuddy, a professor at Harvard
Business School, described her psychological
findings on hand-raising in a TED Talk given
in 2010.
According to Cuddy, hand-raising is a
reflection of students’ personalities and social
status within the classroom. She has identified
how nonverbal behaviors and “power posing”
affects classroom dynamics.
From Cuddy’s conclusions, Miano feels
comfortable interacting in class, regardless of
the classroom style.
He came to the U.S. to study neuroscience
and has been able to appreciate many learning
styles from the more formal hand-raising
environment to the more Socratic, student-led
discussion format.
“It really depends on the teacher and the
subject,” he said.
International students find
comfort in hand-raising
BY JORDAN COYNE
COPY EDITOR
Students register for courses hop-ing
to have a certain experience, but re-alize
that the course was different from
their expectations. With the integration
of the CaneLink system, the question of
having syllabi available during registra-tion
time has been raised.
“Sometimes the class sounds really
cool, but when you get to it, the content
doesn’t really reflect what you were
expecting, and vice-versa,” freshman
Daniela Lorenzo said.
Most students share Lorenzo’s sen-timents.
Richard L. Williamson, the chair
of the Faculty Senate, thinks that asking
professors to upload their syllabi would
be more burdensome than helpful.
“Some people, me included for
example, don’t have a syllabus the way
some other people do,” he said. “So I
have a document I call the ‘course re-quirements’
document, and I have a
separate document called syllabus … a
listing of what we’re going to do when.”
Trying to straighten out all of those
differences can be a problem, accord-ing
to Williamson. He explained that
since some professors don’t have a con-ventional
syllabus, the work that would
go into fixing those extra details would
outweigh the benefits.
“Ideally [syllabi] should be avail-able
before classes ever start,” William-son
said. “But there are some problems
with making that a requirement.”
Because faculty members are often
away doing research or projects, it may
be hard for them to get their syllabus in
before they return, Williamson said.
And in smaller classes where the focus
is on interactive processes between the
professor and the students, a syllabus
wouldn’t make a lot of sense.
“I think it’d be beneficial,” he said.
“The real question is whether you can
deal with all of these complexities.”
Faculty, students discuss syllabi preview
CaneLink leads to
registration questions
BY ERIKA GLASS
COPY EDITOR
SEE HAND-RAISING, PAGE 2
SEE SYLLABUS, PAGE 4
DRAFT PICK
SPRUNG! BEER FESTIVAL TAKES OVER
COCONUT GROVE SATURDAY PAGE 7
DEFEATING DUKE
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL BEAT NO. 5 BLUE
DEVILS THURSDAY 69-65 PAGE 9
Vol. 91, Issue 39 | March 4 - March 6, 2013 THE MIAMI HURRICANE
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