MATHEMATICS 251- LINEAR ALGEBRA

Alex Freire
Ayres 207 A, 974-4313

Office hours: Tu+Th 11-12, or by appointment
e-mail: freire@math.utk.edu

NOTE: Due to serious illness, Professor Julius Smith is unable to continue
with the course.  As a result, from this point until the end of the course
all course policies (including grading) will be as described on this web site.

In the interest of fairness, I have decided that
STUDENTS WHO SUBMIT A WP/WF  FORM FOR MY SIGNATURE
BY 12:00 noon ON TUESDAY, NOV. 13 WILL RECEIVE  A `WP'.
The form can be obtained at 209 Student Services Bldg. A `WP' grade will
not affect your GPA.

COURSE POLICIES
Students are expected to come to EVERY class meeting. On occasion I may
introduce material not found in the text, or present it with a slightly different
emphasis or notation than the one used in the text- this material will be an
integral part of the course, and students may be tested on it.

I cannot stress this strongly enough: students who fail to come to class,
take notes, read the book and do the homework (see below) are extremely
unlikely to pass the course at all (so if this describes your attitude, you might as well
drop the class).

HOMEWORK problems will be assigned for each section covered (see the link
`course outline' below). Homework will not be collected, but problems identical
to homework problems will be included in 10-min quizzes.

GRADING-There will be a total of three 50-min exams, including Exam 1 given
by Prof. Smith. In addition, the sum of the grades on three 10-min quizzes will
count as a fourth exam. Your exam average will be based on the highest 3 of
these 4 grades, and will correspond to 65% of the total grade. The remaining 35% will
correspond to the final exam.

Expected approximate grading scale:
less than 50% average or less than 40% on final: F
50-64:C or C+
65-79:B or B+    80 or above: A
(D's may be given in borderline cases)
Remark: I do not `curve' grades.

 COURSE OUTLINE