Course Objective and Organization

NPRE483/GLBL483 Seminar in Security: Fall 2008

Professor Clifford Singer

Meeting time: The course will meet at 4:00 pm on Tuesdays.
The first class meeting will be in 100H Talbot Lab on August 26.

Focus of the Fall 2008 Offering of NPRE/GLBL483

NPRE/GLBL483 Seminar on Security, aims to tap the wealth of information from people on and visiting our campus that can provide insight into the complex web of issues connected with national and international security. The emphasis and breadth of coverage for the course varies from semester to semester. For Spring 2008 the emphasis will understanding how our faculty approach the multidisciplinary study of the connections between en all ergy, security, and the environment.


Course Organization and Grading

The class periods for the Spring 2008 offering of NPRE/GLBL 483 will be divided into three different types. The first will emphasize a set of background lectures by faculty. During the middle part of the semester, students will attend approved seminars or other events connected to securty, broadly defined and write their own mulitple choice quiz questions, to be emailed to the instructor at csinger@uiuc.edu. These emails must include the subject heading NPRE483, or points will be deducted and the email message may not be recovered at all. Such assignments must be completed before the due dates listed below. For the first three External Lecture Assignments, the Nuclear Engineering departmental seminar are options for attendance.

The third part of the course will emphasize presentations based on student research projects on major security problems that will face the next U.S. Adminstration and Congress. Examples include (a) biofuels and intenational food prices, (b) oil imports, (c) nuclear weapons, (d) border security, (e) relations with Russia, and (f) the war in Afghanistan. Students will work in groups, but each group member will be responsible for and graded on one of four tasks. Consult the link for the requirements for each task: (1) Web site construction; (2) Term paper; (3) Wikipedia article; (4) Oral presentation in U-Tube or audio streaming format.

How-To for the Wikipedia article, YouTube video/audio, and Web site construction.

Due dates for each project task are given in the table below.

Grading will be based 35% on quizzes, 35% on the research project, and 30% on the course exam. The worst quiz grade is dropped. A second missed quiz can only be made up if valid conflicts are presented for the session missed, and in advance for the second quiz missed (and similarly for subsequent missed quizzes). Students who anticipate in advance having conflicts for more than two quizzes should make alternative arrangements for make-up work near the beginning of the semester.

Schedule for Lectures and Assignments

Note that some of the lectures are scheduled for100H Talbot Lab, some for 253 Mechanical Engineering Building (MEB), and others 'External Lecture Assignments" at venues yet to be announced. Students are repsonsible for as needed for printing out or download the following information on to a device that the will have with them on Tuesdays in order to arrive on time in the right place. Students attending lectures other than those in 100H Talbot should plan to arrive five minutes early in order to be more convifident of obtaining a seat and to avoid disruptions from coming in after a lecutre has started. Students should check this webpage for any updates every week on Monday after 5:00 pm.

Session


Date/Location      

Lectures
Tentative Speakers
"Talk Titles"

Session A

Aug.26

100H Talbot

Clifford Singer, "Scope of the Course"

Session B

Sep. 2

253 MEB

David Ruzic, "Future of Fusion Energy"

Session C

Sep. 9
253 MEB

GE-Hitachi, "Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor"

Session D

Sep. 16
100H Talbot

Patrick Sloan
Multimedia Project Methods
Project teams meet
Project participation commitments due

Session E

Sep. 23

253 MEB

Barclay Jones
'Spent Nuclear Fuel
and the Future of Fission Reactors "

Session F

Sep. 30

253 MEB

Clifford Singer
"Econonomics of Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing and Nuclear Fusion"

Session G

Oct. 7

External Lecture Assignment #1 by email by 9:00 pm
or Zhong He, "Room-Temperature Semiconductor Gamma-Ray Imaging Spectrometers," 253 MEB

Session H

Oct. 14

External Lecture Assignment #2 by email by 9:00 pm
or Edward McKigney, title to be announced, 253 MEB

Session I

Oct. 21

External Lecture Assignment #3 by email by 9:00 pm
or NPRE seminar speaker and title to be announced, 253 MEB

Session J

Oct. 28

External Lecture Assignment #4 by email by 9:00 pm
Project teams meet in 100H Talbot to review progress on project assignments

Session K

Nov. 4
100H Talbot

External Lecture Assignment #5 by email by 9:00 pm
First project due dates

Session L

Nov. 11

External Lecture Assignment #6 by email by 9:00 pm

Session M

Nov. 18
100H Talbot

Preview Student Presentations

Fall Break

Nov. 25

 

Session N

Dec. 2

100H Talbot

Critique Papers and Encyclopedia Articles

Website Reviews

Session O

Dec. 9
100H Talbot


Cumulative Exam

Events approved for External Website Assignments will be updated here as they become available. Students are encouraged to suggest to the instructor additional lectures and other events pertinent to international, national, and human security, broadly defined. Suggestions should be sent to csinger@uiuc.edu.

When they start being posted, the events listed on ACDIS list of Campus Events qualify as External Website Assignments unless specifically excluded here.

4:00 pm Wednesday, Sept. 17, Brad Roscoe, "Nuclear Applications in the Oil Industry,"
Joint NPRE and Physics Department Seminar, location to be announced

Updated 26 August 2008 by Clifford Singer