Hi Everyone:

I was a student in Professor Herzberg's Statistics class this year.

I'm going to try to make a very long story as short as possible by including only those details that are pertinent to the story.

I was also taking Dr. Israelite's "Disability and Society" course this year and one day back in the Fall Term during our class break, I had Professor Herzberg's Stats textbook out. One of my fellow classmates, Rachelle Najman recognized the textbook and exclaimed "Are you in Paul's class? I was one of his TAs."

Dr. Israelite was nearby and she overheard our conversation and she was quite surprised by Rachelle's declaration that she was an undergraduate TA. Rachelle explained to Dr. Israelite the process whereby Professor Herzberg carries out the challenging task each year of selecting undergraduate TAs for the upcoming year by having them enrol in an independent study course to assist him with his Statistics course.

Just to clarify, Dr. Israelite is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education who also teaches courses in the Division of Social Science in the Faculty of Arts.

As such, I did very well in the course and at the end of the year, Dr. Israelite asked me if I would be interested in doing an independent study course for her class using Professor Herzberg's model as a template. I agreed to her proposal but in order to get the course approved we had to alter some of the requirements of Dr. Herzberg's model by de-emphasizing certain aspects, while highlighting other aspects.

Dr. Israelite and I had met several times during the summer at which point on July 9th, 2002 we completed and submitted the Faculty of Arts Independent Study Application Form to the Division of Social Science. On July 10th, 2002 I received formal approval from the Undergraduate Director of the Division of Social Science to enrol in AS/SOSC 4090 6.0A Directed Reading for the Fall/Winter 2002-2003 academic year.

To summarize briefly, the goal of this independent reading is to explore issues in the identity construction of people with disabilities, with a focus on how these issues pertain to individuals who are hard of hearing. It entails library research, empirical research and paper preparation and presentation.

I will continue to post messages on the Stats Forum throughout the year with regards to my independent study course and especially if there are any statistically significant results.

Take care and best wishes for the rest of the summer.

Michael Miceli

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2002