Hello all,

My name is Joe Escobar and I am your instructor for HST203 United States History, Winter Term 2009 at Lane Community College.  You are receiving this email because you have signed up for the course and you have wisely included your email address in your ExpressLane account information.

I've been a history instructor since 1989, and you will find that I enjoy teaching and working with students.  I wanted to contact you in advance of our first class meeting with some information relevant to this particular course.  

First, unlike other 4 credit HST202 sections, my courses are taught in a hybrid format.  Students and instructor meet for 3 hours each week, and 1 hour is spent completing class assignments online.  We will use Lane's Moodle software extensively to accomplish our work for this course.  You will be able to login to the site with your L# and first six digits/characters of your ExpressLane PIN on the first day of the term.  I hope that you do so before we meet on Tuesday.  The site URL is:

http://classes.lanecc.edu

Second, once logged in, I hope you take the time to read and/or print a copy of the course syllabus before class, so you can come prepared with questions.  (You can print the web-page version of the syllabus, or I have a PDF version in the Class Handouts folder.)

Third, think about this.  You are spending approximately $400 in tuition to take this course, and most of you know nothing about this "Instructor Joe Escobar" listed on the schedule of classes.  If you fail to drop the course before the second week of class begins, you cannot received a full refund of your tuition.  To help you decided if you are spending your money wisely, I have posted almost all of my evaluations completed by my former students over the last several years.  All comments, good and bad, have been included.  Nothing has been censored.  I would strongly advise that you take a look and see if you like what you discover about your instructor.  That URL is:

https://teach.lanecc.edu/escobarj

Finally, I wanted to let you know about the course textbook, in advance.  First, the textbook used for this course might be different than the one you may already have if you took another U.S. History course at LCC in the past year or so. 

Cengage Advantage Books: Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Compact (Thomson Advantage Books)
    * Authors: Alice Fahs - Gary Gerstle - James M. McPherson - John M. Murrin - Paul E. Johnson
    * Edition: 5
    * Format: Paperback (1440 pages)
    * ISBN 10: 0495411019
    * ISBN 13: 9780495411017
	We will be covering chapters 10-19 in HST202.

I will use this same book for both of the courses I teach, HST202 in Winter and HST203 in Spring.

The good news is that this book is much less expensive than the other U.S. History textbooks currently in use at LCC. The bookstore shows my textbook as $40 new and $30 used.  Comparatively, the other book, Created Equal by Jones, et. al. is $65 new and $49 used.

You have other options too, including buying an electronic version "eBook" for $20.49, or even individual chapters for $1.99 each.  See (long URL, be sure to get it on one line in your browser):

http://www.ichapters.com/tl1/en/US/storefront/ichapters?cmd=catProductDetail&ISBN=9780495411017
or
http://www.campusbooks.com/books/history/americas/united-states/9780495411017_John-M-Murrin-Paul-E-Johnson-James-M-McPherson-Alice-Fahs-Gary-Gerstle_Cenga.html

Well, that's all of the news I have for you now.  Enjoy your Winter Break.  I look forward to meeting you in person and working with you during the term.

Until then,

Joe Escobar
History Instructor
Lane Community College