Out-of-Field GTA Appointments Policy and Procedures

General Policy on GTA Appointments, Training, and Mentoring

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University policy[1] stipulates that the graduate teaching assistantship must be an integral part of the graduate student’s academic endeavor, serving as a logical complement to the graduate student’s program of study. While the GTA experience is often part of the student’s preparation to assume a full-time role in a specific field in academia, the GTA experience also provides valuable training in the science and art of teaching. Accordingly, departments or schools are expected to offer quality teaching-related experiences for GTAs and to designate faculty who will work closely with GTAs to advise them and to help improve teaching skills. Teaching-related training is integral to the GTA experience.

Guidelines and Criteria for Out-of-Field Appointments

It is assumed that the majority of GTAs have appointments within their home departments. However, undergraduate teaching needs frequently arise in departments and programs that do not have a specific and circumscribed pool of graduate students from which GTAs can be drawn. Recognizing that graduate students can make significant contributions to the undergraduate teaching mission of the University by teaching out of their field and that there is great value in this teaching experience as they learn the science and art of teaching undergraduate students, the University will allow out-of-field GTA appointments with the following stipulations:

· A request for an out-of-field appointment has to be approved by the student’s home department or program as well as the department or program offering the teaching appointment.

· The out-of-field appointment has to be approved by the Schools or College of the home department or program as well as the Schools or College of the department or program offering the teaching appointment.

· Because it is University policy to waive some or all of the differential tuition for GTAs who are enrolled in schools that charge differential tuition,[2] a unit wishing to extend an out-of-field GTA appointment to a graduate student who is enrolled in a school that charges differential tuition must notify the dean of the school in which the student is enrolled and obtain that dean’s approval of the out-of-field appointment.

· The Schools and the College must annually send a list of all out-of-field appointments to the Office of Graduate Studies.

· The home department or program must certify at the time of approving the out-of-field appointment that the student is making acceptable progress toward completion of her or his terminal degree.

· Any out-of-field GTA appointments must include a pedagogical/mentoring component offered by the hiring department, with assigned faculty supervisors or mentors. When the hiring department offers courses or seminars that are required of home department GTAs, out-of-field GTAs will be required to enroll in such courses or seminars.

· Students pursuing graduate degrees that are not generally intended to prepare a student for a career that involves teaching cannot be appointed as an out-of-field GTA. These students should be appointed as lecturers if their service as teachers is desired.

Procedures for Requesting Out-of-Field GTA Appointments

Individual Schools or the College will review all requests for out-of-field GTA appointments. Units requesting the out-of-field appointment must provide documentation that the student has been admitted to Graduate Studies and is in good academic standing.[3] No offer of an out-of-field GTA appointment, either written or verbal, may be made until the School or College has completed its review.

Procedure: A department that wishes to offer a GTA appointment to a graduate student in another academic unit must consult with the student's home department to develop a rationale describing how the appointment is consistent with the guidelines stated here and how it will benefit the student's educational program. The rationale should include information about the student’s background and qualifications to teach the course(s) in question and how the experience gained will contribute the student’s graduate training. An out-of-field appointment will not be approved without the explicit endorsement of the student’s home department.

Timeline: Requests for out-of-field GTA placements normally should be submitted to the Schools or College involved as soon as possible and at least four weeks before the department expects to make an appointment offer. The four-week requirement may be waived when a proposed appointment is related to a staffing emergency such as the late resignation of a GTA or the unanticipated illness of a faculty member who was scheduled to teach a course.