Transparency in TA assignment workload balance
Some of us have been noticing during the past two years the inconsistent doling out of TA responsibilities in terms of the number of credits assigned for teaching workloads. What group of faculty/grad students makes these decisions, and how much has advisor advocacy factored into establishing teaching loads for each TA?
Can we get more grads involved in this process? Do we have 1) an established, formal wording about what constitutes a full workload across a single academic year, and 2) a formal explanation about reasonable adjustments that the deciding body can make after a TA contract is signed?
Kim Cone
shared this idea
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Maxwell Silver
commented
Hello Kim,
Update on this for you: we have discussed this issue with the Faculty Senate Graduate Council. They are aware of the inequities in TA workloads and are genuinely concerned with addressing the issue. GSG is working with them and the Office of Graduate Studies to standardize workloads. Mines has formal limits on workload here (https://www.mines.edu/graduate-studies/graduate-assistantship/). The new OGS team seems to genuinely care about graduate student life and experience. They are an excellent team to reach out to if you or a peer is being treated unfairly. -
Amanda F (GSG Academic Chair)
commented
Thank you for voicing your concern on this topic! I will bring this to our GSG exec committee and GSG council's attention and report back with more information. This is an important topic and you bring up some great questions/ideas - I'm sure we can take action to improve this for all grad students and specifically TAs. I'll gather more information and get that info back to you soon! Thank you.