Policies for Teaching Assistants

[Paul B. Gallagher]

Brewer, Michael wrote:

> All,
> 
> For those of you with graduate programs, do any of you require your
> teaching assistants (not research assistants, but teaching assistants
> that are either responsible for an entire course, or who assist a
> faculty member with the delivery and grading) to do all of their work
> during set ours and on-site (e.g. between 8-5 and taking place in the
> department and in class)?  Do any of you schedule/monitor their hours
> (rather than asking them monitor them themselves, if at all)?
> 
> I am curious since, as a TA at two different institutions (many years
> ago), I never kept track of hours, nor did I have to work all my
> hours on site (I only had to be on site for class, doing office
> hours, meeting with faculty supervisors, etc.).
> 
> Now, I am in a position to begin employing TAs in the delivery of an
> online course and my dean (who, as dean of libraries, has not been in
> a position to oversee teaching faculty before) is wary of allowing
> TAs to work on these more flexible terms (since in the libraries we
> have always used research assistants that have to be on site to
> interact with library faculty and staff).
> 
> It is my sense that it is the norm for TAs to have this kind of
> flexible work schedule and would like to  see if that assumption is
> correct.
> 
> If you do NOT allow your TAs this kind of flexibility (of schedule
> and location), please let me know.

In my admittedly limited experience as a TA, the practice of allowing us 
to do our jobs at all hours as long as we got them done was a huge 
benefit to the institution because they got far more hours than they 
could possibly justify if they had had to pay for them. A dean who 
intends to compensate TAs fairly for time actually served will quickly 
find himself on the wrong side of the bean counters. This is why the 
practice is so common.

My two cents (which as I recall was the going rate for TAs...).

-- 
War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
--
Paul B. Gallagher
pbg translations, inc.
"Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
http://pbg-translations.com

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