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Graduate Students Teaching Stand-Alone Courses

To advance the quality of instruction in our undergraduate programs and to improve the professional mentoring and financial support for graduate students, the College is implementing a policy that all GRS graduate students who teach CAS courses as the instructors of record will be appointed as Senior Teaching Fellows and concurrently as Lecturers. Such a student will receive the standard TF stipend for the semester, and will register in and receive a tuition scholarship for the appropriate XX 699 TF course.

This practice will have the following advantages:

• it will correct the disincentive and inequity that our most advanced and capable students, assigned to lecturer positions, received lecturer salaries that have been lower than the TF stipend;
• it will help us retain experienced student teachers in our own programs, by creating more competitive situations here and reducing their financial incentive to accept lecturer positions at other institutions;
• student lecturers will receive closer supervision and mentoring from their faculty through the 699 course process, advancing the lecturer's professional training and benefiting the undergraduates being instructed. Faculty assigned as the 699 instructors will be recognized for their mentoring workload. These Senior TF lecturer positions will be allocated on the basis of instructional need, replacing already-budgeted lecturer positions (funding for which will contribute to the Senior TF stipend). Specific approval by the Dean’s Office will be required in each instance. These STF positions will be in addition to the department's base allocation of TFs for its regular needs for discussion sections and laboratory sections. STF lecturers will generally be advanced students who will not be taking courses, so their tuition requirements will be expected to be at the two-credit level.

Procedure

For each student Senior Teaching Fellow/Lecturer, the department should forward to the GRS Associate Dean the following packet:

• a letter from the Chair identifying the proposed teaching assignment and the student’s faculty mentor and 699 instructor;
• a current copy of the student’s curriculum vitae;
• a GRS Continuing Student Financial Aid Application (the usual TF document);
• the appropriate lecturer forms:
  • For an initial lecturer appointment; the “Recommendation for Initial Part-Time Appointment” form and the “Initial Academic Appointment Biographical Data” form.
  • To reappoint a part-time lecturer: the “Recommendation for Part-Time Faculty Reappointment”.

Deadlines: the STF packets detailed above should be submitted prior to July for the Fall semester and prior to November for the Spring semester.

The GRS financial aid form is not available electronically. Lecturer forms are available from the Provost’s website.

GRS will coordinate with the Faculty Actions Office to make the TF and the lecturer appointments. Our capacity to fund these positions is limited. We must rely on departments to make good-faith efforts to assign the best student-teachers to the most demanding classes and to give highest priority to the quality of undergraduate instruction. The College is stretching its resources to accomplish these improvements in our teaching program, and we look forward to working with you to refine and advance these practices.