Chapter Eight: Graduate Assistants
8.0 Policies for Graduate Assistants, Graduate Research Assistants, and Graduate Teaching Assistants
Consult the Graduate Student Catalog and Graduate Assistantship Information on the Graduate School webpage for additional information.
8.1 Graduate Student Appointments
Policy 6210, “Management of Graduate Assistantships and Tuition Remission” is administered by the Graduate School, establishes the standards for the eligibility and management of graduate assistantships and associated benefits including tuition remission. Graduate assistantships are a unique form of university appointment that allow graduate students to gain valuable training and professional experience in teaching, research or administration while providing service to the university.
Since the responsibilities or requirements of graduate students vary by academic discipline, each department is required to define expectations for its students on assistantships. These graduate student appointments do not carry faculty status or other faculty rights or responsibilities.
Graduate Assistant. Graduate assistants (GAs) are graduate students who provide academic and program support. GA responsibilities may be administrative or academic in nature. Administrative responsibilities might consist of duties unrelated directly to teaching or research (such as academic advising, program planning, advising student groups, and assisting with the administration of student services offices). Academic responsibilities may include grading examinations, problem sets, and/or lab assignments, setting up displays for lectures or laboratory sections, and preparing or maintaining equipment used in laboratory sections.
Graduate Research Assistant. Graduate research assistants (GRAs) are graduate students conducting academically significant research under the direction of a faculty member, who is generally a Principal Investigator on an external grant or contract.
Graduate Teaching Assistant. Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) may provide academic program support under the supervision of a faculty member. GTAs may assist faculty members in the department in teaching undergraduate courses, including laboratory teaching assignments, or in providing other appropriate professional assistance, including grading examinations, problem sets, and/or lab assignments, setting up displays for lectures and laboratory sections, and preparing or maintaining equipment used in laboratory sections.
8.2 Required Qualification and Teaching Credentials for Instructors of Record Including Graduate Students
Consult Qualifications for Teaching on the provost’s webpage for information on qualifications for teaching. The teaching department or school has the responsibility to document the qualifications for teaching for any Instructor of Record. Per the university’s regional accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), a GTA who is assigned full responsibility for teaching an undergraduate course as an Instructor of Record must have a master’s degree in the discipline being taught or 18 hours of graduate-level course work in their teaching discipline, direct supervision by a faculty member experienced in the teaching discipline, regular in-service training, and planned and periodic evaluations. GTAs lacking this training are assigned to work under the supervision of a faculty member who is the Instructor of Record for the course. Graduate students who will be appointed as GTAs must complete the GRAD 5004 GTA workshop. The Graduate School’s approval is required before a graduate student is allowed to teach graduate courses.
8.3 Additional Employment by Graduate Students with a Full-Time Assistantship
Given individual circumstances, graduate students on a full-time graduate assistantship may, at times, wish to pursue additional employment. Consult policy 6210, “Management of Graduate Assistantships and Tuition Remission”. Graduate students receiving full-time assistantships are not prohibited from seeking additional employment. In the interest of their professional development and maintenance of satisfactory academic progress, students seeking additional employment should consult with their academic advisors, and when appropriate their assistantship providers, regarding the fulfillment of their assistantship and graduate study responsibilities. The Graduate School must be notified in advance of any additional employment plan. The Graduate School should be consulted to assist with the resolution of any conflicts of interest that may arise. Attempted resolution of conflict occurs at the departmental or school level first, and then can be referred, if necessary, to the Graduate School and/or Office of the Graduate Ombudsman.
In evaluating the merits of additional employment, including outside employment, graduate students and their advisors should consider the following:
Employment by a company owned in whole or part by the faculty chair of the student’s dissertation or thesis committee presents the potential for serious conflicts of interest. In such cases, another faculty member of equal or greater rank must serve as chair or co-chair of the advisory committee.
It is inappropriate for any student to receive remuneration directly from the external funding organization while also being employed as a graduate assistant or wage earner on a contract with that same organization.
It is inappropriate for any student to work for an employer who is in direct competition with a current funding source. International graduate students on assistantships may be prohibited from any additional employment by their specific visa status.