Teaching and Graduate Assistantships: Creation, Funding, and Allocation
(Proposal 8-94)
Senate Policy 111.1
Funds which currently are allocated to the Graduate School to support GTAs and to
pay tuition for
these students should be divided into two parts.
One part should be retained by the Graduate School to be administered by the Dean
of the Graduate
School in consultation with the Graduate Council. Positions supported by these funds
will be called
graduate assistantships (GAs). The allocation of GAs will be made by the Dean of the
Graduate
School in consultation with the Graduate Council in such a way as to meet Graduate
School and
research goals. GAs will, in general, have teaching duties.
The remaining portion of the current funds should be transferred into academic departments
to fund
teaching assistants (TAs) as part of the normal General Fund budgeting process. The
department
heads will include the number of TAs needed in their yearly budget requests. This
resource will be
allocated by the Deans in conjunction with the Provost as part of the same process
that is used to
request staff and faculty. Requests for TAs will be based on instructional needs only.
Since the
decision of how many TAs to request will be made in concert with other instructional
staffing issues,
the tradeoffs should be straightforward.
The tuition for both GAs and TAs will be included in their respective budget allocations.
The number
of TAs allocated should be such that departments will not need to hire extra TA support
to meet their
teaching obligations. Departments are responsible for the tuition of any TAs paid
for by individual
departments above and beyond the number that are allocated during the budgetary process.
PROPOSAL BACKGROUND
Goals
Graduate School and research goals include an increase in graduate student numbers
to 1700, an
increase in federally funded research dollars to $30 million, and an increase in overall
proportion of
graduate students at MTU to 25% by 2003.
Subcommittee Charge
The GTA Allocation Subcommittee was charged with developing a method for allocating
the graduate
teaching assistant (GTA) positions at Michigan Technological University. There are
currently 126 GTA
positions and 15 fellowships administered by the Graduate School. The subcommittee
was asked to
take into account the dual nature of the GTA position as a resource for both covering
teaching
obligations and for supporting campus-wide research via graduate student support.
Definition of Problem
The Subcommittee summarized the two roles of the GTA as follows:
1. Covering Teaching Obligations
Graduate teaching assistants are appropriately used to cover teaching obligations
of the University.
In this role these assistants may give lectures, supervise laboratories, grade, and
hold office hours.
The GTA who is fulfilling a teaching obligation is therefore a substitute for a faculty
member. The
decision to cover a specific teaching obligation using a GTA is rightfully made at
the department level
by considering the demands of the position, faculty teaching loads, long-term versus
short-term
staffing needs, and teaching effectiveness.
2. Supporting Graduate Programs and Research
GTAs are necessarily graduate students and the allocation of a GTA may be made to
support or
strengthen a particular graduate program. In this role these assistants may also give
lectures,
supervise laboratories, grade, and hold office hours. GTAs justified on the basis
of a department's
research strength reduce the faculty teaching loads with the express purpose of supporting
research.
The dual role of GTAs has partially led to the current difficulty in determining the
proper allocation of
these positions. There are departments with a demonstrable teaching-need for GTAs
to cover
laboratories or recitations. At the same time the faculty cannot grow graduate programs
and meet the
challenge of the new research vision for Michigan Tech without relief from instructional
obligations.
A jurisdictional problem is encountered in creating an appropriate allocation scheme.
This problem
has come to the Graduate Council due to the consolidation of graduate teaching assistant
funding in
the Graduate School over the last few years. The Graduate Council is an elected body
of faculty who
advise the Vice Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate School on matters pertaining
to
graduate study and research. Decisions concerning teaching-obligation GTAs are most
appropriately
addressed by Department Heads/Chairs, Deans, and the Provost since this type of staffing
question
involves tradeoffs between GTAs, faculty, and staff. The Graduate Council has neither
information
about nor experience with such tradeoffs.
Proposal Implementation
If the proposal is adopted, it will be necessary to decide how the existing GTA and
tuition resources
should be split between GAs and TAs. To address this question, the Subcommittee looked
at the
current allocation and agreed that approximately 45 to 65 of the GTAs currently allocated
by the
Graduate School are primarily supporting strong research programs, with the balance
of 60 to 80
GTAs supporting instructional obligations. Taking into account that there is a need
for an increase in
research support at MTU, we selected 52 as the number of GTA positions to be converted
into GAs.
There are currently 15 fellowships administered by the Graduate School; the total
of proposed GAs
and current fellowships, 67, is currently 10% of the number of graduate students enrolled.
Again
considering that research support must increase if we are to meet our stated goals,
the
Subcommittee proposes that budget allocated to the Dean of the Graduate School for
GA support
should always be sufficient to cover stipends and tuition for at least 10% of the
graduate student
enrollment.
To arrive at an upper bound on the amount of GA support provided we propose that the
Graduate
School support students at a level which averages out over all programs to three to
four quarters of
graduate support for each Ph.D. student and half that level for masters students.
This level of support
will allow for a good deal of flexibility within graduate programs in the recruitment
of graduate
students. It will also encourage the development of outside sources of support for
graduate students,
without which growth in research is not possible. Using the above-proposed 4 quarters
of support for
each Ph.D. student as a starting place and taking 4 years as the minimum time for
completion of a
Ph.D. degree, we arrive at 25% as the upper bound of the number of graduate students
at a given
time who would be supported by the Graduate School. Since the masters degree typically
takes half
the time of the Ph.D., this estimate is valid for masters students as well.
Thus we have arrived at lower (10%) and upper (25%) bounds on the percentage of graduate
students who will be supported as GAs in a given year. Taking into consideration the
ambitious goals
MTU has adopted concerning the growth of graduate and research programs, the Subcommittee
proposes that 15% be adopted as the target percentage of graduate students supported
by the
Graduate School. Currently about 10% of graduate students are supported in this way;
to increase to
the 15% level the Graduate School must receive funds for stipend and tuition for 35
additional
graduate students. GAs will be awarded on the basis of research strength, but the
students will, in
general, have teaching duties.
Seventy four GTA positions would be converted to TA positions directly supported in
departmental
budgets. These are the current GTA positions which are supporting the teaching mission
of
departments with significant service loads. The Subcommittee proposes that 50 additional
TA
positions be added to this for a total of 124 TA positions to be allocated in the
academic budget
process. This course of action would address what the Subcommittee perceives to be
a serious
underfunding of TA positions in all departments.
Summary
The GTA Allocation Subcommittee proposes that the current GTA allocation dollars and
the
resources used to fund tuition and fees of graduate students be divided into two parts.
The first part
would consist of 67 graduate assistantships (GAs) administered by the Graduate School.
It is
proposed that 35 GAs be added to this number. The second part would consist of 74
TAs
administered through the academic budget process. The subcommittee proposes that 50
TAs be
added to this number. This plan addresses the current underfunding of student teaching
assistantships by increasing the number of such positions by 68%. The plan also addresses
the need
for increased research in pursuit of graduate and research excellence by redirecting
the emphasis by
which 67 GA positions are allocated and by increasing the number of such positions
by 52%.
Enrollments are currently being managed at MTU in such a way as to decrease the undergraduate
enrollment and increase the graduate enrollment. If these are the trends which are
effected, the
number of TAs can remain relatively stable at the levels proposed. The number of GAs,
however,
would need to increase with graduate enrollment in order to maintain the proposed
15% support
level. We believe that this plan, while relatively modest due to budgetary constraints,
addresses the
important issues in graduate teaching allocations.
The plan calls for the addition of 85 new graduate support positions in the 1993/1994 school year.
Adopted by Senate: January 26, 1994
Approved by President: February 7, 1994