On the Philosophical Side
Is being a TA more like taking a qualifying exam or more like having a part-time job?
University administrators prefer the former analogy. The Kutzinski Report is grounded in it. And in the most recent Graduate School newsletter, TF Director Katherine Kearns called our teaching "a part of graduate education [like] course work, comprehensive exams, and other elements of the degree process."
By this administrative logic, teaching should become merely a requirement for the PhD, graduate students should not be 'paid' for fulfilling this requirement, and different departments (even different specializations within departments) should require different teaching workloads, without correspondingly different salaries (just as different exam schedules do not correspond to different stipends).
Most grad students and faculty, however, feel that the Administration is pushing this analogy to its breaking point. The reality "on the ground" is more often that teaching functions as part-time work experience that's integrated into the 'work-study' program of the PhD. Grad students often take on extra teaching to make a bit of extra money, yet can still appreciate their teaching as on-the-job training for future faculty positions.
There is nothing dishonorable with getting part-time work experience as a TA in grad school; the University should not run away from the concept. As course graders, lab leaders, section leaders and course instructors, we have a valuable role in the education of Yale undergrads. Yale works, in no small part, because we do.
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This page was last updated on: November 30, 1999 |
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Graduate Employees and Students Organization |
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