They know your name, and, in an increasing number of MSU classes, they control your education. MSU graduate teaching assistant positions increased from 1,075 to 1,174 between 2003 and 2008, according to data provided by the Office of Planning and Budgets. But how many of those TAs will find themselves alone in the classroom with a group of students each semester? Senior Associate Provost June Youatt doesn’t know. And she’s not alone.
No one at the university is tracking overall TA involvement in courses, officials said. “If they lecture three days a week or lead a recitation section, we don’t have that information centrally and there is no reason for us to have it because every individual (TA) assignment is determined at the department level,” Youatt said. “It’s always been organized that way.”
As tuition at MSU continues to increase — $2,000 more since 2005-06 for undergraduates taking 15 credits per semester for one academic year — some students question if their money is giving them a quality education.
Amanda Gross, a human biology sophomore, said she doesn’t believe a TA is an adequate substitution for an established MSU professor and her money could be better spent.
“If I’m paying $300 a credit, I’d like to have a professor teach it,” Gross said. “TAs are helpful as far as supplementary education, but I prefer a professor be the main instructor.”
Organizational confusion
Graduate School Dean Karen Klomparens said various professional training sessions and constant communication with a TA’s faculty mentor minimize the need for a central tracking system of the university’s TAs.
“Do you think TAs want to report everything they do in a classroom to some central database? Does someone centrally want to track this? For what purpose?” Klomparens wrote in an e-mail. “I don’t think it would be useful. I trust the faculty and the employing units to provide training to the TAs, to tell each TA what his or her responsibilities are in the classroom, to provide evaluation at the end of every semester so that the TA can improve (and) to have the undergrads use SIRS or (a) similar format to comment on the instruction.”
MSU graduate assistants fall into one of three categories — research assistant, teaching assistant or teaching exempt.
Students classified as research assistants don’t teach in classrooms and those in the teaching exempt category might play a role related to student instruction but are not included in the Graduate Employee Union contract, Estry said.
TAs are the graduate assistants that undergraduates most likely will encounter during their time at MSU. Each TA is required to have a faculty of record, who is a departmental faculty member and is responsible for the course, Klomparens said.
All TAs go through an orientation program either through their department or the MSU Teaching Assistant Program, said Kevin Johnston, director of TAP.
“TAs work in a wide range of capacities here, ranging from grading and tutoring all the way to being an instructor of record,” Johnston said. “Given that range, there are innumerable ways mentors and TAs interact with one another professionally. We shape our programs to meet all the teaching contexts TAs encounter.”
The university’s Course Load, Instruction, Funding and Modeling System, or CLIFMS, is partially to blame for students not being able to see on the system of courses which class will be taught by TAs.
Doug Estry, associate provost for undergraduate education, said the people listed as course instructors depends on how each academic department and program enters the names of its faculty, TAs and supervisors.
Possible benefits
Human biology junior Matthew Bush didn’t know his Physics 231 course would be taught by first-year TA Savanna Shaw when he registered, but said he wouldn’t change a thing about his schedule if he had known prior to signing up for his fall classes.
“(TAs) care more about your grade because they’re learning to teach, where a professor has been doing it for 20 to 30 years and doesn’t care as much,” Bush said. “The professor for this class is very impersonal and (Shaw is) willing to answer a question at the drop of a hat.”
When rhetoric and writing doctoral student Daisy Levy reflects on her time as an undergraduate, one group of people comes to mind: TAs.
“Most were more compassionate because they were also in the process of being a student,” Levy said.
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“We’re obviously not the same value as far as how much education and experience we have, but we do have a smaller teaching load.”
Elizabeth Pellerito, president of the GEU and a former English TA, said undergraduates can benefit from graduate students learning on the job.
“In classes taught by a TA, students who would never raise their hand in a lecture hall will participate,” Pellerito said.
“Everyone has their horror story, but everyone has their horror story about a professor as well.”
Estry said most complaints regarding a specific instructor or TA would go through the Office of the Ombudsman. He estimated the university receives between 15 and 20 TA-related complaints each year.
“Given the number of students in introductory courses … the numbers are pretty small,” Estry said. “Generally, students don’t have a problem with teaching assistants.”
Although several students say they don’t mind learning from a TA, it’s impossible to predict the TAs grasp of course material.
Finance sophomore Lee Campbell said he enjoys his ISB 201 lab taught by entomology graduate student Danielle Donovan, but has had several TAs who failed to teach him quality lessons in exchange for the amount of money he spent on the credit hours.
“I kind of feel like we’re getting cheated with TAs. I understand they have to start somewhere to get up to professor, but they’re not really qualified all the time,” Campbell said.
“For math subjects, I wouldn’t want a TA. They seem more randomly picked.”
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