Sometimes you don't get what you pay for. Undergraduate teaching assistants are helping in the instruction of courses for other undergraduate students, which is like the blind leading the blind. Because there was an increase in an already expensive tuition this year, students should still expect a quality education.
According to Steven Spees, associate director of Lyman Briggs School, undergraduate TAs are sometimes the only instructors in class. Undergraduate TAs are not of the capacity to teach courses at MSU. Although under can be found in help rooms or assisting professors in grading papers, they should not be used to lead a class when they are walking in the same shoes as their students. It's not that undergraduate students aren't able to teach fellow undergraduates. They have knowledge, but they are not the best people to do the job - which is why we have graduate student TAs. They not only have the knowledge but the necessary experience to do so.
Using undergraduate TAs also takes away jobs from deserving graduate-student TAs.
MSU's Graduate Employees Union announced it will protest the use of undergraduate TAs in late October. According to GEU president Scott Henkel, there were 340 undergraduate TAs last year, up 28 percent since 1998.
"At the heart of it, (MSU is) paying slightly above minimum wage to undergraduate students and providing a slip-shod education," Henkel said.
It is understandable that professors have large classes which need help and that they are willing to speak up about the issue. But it only makes sense to use qualified help.
MSU Assistant Provost for Undergraduate Education June Youatt said that undergraduate TAs assist faculty and do not teach or plan lessons. But that doesn't seem to be the case throughout various departments in the university.
In the Lyman Briggs School, undergraduate TAs are allowed to grade students, even though they might not have had to take the class to teach it. In some cases, they might be the only instructors. In this situation, undergraduate students are being shortchanged when they have a teacher that might not even know the material.
The faculty should not be at fault for using undergraduate TAs. They do not have to be paid as much, and in the midst of a budget crunch, some corners had to be cut.
There are some issues that need to be addressed between administrators and faculty because, obviously, they are not on the same page when it comes to how much class work undergraduate TAs are responsible for.
It's sad to see the university and the union constantly in dispute. Striking is not the answer, but neither is silence.
The union is here to protect the rights of graduate students and to make sure MSU's resources are properly used.
If one of those resources is making sure undergraduate students get the proper education, then it only makes things better for the university as a whole.
University officials say keeping quality education is their top priority. The two groups are saying the same thing; they just have to say it to each other.
