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Online survey allows graduate TAs to share workload concerns

Graduate teaching assistants can now turn to the Internet to offer input on the weight of their workloads, as a result of a questionnaire posted online by the UA Graduate and Professional Student Council.

A task force organized by the GPSC to address graduate student workload and pay issues wrote the survey and posted it on the organization's Web site this week.

Gary Pivo, dean of the Graduate College, said the information gathered from the survey should lead to a "fruitful discussion" of graduate TA experiences.

"I suspect that it's going to form the basis for a rational discussion on where we are, and where we should be," Pivo said.

In addition to revealing how the demands of TA workloads vary across University of Arizona colleges and departments, Pivo said the survey will bring to light the relationship between workload and pay levels - an area in which many TAs have claimed disparity.

Masami Gross, a political science graduate student, was one of five graduate students who last fall spearheaded a petition drive bringing pay and workload discrepancies to the attention of UA administration.

Now a task force member, Gross said contributions from the graduate student body are essential to add legitimacy to the claims she and other TAs brought forth.

Although visiting the survey site requires students to break from their daily routine, Gross said every teaching assistant's input will go toward compiling basic results from which the task force can draw suggestions for improving workloads.

"We're all busy people and sometimes taking a few minutes out of the day to do this is a bother," Gross said. "But if we can't get ground-level information it kind of makes our point moot."

Pivo agreed, adding that the more diverse the respondent pool, the more accurately the task force can investigate the students' concerns.

"I would really ask all of the TAs to go to the Web site and to take the 10 minutes, 15 minutes to fill this out," he said.

Gross said the survey will be online until mid-March, and the task force will begin evaluating the results after spring break.

Pivo said awareness of the questionnaire could help make its short time online a success.

"I would guess that if people are aware of it, we should be able to get a good sample in a matter of a week or so," he said.

Pivo said the survey was professional, efficient and convenient for students to access.

"I am actually quite impressed with the quality of the questionnaire and I think it covers a lot of key issues," Pivo said. "I'm optimistic that it's going to give us some very interesting results."