Ideally, university administrators created the position of teaching assistant in order for those graduate students to serve as the voice of the professor but on a much more abbreviated pay scale. But while they are encouraged to communicate with TAs in lieu of tracking down the professor, undergraduates are facing mounting difficulties in actually understanding international assistants.

With more foreign-born graduate students filling the coveted roles of teaching assistants, students across the U.S. are dealing with communication barriers because of different language impediments. At the UA, out of the 1,400 teaching assistants currently employed, about 25 percent are international graduate students. While this doesn't necessarily imply that all international students struggle with English, this 25 percent does indicate that the UA needs to pay special attention to assisting International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) acclimate to a new culture. [Read article]

The UA's request for nearly $52 million in funding from the state to retain faculty and foster new collaboration between business and technology is a sensible request that will prove a boon for both the university and state in the future.

Legislators would be smart to approve the proposal, which seeks to proactively combat future brain drain.

The phenomenon dubbed "brain drain" occurs when professors leave one institution for another, often jumping ship to find better facilities and pay. [Read article]

Your opportunity to shout out about anything and everything [Read article]

As the new school year begins, it is valuable for everyone to take a moment to reconsider exactly what they are doing here in this massive, supposedly life-altering realm that is college. The fact is that many of us come to college without ever knowing why we are here or what we want to gain from the experience.

A perfect example is two friends of mine who graduated in the upper portion of their high school class and came to college just like the rest of us, looking to continue their educations and pursue their careers. Although they were neither dumb nor unmotivated, these friends of mine will not be returning to the UA this semester for really one reason - they forgot why they came. It also appears that this scenario happens more frequently than you might expect; almost 20 percent of every incoming freshman class fails to return the following fall. [Read article]