UA study finds TAs overworked, underpaid

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Roxanne Green, a University of Arizona graduate assistant teacher, talks to her English 102 Composition class about paper topics Monday in the Harvill Building. A 1997 survey of 20 Research I institutions across the country ranked the UA 16th.

Although the University of Arizona's graduate assistant teachers are lauded by the English department and students, their salaries offer little in the way of compensation for their workloads.

"The problem we have with undergraduate education is not that graduate students are teaching, but that they are teaching two classes," said Tom Miller, director of English composition. "It limits their ability to achieve excellence and undermines the quality of instruction at the undergraduate level."

A 1997 survey of 20 Research I institutions across the country evaluating the workload and compen-sation package for TAs teaching com-position classes ranked the UA 16th.

"That study should really be a black eye," said Ron Scott, TA and co-chairman of the English Graduates Union.

The study examined how many classes TAs teach, average class size, salary, tuition waivers and various benefits such as health insurance, sick leave and travel stipends.

The UA's 135 teaching assistants are required to teach two com-position sections of about 25 students each semester, placing the UA in the bottom 25 percentile among the peer institutions studied. About 10,000 students pass through the composition program each year.

"That's hard work and they're doing a superb job," said Larry Evers, English department head.

Instructors are paid a minimum of $2,769 per section and receive little money for travel expenses.

"The biggest issue is our workloads. It puts us in binds," Scott said, adding that it is difficult for TAs to maintain their own studies and have sufficient time to dedicate to their students. "We can't ignore our students."

Another composition TA who requested that his name not be published agreed with Scott that it is tough to balance teaching and personal schoolwork.

"It's almost impossible to be as good a student as a teacher," he said.

Evers said funds are not available to hire more TAs or offer better salary and benefits.

"We can't just go out and say 'Whoopee,' and hire more GATs (graduate assistant teachers)," said Ellen Price, administrative assistant in the composition program. The money must be allotted by Charles Tatum, dean of the humanities college.

"It doesn't relate to the English department directly," said Christine Kiesel, program coordinator for the department. "We have to go along with budgetary constraints."

Miller predicted a minimum of $500,000 would be needed to reduce the teaching assistants' workload by 25 percent.

"I'm wholeheartedly supportive of reducing the GAT's workload," he said. "But it's a problem across the university."

Working conditions have improved somewhat this semester though.

Plans to move the TAs' offices out of the rundown Babcock building and into the Center for Computing and Information Technology building are in progress, and the UA will partially subsidize health insurance beginning next semester. Provost Paul Sypherd said that almost $1 million was allotted for teaching assistants' health insurance.

"The GATs' plight is high on our radar," he said.

Although the health care package is not perfect, it will suffice, Scott said.

"It's not great, but it's something," he said.

Despite poor working conditions, instructors have managed to find enough time to keep their students happy.

Last year's student evaluations gave TAs high marks.

"The average for instructor effectiveness is well above a 4.0" on a five point scale, Evers said.

Miller also hailed their work.

"Our students are giving our composition teachers excellent ratings," he said. "Our students are saying that our teachers are great."

Evers and Miller attribute the TA performance level to the amount of training instructors receive.

In addition to a week-long orientation before classes start, the instructors receive weekly training as part of the preceptorship program.

The meetings involve presentations on innovative teaching techniques, small group workshops and guest speakers from across the nation that are considered experts in undergraduate teaching.

"They work with one another in peer groups," Evers said. "It's a very rich team environment they're working in."

Each TA is assigned a teaching mentor who reviews the instructor's grading process, course evaluations and texts.

Despite the English department's high regard for the program, not all of the assistants thought it was helpful.

"They do a good enough job of making sure teachers know what they're doing, but they only teach you one way to teach," said a TA who did not want to be identified. "I think we learn better from each other than in the structured preceptorship program."

Although the program cannot satisfy everyone's needs, the department does its best to meet the TAs' demands, Scott said.

"Tom (Miller) is always trying to make the preceptorship program more effective," he said. "The support was wonderful."

The preceptorship program costs the English department about $200,000 each year, Miller said.

Scott said despite the high cost to maintain the preceptorship program, the university would not put tenured or tenure-track professors in the composition classrooms.

"It won't happen because the university is so cheap. They would have to pay so much more," he said. "They get such a great deal out of us (TAs)."

Miller also said it would be too expensive to use tenured or tenure-track professors for freshman composition classes.

"The cost of having a faculty member teaching a (composition) class is 10 times the cost (of a TA)," he said.

Stephanie Corns can be reached via e-mail at Stephanie.Corns@wildcat.arizona.edu.