UA TAs have long road ahead
Although the UA recently procured health benefits for teaching assistants, the novice instructors' working conditions have not improved this year, an English department official said.
Tom Miller, director of English composition, said TAs can look forward to the same strenuous workload because budgetary constraints have made hiring more assistants or putting tenured or tenure-track professors in the classroom impossible.
A 1997 nationwide survey of Research I institutions ranked the University of Arizona 16th out of 20 for English teaching assistants' duties, tuition waivers, health insurance and travel stipends.
Reducing TA's workload by 25 percent would cost the university about $500,000, Miller said.
Any future plans to improve working conditions would develop "slowly" - taking at least one semester to implement, he added.
"The change in the workload would happen at a much higher level (than the English department)," he said.
Miller said any change in workloads would have to come from the university provost's office. Provost Paul Sypherd earmarked $770,000 to cover insurance costs for the instructors and researchers next semester.
Stephanie Corns can be reached via e-mail at Stephanie.Corns@wildcat.arizona.edu.
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