The Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences falls short on transparency by failing to clearly disclose when graduate teaching assistants are teaching courses and leaving students in the dark about who is actually behind the lectern.
A case in point: Political science students who battle for spots in sophomore seminars are sometimes surprised to find a younger, unfamiliar face at the front of the room, rather than the distinguished professor they expected.
Although EagleApps, Canvas, and course syllabi indicate that these courses are being taught by full-time political science faculty, many seminars are actually led by graduate students. Many undergraduates don’t realize this until the first day of class.
Why should a student choose a course expecting to learn from a renowned professor only to never actually see them?
“Those classes are set aside so that although the professor will teach a section of the class by himself or herself, the teaching fellows will have their own class,” said Nasser Behnegar, director of graduate studies and associate professor of political science.
Behnegar said the system serves as an apprenticeship for the graduate students. They meet with the professor who is leading the seminars to discuss readings and weekly goals for their own seminars.
While he maintained these graduate students are qualified to teach seminars, Behnegar nonetheless agreed that the system leaves some transparency to be desired.
“I think it would be good to have a system that makes it easier for the students to know that they’re getting a teaching fellow or a professor,” Behnegar said.
Graduate teaching assistants are an incredibly valuable asset in educating the next generation of academics and professors. The Heights does not advocate for the elimination of this program.
Instead, we are calling on academic departments in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences to collaborate with Student Services, which maintains EagleApps, to clearly label courses taught by graduate students.
While professors go through a competitive hiring process, the selection of graduate teaching assistants can vary from department to department.
In the political science department, for example, graduate teaching assistants can be selected to teach sophomore seminars if their area of study aligns with the course, they have at least one year of graduate experience, and they pass an exam on the course material, according to Behnager.
According to Sociology Department Chair Sara Moorman, sociology graduate students currently advance to teaching positions in the fourth year of their graduate program.
In either case, these hiring procedures are far less competitive and pedagogically focused than the review process for professors. Prospective sociology faculty are typically selected from a pool of 300 to 350 applicants, complete interviews, and spend two days on campus, where they are given feedback by graduate and undergraduate students.
The differences in the hiring process and stages of career development that graduate students and professors are in often contribute to vastly different classroom experiences.
Although a graduate assistant may specialize in the topic they teach, they are also learning to teach for the first time.
“Graduate school does not include a whole bunch of training on how to teach,” Moorman said. “We have some programs, including the programs through the Center on Teaching Excellence, that are very helpful, but unfortunately, sometimes the best way to learn how to teach is to actually do it.”
Students have the right to know whether or not they will be taught by an experienced instructor or someone managing a college classroom for the first time.
While students can cross-reference an instructor’s status on the department website, the fast-paced registration process—limited to 15 minutes—prioritizes speed. They should be able to quickly determine whether a course is taught by a professor or a graduate teaching assistant, weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each.
And while some department chairs and administrators, such as history and sociology, clearly indicate which sections are taught by a GA (labeled TA) on EagleApps, others, like the political science and economics departments, do not have a mechanism to input this information.
“When we list instructors (Faculty Members or Teaching Fellows) for class sections we use their names in creating the schedule, but I don’t believe EagleApps asks for or provides other information,” said Robert Murphy, the chair of the economics department, in a statement to The Heights.
Student Services must work to standardize this mechanism across all MCAS departments on EagleApps to provide greater transparency about who is teaching each section of a course.
There’s a difference between studying under a professor and studying under a graduate assistant—years of experience, research, and dedication to students is not to be underestimated.
Amid the chaos of course registration, students deserve some transparency about what they’re signing up for. MCAS should work together with Student Services to make instructors’ credentials as transparent as possible.
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