Hiring, Training, and Supervision of Instructional Support Staff

The teaching done by supervised instructional support staff is an important part of the undergraduate educational experience, as well as a critical aspect of the training of graduate students. Departments and individual instructors have developed successful strategies that encourage and ensure a high standard of instruction by teaching fellows, teaching assistants, and course assistants. These local strategies have been reinforced by guidelines developed by the Committee on Undergraduate Education and the Committee on Graduate Education (CGE) and endorsed by the Faculty Council. All hiring, training, and supervision of graduate student teaching fellows and undergraduate course assistants fall under the HGSW-UAW collective bargaining agreement. Please email studentunionization@harvard.edu with any questions about the contract and its provisions.

HGSU-UAW Collective Bargaining Agreement 

Graduate Teaching Fellows and undergraduate Course Assistants are governed by the HGSU-UAW Collective Bargaining Agreement under which they are considered “Student Workers” by the National Labor Relations Board. The agreement is comprehensive and includes provisions on a range of topics, including but not limited to hiring, training, workload, supervision, discipline and discharge, leave and other time off.  All University representatives responsible for the hiring, training, and supervision of Student Workers should familiarize themselves with the agreement, executive summary. Additional resources are available on the Provost’s Office website on unionization.  General questions about the agreement can be directed to studentunionization@harvard.edu, which is monitored by members of the Provost’s Office and the Office of Labor and Employee Relations (OLER). 

For additional information on supervision and discipline of bargaining unit members, including when the union must be included in discussions or correspondence with unit members, please refer to the guidance at the end of this document. In any case of potential discipline of a bargaining unit member, please contact the contract manager, Brian Magner, at the Office of Labor and Employee Relations (brian_magner@harvard.edu) before taking any action. 

Categories of Instructional Support Staff

Teaching fellows are candidates for advanced degrees and are registered as students at Harvard, in the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) or other Harvard graduate schools, except for the Division of Continuing Education (DCE). They serve as section leaders, tutors, and laboratory section leaders, and always work under the supervision of instructors who hold faculty-level teaching appointments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) or another Harvard faculty. (See Responsibility for Evaluation for the appropriate role of teaching fellows in the grading of students.)

Teaching assistants engage in the same kinds of supervised instruction as teaching fellows but are not enrolled as candidates for an advanced degree in any Harvard School. Students in DCE hired as instructional support staff are hired as teaching assistants. Ordinarily, teaching assistants will have received at least the AB before the appointment begins.

Undergraduate course assistants are currently registered Harvard undergraduates who, under the supervision of instructors who hold faculty-level teaching appointments in the FAS or another Harvard faculty, assume limited instructional responsibilities. They ordinarily assist in quantitative-based courses such as mathematics, science, and computer science classes. (See Responsibility for Evaluation for the appropriate role of course assistants in the grading of students.)

In accordance with the Faculty’s policy, course heads should appoint qualified Harvard Griffin GSAS students for teaching positions before hiring non-Harvard Griffin GSAS candidates.

Instructional Support Staff Appointment Guidelines 

The CGE and the Faculty Council have adopted the following general guidelines for the process or appointment of instructional support staff. These guidelines generally apply to the hiring of Teaching Assistants and Undergraduate Course Assistants as well but contain details specific to the appointment of Harvard graduate students, and the relationship of teaching to their funding.  For general questions about instructional support staff appointments, please contact the Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE) at instruct@fas.harvard.edu.   

1. Early Allocations of Sections: Each spring, the OUE will pre-allocate sections for eligible departmental courses for both terms of the coming academic year based on prior enrollment. Departments should then provide information on available teaching positions to eligible graduate students as early as possible. Please note that pre-allocated sections are not guaranteed. (See below for more information on the possible reassignment of instructional support staff.) 

2. Application Period: Departments should accept applications for instructional support staff positions for several weeks to ensure the broadest possible applicant pool before a decision is made. To avoid financial inequities, final decisions should involve consultation between the course head and the chair or director of graduate studies, or another designated member of the department or program

3. Hiring Criteria and Timetable: The criteria for appointing instructional support staff should include an evaluation where applicable of each candidate’s preparation, English language proficiency, student graduate year, teaching experience, teaching guarantee (see note below), and satisfactory academic standing. Note in this regard that for teaching fellows, Harvard Griffin GSAS 1) requires that all incoming Ph.D. students who are non-native speakers of English and who have received their undergraduate degrees from non-English speaking institutions pass English proficiency tests before they can be appointed as teaching fellows; and 2) prohibits graduate students who receive dissertation completion fellowships from teaching as well as taking on concurrent employment. (Further details on English language requirements and dissertation completion fellowships for teaching fellows may be found on the Teaching page of the Harvard Griffin GSAS website.) 

 

The Appointment Process

Each spring, the OUE will request that departments submit their enrollment estimates and course section requests for the coming academic year via the online section allocation tool (SAT). The OUE will make its pre-allocations directly in the SAT. After the course enrollment deadline (April for fall semester, November for spring semester – OUE will provide specific dates each semester), the SAT will automatically display actual enrollment numbers that the OUE will use to adjust section allocations. These allocations will be updated depending on enrollment changes after first-year registration (in the fall semester), and the add-drop period (first week of class meetings each semester).  For questions or further details about this process, contact the Office of Undergraduate Education. 

Departments should make instructional support appointments for the coming academic year by the end of the spring term. Preference for instructional support appointments should be given to graduate students to whom a guarantee of teaching was offered at admission. (See note below.) 

After those students have been accommodated who are expected to teach as part of their funding packages, departments and course heads should consider other qualified applicants from within Harvard Griffin GSAS; special attention should be paid to qualified applicants from related departments and disciplines.After the Harvard Griffin GSAS applicant pool has been exhausted, students from other Harvard schools and non-affiliates may be considered. 

Written notification should be provided to each successful applicant making explicit the teaching assignment and the terms of the teaching appointment, as well as expectations for training and orientation, and satisfying the requirements of the collective bargaining agreement. A sample appointment letter is available on the Provost’s Office website. Graduate student applicants who are not appointed as teaching fellowsshould be informed in writing at the same time so that they can make alternative arrangements for financial support before the academic year begins. If a student who has been offered an appointment receives funding from another source or for other reasons declines the opportunity, that appointment may be offered to another Harvard Griffin GSAS student after direct consultation with Harvard Griffin GSAS and in accordance with the priorities described above. 

An important note on teaching "guarantees": As an integral part of their graduate funding packages, Ph.D. students in the humanities and social sciences are ordinarily guaranteed two sections of teaching per term for four terms before their sixth year of study at Harvard Griffin GSAS. Meeting this guarantee should be a cooperative endeavor between the student and their program. 

As soon as possible after enrollment (and again after the add/drop period), departments should reassign teaching fellows from courses that are under-enrolled to those that are over-subscribed, within certain limits. Reassignments should be made based on the graduate student’s prior indication of courses or areas in which he or she is prepared to teach. Departments should offer reassignments in ways that will minimize the number of teaching fellows with multiple preparations. If no reassignment is possible, the financial commitment will be honored for those students operating under a teaching guarantee, even if no instructional support is needed in the course. In this case, the teaching fellow should perform meaningful work for the department or committee, preferably in support of undergraduate instruction. Such reassignment must be approved by OUE.  Salaried teaching fellows (not teaching assistants or undergraduate course assistants) outside of their guarantee period will be paid 70% of the amount promised.  More details can be found in Article 4 of the collective bargaining agreement.   

Finally, be aware that immigration regulations limit the employment of international students to 20 hours per week while school is in session. This limitation also applies to teaching fellowships and research assistantships. 

For additional information about teaching fellow appointments, please refer to the Teaching page of the Harvard Griffin GSAS website.  

Training and Supervision of Instructional Support Staff 

Several principles have been formulated to assist departments in the training and supervision of instructional support staff. 

Departments should develop regular procedures for screening and training instructional support staff as well as routine methods of supervising and monitoring their performance. Not only do such practices help to maintain good standards, but they also encourage graduate students to improve their teaching skills. Student teaching should be a rewarding opportunity rather than an automatic step in graduate education. 

By vote of the faculty on October 17, 1995,  instructional support staff are expected to attend lectures of the courses in which they hold appointments unless, in the judgment of the course head, the nature of their work does not depend upon their attendance at the lectures. 

• Individual course heads remain responsible for the orientation, preparation, oversight, and evaluation of support staff in the execution of their specific course responsibilities.  

• Instructional support staff should be provided with structured teaching assignments, recognizing that section teaching is more effective the more the instructor is involved. Regular, perhaps weekly, meetings to review course material, visits by the instructor to sections, and the teaching of a section by the instructor can be helpful to instructional support staff. In certain departments, these forms of involvement are routinely expected. Departments may adjust the teaching credit given to faculty members, if need be, to encourage their involvement in section teaching. OUE’s instructional meeting fund is available to support weekly luncheon meetings with instructional support staff. The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning encourages instructors and instructional support staff to seek help in improving their teaching quality

The Faculty Council has adopted the following guidelines for the training and preparation of first-time instructional support staff: 

• All departments and instructional programs must develop plans for preparing and orienting first-time instructional support staff in the pedagogical skills that will allow them to fulfill their teaching obligations. Training is considered part of the total workload of graduate student teaching fellows and undergraduate course assistants. 

• Orientation in issues of appropriate professional conduct should also be provided, and departments must provide a 30-minute slot for the union to introduce itself to teaching fellows. These plans should provide for practice teaching or other orientation to teaching methods at or before the start of the appointment for those without prior teaching experience. Plans should also provide for the observation and appraisal of teaching performance. The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning offers a wide range of instructional support and professional programs for Harvard College’s classroom instructors. Departments are encouraged to have their new and experienced teaching fellows and other instructional support staff utilize these resources. Contact studentunionization@harvard.edu and see Professional Conduct for more information. 

• Departments should devise a record-keeping system for instructional support staff based on instructors’ reports on, and observations of their performance. Such departmental monitoring can be used to reward outstanding teaching and to provide a solid basis upon which to recommend graduate students for future teaching jobs. At the same time, regular evaluation ensures that poor teaching performance does not go unnoticed. 

Student Compensation and Credit for Course Work 

A student may not receive course credit for the same work for which the student is financially compensated. 

Graduate students may enroll in departmentally designated 300(0)-level courses to have their teaching, research, or independent study efforts recognized and recorded (formerly designated by enrolling in TIME-T, TIME-R, and TIME-C). These courses are typically ungraded, but will appear on students’ Harvard Griffin GSAS transcripts.   

An undergraduate course assistant may not receive academic credit in any form, including independent study and supervised reading and research course credit. Research for which a student receives a grant may inform their academic work. Research performed for other financial compensation may inform academic work in subsequent semesters only, and only with the express permission of the employer, including a laboratory head. 

Special Considerations Concerning the Appointment of Undergraduate Course Assistants 

Because special considerations enter into the appointment of undergraduates as course assistants, instructors should observe the following guidelines when hiring and supervising course assistants: 

• Departments and committees that employ undergraduate course assistants should consult with the candidate’s Allston Burr Resident Dean to confirm that the candidate has attained sophomore standing and has earned a cumulative GPA of 3.33 or higher. Departments may also wish to consult with the candidate’s Allston Burr Resident Dean and academic adviser about the candidate’s ability to successfully balance the duties of the course assistant position with his or her other commitments. 

• Under faculty supervision, undergraduate course assistants may lead sections or problem-solving sessions and assume other limited instructional duties. Over the term, they may work an average of 10-12 hours per week. However, undergraduate course assistants may not take on any administrative responsibilities for a course, such as those typically held by a head teaching fellow. 

• Under faculty supervision, undergraduate course assistants may evaluate other students’ assignments when the grading involves objective assessment, such as checking answers on a problem set. However, undergraduate course assistants may not grade other students’ work when that work requires subjective assessment, such as evaluating essays, written portions of examinations, or final projects.  

• As undergraduates may fail to recognize the implications of serving in an instructional role, instructors should take special responsibility for initiating discussions about professional conduct, including the impropriety of amorous relationships with students and the importance of both equity and confidentiality.