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“I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.”James Joyce

A Brief Handbook

For English Teaching Assistants and Lecturers

I. Administrative Stuff

II. Resources

III. Graduate Student Teaching in the English Department

IV. English Administrative Offices

I. Administrative Stuff

Paychecks

Paydays are semi-monthly, generally on the 15th and last day of every month. The first payday for the fall term is August 29th and for the spring term it’s January 15th. The last paycheck of the academic year arrives on May 15.

We urge all TAs and Lecturers to apply for direct deposit—this ensures that your paychecks get deposited (this is especially useful when you are out of town). You can obtain a direct deposit form from Vicky or you can print one from the Payroll website under “Forms.”

Direct deposit statements will only be available electronically via the electronic “View Paycheck” application on Payroll’s website. (Paper copies will no longer be placed in your mailbox.) This site can be accessed directly at http://www.payroll.cornell.edu/viewpaycheck.cfm. You will be required to sign in using your NetID and password. If you do not have direct deposit, your paycheck will be mailed to whatever address is in the system for you. You should check your address in Just the Facts and update your address if necessary.

Office Assignments

Assignments are made by Alex Hanson. She’ll notify you when the assignments are made, and at that time you’ll be able to pick up a key. You’ll be asked to pay a small key deposit, which will be refunded to you when you move out of the office and return the key.

Time and Classroom Assignments

Your time assignment for the fall term was sent to you via email, along with your course assignments, last spring. Time assignments are also posted on the First-Year Writing Seminar web page and the Course and Room Roster, as well as being posted electronically at registrar.sas.cornell.edu/Student/Roster.html. Time assignments for spring term are posted early in the fall term. Occasionally time assignments need to be changed; this is usually because classrooms are unavailable. Your classroom assignment is announced through a memo from Darlene Flint. This information is also available electronically on the web at http://registrar.sas.cornell.edu/Student/Roster.html. If, after consulting the resources mentioned above, you are still uncertain about your time or room assignment, see Darlene Flint.

Classrooms are assigned centrally by a computer. The department has very little control over where you are assigned, Darlene Flint enters specific parameters about your course into the system. If you have particular audio-visual or technological needs, notify Darlene right away. Once the computer run is completed, there is little that can be done to change your room assignment. If you find your room to be unsatisfactory (please visit your classroom before classes start), check with Darlene to see if there is any way it can be changed.

Meeting Your Classes and Holding Office Hours

Every instructor is expected to meet every regularly scheduled class, and to have regularly scheduled office hours each week. Please do not announce your office hours as “by appointment only”; students, staff, and faculty need to have a time they can count on finding you in your office, especially if you are not often at home to receive phone calls.

If you ever have to miss a class, you should provide a substitute, if possible; in any event, you should notify the Department, at 255-6800.

Dealing With Student Papers

Many instructors ask their students to turn in papers to their mailboxes in Goldwin Smith 252. Please make sure your students know that the mailroom closes promptly at 4:30 p.m. If for some reason they need to turn in papers after 4:30, they can put papers in the mail slot in the mailroom door. The papers need to be clearly marked with the instructor’s name and course number. (Sometimes the office staff find papers in the mail slot with absolutely no clue on them as to who should receive them!)

It will be helpful to the office staff if you establish a clear procedure for returning papers to the students. This is best stated in the syllabus you hand out at the beginning of class. Often there is confusion in the office at the end of the term as students stop in to try to pick up their graded papers. DO NOT set up a box in the mailroom or another unattended location for this purpose (if you do, it will be promptly returned to you). Such a procedure is illegal because it does not protect student’s confidentiality--it is illegal to release students’ grades to the general populace. In addition, unattended papers are vulnerable to theft and plagiarism.

An Administrative Plea

Throughout the year you will receive memoranda from department staff regarding your teaching. These may include requests for your office hours (which are published for the department’s as well as the students’ information), notices about book order deadlines, or information about submitting grades. Please heed the deadlines on these notices, and respond promptly if a response is requested. The department staff will be able to meet your needs better if they don’t have to spend a lot of time following up with you after a deadline has passed. Your cooperation will be much appreciated.

A list of e-mail addresses and phone numbers for the administrative offices of the English Department can be found at the end of this handbook.

II. Resources

Director of Graduate Student Teaching

The faculty member who oversees First-Year Writing Seminars and other graduate student teaching is the Director of Graduate Student Teaching. The DGST is one of the English Department’s six faculty administrators, a group that includes the Chair, the Associate Chair, the Director of Creative Writing, the Director of Graduate Studies, and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. This year the DGST is Laura Brown. Her responsibilities include working with Marianne Marsh and the Chair to plan the Department’s offerings in the First-Year Writing Program and to assign staff to courses taught by graduate students. Our offerings are determined solely by the Department. (General guidelines for the teaching of First-Year Writing Seminars are set by the Knight Institute.) More broadly, she attends to any matters concerning TA assignments and the First-Year Seminar curriculum, including the teaching award dossiers, teaching reviews, academic integrity hearings, and any special problems. Throughout the year, her door (GS 339) is open to any grad with questions or problems concerning teaching.

Every spring, just before teaching applications are due, the Director of Graduate Student Teaching, along with Marianne Marsh and Katy Gottschalk, hold an open meeting for all who expect to be TAs in the English Department for the first time. Although attendance is required for first-year grads, the meeting is open to all interested persons. Its purpose is to offer an introduction to the experience of teaching at Cornell and to give people an occasion to ask questions, meet other teachers, and share ideas.

Knight Institute

The Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, directed by Paul Sawyer, coordinates the 150-180 First-Year Writing Seminars offered each semester by over 30 departments and programs. About 40% of the seminars are offered by the Department of English.

The Knight Institute offers a number of teaching awards for graduate student instructors, including the Buttrick-Crippen Fellowship. Descriptions of all awards may be found in The Indispensable Reference for Teachers of First-Year Writing Seminars. The Indispensable Reference also describes developmental programs offered by the Knight Institute as well as resources available elsewhere for teachers of seminars.

The Director of First-Year Writing Seminars is Katy Gottschalk. Among her responsibilities is coordinating the required preparatory course for new instructors of seminars, Writing 700: Teaching Writing, which is offered each summer and fall. Graduate student instructors are always welcome to consult with Katy about assignments, preparation of the syllabus, problem students, or any other teaching issues (kkg1@cornell.edu; 101 McGraw Hall). Instructors should also feel free to consult other staff of the Knight Institute (Bruce Roebal, Program Registrar, and Donna O’Hora, program assistant) and of the Writing Workshop (Director, Joe Martin), who are also happy to assist instructors.

Copying and Scanning

The copy room is located at 246 Goldwin Smith. (If you have not yet learned to use the machines, please see Alex Hanson.) Teaching Assistants and Lecturers receive an allocation of 225 photocopies per month (August through May). Lecturers and double TAs are allocated 225 per month per course. Those teachers who are thrifty enough to use fewer than the 225 pages per month are welcome to make personal copies, free of charge, up to 225. Any copies above 225, regardless of whether they are for teaching or personal use, will be billed to you at the usual five cents per page. (Those not teaching will be billed for all copies; there is no allocation for fellowship semesters.)

Some suggestions about how to copy on this budget:

  • SCAN! Scan your documents and send them by email to your students, post them on a course website, or submit them to electronic reserve at the library. Both of our copiers are networked and can scan and make PDFs. Instructions for scanning are posted above each copier. It’s easy, and it DOESN’T COST ANYTHING! That is, scans DO NOT get deducted from your copy allocation! So use this function whenever you can to save yourself and the department a bundle. It’s important that if you use duplicated or posted materials, you follow the copyright laws. Information is available on the Cornell Store’s website relating to course packets and copyrights at: http://www.store.cornell.edu/text/cpub/tbcpcopyrightinfo.html
  • Plan ahead and prepare course packets for students to buy from the local copy services. (The Cornell Store has such a service, as do most of the copy shops in town.) If you wait until the last minute and copy them on the department machine, your copying allocation will vanish in short order. (If you use the Cornell Store’s service AND get your course packet order in before their deadline, they will give you a rebate on your course packet which you may use as a credit on your Departmental copy bill.)
  • A special copy code is available from Alex Hanson for use in creating a master copy for the copy packets you send to the copy services for the students to buy. You don’t need to use your own allocation to create this master copy, and your allocation will therefore be preserved for other copying you need for your classes. Ask for the “course packet code.” Note that this code is only available at the beginning of the term.
  • For more information about posting documents on a course website, visit the Academic Technology Center’s site at www.cit.cornell.edu/atc/index.shtml.
  • Take advantage of the library reserve services at Uris library. Use the following link to get information on reserve services. http://www.library.cornell.edu/services/reserves.html

A word about copy machine etiquette: if you are in the middle of an extensive copy job, and other instructors are in the queue for copying, please allow those with one or two pages to squeeze in before you’re finished. Note that you’re less likely to be interrupted in your copying if you do it well in advance of your class time. The machines are extremely busy right before classes!

Laser Printing

The department provides an allocation for a NetPrint account for laser printing of your teaching materials on NetPrint printers. Because of the flexibility of the NetPrint system, we are able to set up individual accounts for printing that can be charged to a department account. This is all tracked by the net ID.

There is a NetPrint printer located in the copy room. The main office machine is set to print there. Those using their own laptops on Red Rover can set them up to print to any netprint printer on campus. The third floor printer is called “GS1 - Goldwin Smith Net-Print 1” and the copy room printer is “GS2- Goldwin Smith Net-Print 2.”

Those of you who use NetPrint for documents for class (syllabi, class assignments, etc.) can set up a TA printing account through the department. The department will pay for up to 100 pages of printing, i.e. $7.00 per course. (Lecturers teaching two courses will be budgeted for $14.00.) You will receive an email from Robin Doxtater at the beginning of each semester prompting you to apply for an account. She will then set up a credit in your NetPrint account. In the event that you do not use the entire 100 pages (we realize that this is unlikely, since you probably do other printing), the account will be closed at the end of the semester.

All info regarding netprint accounts can be found here: http://www.cit.cornell.edu/net-print/

Book Orders and Desk Copies

Darlene Flint can assist you with book orders and desk copies. Desk copies should be ordered from the publisher well in advance. Some publishers are erratic about sending books, or don’t send them at all. If your books don’t arrive in time, you’ll need to purchase them at your own expense. Please verify your textbook order at http://www.store.cornell.edu/text/default.html (click on the Faculty and Academic Departments and follow directions).

Many publishers send complimentary copies of books to the department. There are quite a few of these books available in the office. If you would like to review what is there, stop by to see Darlene. You may sign some books out to determine if they will be useful for your course.

The Knight Institute (101 McGraw) and the Writing Workshop (174 Rockefeller) also have libraries of textbooks. You are welcome to stop in and peruse their books as well.

Audio/Visual
  • Audio: The department owns 2 CD players, which you may reserve for instructional use. Contact Alex Hanson (or any other staff member) to make a reservation for one of these machines.
  • Visual: The department owns a slide projector, which you may borrow for class. Call Alex to reserve it.
  • VCR/DVD or overhead projectors: To request equipment in Goldwin Smith 236, 348 and 350, please see Alex Hanson for the keys.
  • For all other Goldwin Smith rooms and Arts Quad buildings, please email the following: GS_BLDG_MGR@CORNELL.EDU, for Rockefeller and Uris Halls, UH_BLDG_MGR@CORNELL.EDU.
  • For all other buildings, see the following website: http://registrar.sas.cornell.edu/Sched/av.html. 48 hours notice is required.
  • You can request DVD/VCR (most DVD players will play CDs), overhead projector, Data Video projector, for use with your computer or DVD/VCR. For evening or weekend video showings, please see Darlene Flint to schedule a room. If you need keys for the rooms you use, here are the people to contact: http://registrar.sas.cornell.edu/Sched/RoomRes.html.
  • Video/DVD Rentals: The Department will reimburse you for occasional video rentals for instructional purposes. Please submit original receipts to Robin Doxtater for reimbursement. You may also pick up a tax-exempt form from her before you rent videos. Please adhere to the vendor’s rental deadlines--you will not be reimbursed for late fees.
Library Reserve

You may place books, videos, DVDs, and audio materials on reserve in Uris library (with either a 2 hour or 2 day loan) for the use of your students. The forms for this reserve system are available at www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/access/reservenew/reserveform.html.

You may also create an electronic reserve of journal articles or sections of books, course syllabi, and other materials for your students. This will enable them to print materials from their own computer, saving you the time and expense of copying materials for them. Information on electronic reserve is available at www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/access/reservenew/er.html

Handbook for Teaching Assistants at Cornell

The Office of Instructional Support has produced an extensive CD-based handbook about TAing at Cornell. It is intended for use by TAs across the university, and is a fairly comprehensive guide to resources for TAs. You will receive one in your mailbox. Additional copies are available through Vicky Brevetti.

Indispensable Reference

Each year the Knight Institute compiles an extremely valuable guidebook for teachers of First-Year Writing Seminars called the “Indispensable Reference.” If you are scheduled to teach a First-Year Seminar in the coming semester, you will receive one in the campus mail. Additional copies are available in 101 McGraw.

Academic Integrity Handbook

The University publishes an extensive guide to Cornell’s Code of Academic Integrity which is available online at: http://cuinfo.cornell.edu/Academic/AIC.html. This handbook sets forth clear guidelines on what constitutes a violation of the Code of Academic Integrity, and procedures for handling allegations of violations of this code. The “Indispensable Reference” (see above) includes a brief section on the code, as well as a contact person if you have a need to discuss a possible action. The complete Academic Integrity Handbook is available in the Knight Institute Office, 101 McGraw. The Department Office (see Vicky Brevetti) also has a few reference copies.

Academic Technology Service

The Academic Technology Center (www.cit.cornell.edu/atc/index.shtml) assists those who would like to add technology to their curriculum. They offer several options for incorporating web-based programs into your teaching, including Blackboard (for maintaining a course website) and course communications tools (such as discussion boards or listservs), and access to computer labs for instructional needs.

Offices to Conact for Various Concerns

If you experience problems related to your teaching, in general, the first person you should consult is your course leader. If you have a concern you think needs to be addressed elsewhere, please make an appointment to speak with Laura Brown, Director of Graduate Student Teaching. You may also make an appointment with the Department Chair (Ellie Hanson), the Director of Graduate Studies (Andy Galloway), or the Department Manager (Marianne Marsh) if you have a confidential matter to discuss. Please feel free also to make an appointment to see Katy Gottschalk (Director of First-Year Writing Seminars, 101 McGraw Hall) if you need to talk about a First-Year Writing Seminar problem.

The TA handbook prepared by the Office of Instructional Support and the Knight Institute’s “Indispensable Reference” list many offices or individuals to contact for a host of concerns. A few vital ones appear below:

  • Academic Integrity Issues: David DeVries, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education 55 Goldwin Smith, 255-3386, dd75@cornell.edu
  • Issues of Sexual Harassment and Other Forms of Harassment Office of Workforce Diversity, Equity, and Life Quality, 160 Day Hall, 255-3976
  • Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), 255-5208
  • EARS--Free and confidential peer-counseling: 211 Willard Straight Hall, 255-EARS
  • General Information and Referral: 254-INFO, info@cornell.edu, www.info.cornell.edu
  • Center for Crime Victim and Sexual Assault Services of Tompkins County: 277-5000
  • Ombudsman, 118 Stimson Hall, 255-4321
  • Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service, 272-1616
  • Writing Workshop, 174 Rockefeller Hall, 255-6349

III. Graduate Student Teaching in the English Department

Your Commitment to the Department

The English Department takes seriously its obligation to train graduate students for teaching. Teaching experience is a central part of one’s preparation for the profession of literature. Adequate mentoring, appropriate course assignments, and a credible letter of recommendation are three stages in this training. In return, TAs and Lecturers have clear commitments as employees of Cornell University, which are outlined in the sections below.

Your first responsibility is to treat your acceptance of a teaching appointment as a firm commitment to the Department. Circumstances may, of course, arise that leave you no choice about resigning your teaching position at the last minute--last minute job offers or personal emergencies--for instance. But if you withdraw from teaching after you have signed your acceptance form (this is usually in the month of June prior to your appointment) the department may not be able to shift its staffing to cover your section. Bailing out of a teaching assignment for casual reasons therefore constitutes a breach of trust--and a serious inconvenience to prospective students and course planners.

Course Planning and Staff Meetings

TAs and Lecturers teaching writing classes or working as teaching assistants in lecture courses should make time for attendance at staff or course planning meetings outside of their teaching hours. Attending these meetings is a condition of employment (see Teaching Options below). All instructional staff should plan to be available for such meetings at least two working days before classes meet at the start of the semester.

Teaching Options

In designing a curriculum, the Department’s first obligation is to the education of undergraduates. Every teaching assignment must therefore be made in reference to the needs of undergraduates and the requirements of the Knight Writing Institute; but to that end, the department is able to go a long way towards meeting the wishes of TAs and Lecturers. In general, instructors may reasonably expect to teach a topic close to their academic interests in the course of their programs. These and other aspects of teaching are the topic of an afternoon seminar, offered at the beginning of the spring semester and required of all prospective TAs in the English Department.

Graduate students in English begin their teaching for the Department in First-Year Writing Seminars that are taught as single-description courses. After one year they become eligible, if they wish, to propose a seminar of their own. These seminars are usually taught as sections of Gender and Writing, Thinking Across Cultures, American Literature and Culture, or Writing About Literature. Other teaching opportunities, although not as plentiful, are English 2880/2890 Expository Writing, English 2880/2810 Creative Writing, and assisting in large lecture courses. These options are described below.

TAs and Lecturers are responsible for conducting their classes, keeping regularly scheduled office hours, holding conferences with students, and issuing grades. In addition to teaching, all TAs and Lecturers in single-description courses are required to attend regular staff meetings as scheduled by the course leader, and to adhere to the course leader’s policies in regard to syllabus, grading, and other matters. Attendance at these meetings is a condition of employment, and those who routinely miss staff meetings may jeopardize their eligibility for employment the following semester. Course leaders also give advice on responses to student papers, observe teaching at least once each semester, and provide a variety of other kinds of assistance and support. (For more information on course leaders please see the Knight Institute’s “Indispensable Reference.”)

First-Year Writing Seminars
Single-Description Courses

Single-description courses are those whose sections share the same description in the brochure. These include Writing About Film, The Mystery in the Story, Shakespeare, Linked Stories, English Literary Tradition: The Art of Reading and Writing, and Cultural Studies. Staff members of these courses share all or part of a common syllabus, though specific arrangements vary with different courses. The course leader sets policies in regard to syllabus, grading and other matters, and typically meets with prospective TAs in the spring before the course begins to work out a syllabus together. The staff then meets regularly throughout the semester to discuss general and specific problems. These meetings are required and serve a dual purpose of providing training and feedback for TAs, as well as an opportunity to share experiences with peers.

Separately-Described Sections

TAs and Lecturers who teach courses of their own design have the same duties as instructors in single-description course except that they are solely responsible for the content of their courses, including the writing of their course description. TAs and Lecturers are assigned a faculty course leader who acts as a teaching mentor during the semester, visiting class at least once and writing up an end-of-term evaluation which may, if needed, form the basis of a teaching letter for a job dossier.

New sections of courses are created in several stages. In late February an instructor submits a tentative proposal which is reviewed by an informal committee, composed of Laura Brown, the Director of Graduate Student Teaching, Marianne Marsh, the Administrative Manager, and the Department Chair. This committee makes suggestions and offers advice to the instructor. Once a proposal is accepted, the instructor is then invited to compose a 125-word description for the First-Year Writing brochure. The chief criteria for a good description are clarity, pedagogical value, and likely appeal to freshmen--qualities that require careful consideration of audience.

The relationship between English Department course offerings and the current taste of freshmen is important but often needs clarification. Freshmen are required to take one or two writing seminars, but the topics are theirs to select, with the obvious benefit to the students that they can learn writing through a subject that interests them and with the equally obvious benefit to instructors that they can teach students who freely choose to be in their sections. It is important to remember that the vast majority of freshmen who take writing seminars come from subject areas other than English; they come from all schools, like Engineering, ILR, and Hotel Administration. Freshmen make their choices by reading the descriptions in the brochure; if few or none choose a particular course, the course cannot be offered. It is therefore to our advantage to provide descriptions that are appealing and clearly describe the topic. On the other hand, in some instances over the years the Department has eliminated courses that are popular with freshmen but are consistently uninteresting to instructors and course leaders.

Expository and Creative Writing

Most MFA and MFA/Ph.D. graduate students will teach English 2800/2810, the introductory-level creative writing course. The course includes both fiction and poetry. Since 2800/2810 does not qualify for credit towards the English major, and is often chosen as an elective, sections typically include students from a variety of colleges and majors. MFA students who stay for additional teaching employment after their MFA defense will teach this course in their “third” year, i.e. as a Lecturer. The Creative Writing Faculty, and ultimately the Director of Creative Writing, provides guidance and course-leading to instructors.

Expository Writing, English 2880/2890, is taught in separately-described sections in both fall and spring. Again, students from all over the university take this course to improve their writing skills and also to fulfill a writing requirement for a particular major. Both MFA and Ph.D. students are eligible to apply to teach English 2880. Further information is available from Stuart Davis, who is the course leader.

Lecture Courses

A small number of TAs are assigned each year to assist in large lecture courses within the English major curriculum. These TAs are assigned to lecture courses on the basis of student enrollment. In preparation for each semester, the Director of Graduate Student Teaching will assess enrollments, TA funding, and TA availability, consult with those instructors whose courses are expected to enroll at least 60 students, and arrange for TA assignments. Sometimes these arrangements will need to be adjusted, as enrollment expectations and (perhaps) funding issues change. Different ways of conducting courses inevitably introduce differences in workload from course to course. The Department does not wish to reduce all lecture courses to a single model, but it does believe that TAs should not be asked to do more work than they are paid for.

TAs should spend about 250-270 hours a semester in working in lecture courses. Time spent listening to lectures ought to be counted toward this total, as should time spent holding office hours, correcting papers, making up questions, doing administrative work for the course, preparing to teach discussion sections, and the like. Time spent reading the texts for the course, however, should not be counted toward this total, except in very unusual cases. (The assumption here is that in general graduate students would not choose to sit in on lectures at the undergraduate level, but they certainly would choose to read, as part of preparation for their profession, the kinds of works that are taught in such courses if they have not already done so.) TAs in lecture courses should never be required to give course lectures, though giving a lecture can be a valuable experience for a TA who genuinely wishes to do so. And finally, TAs should never be asked to respond to or grade all of the written work in a course. The assumption is that the instructor will lead and do the grading for at least one section.

A few words about teaching preferences

Every effort is made to work with instructors to allow them to teach a course of their preference, be it a single-description or separately-described course. In the interest of balancing undergraduate teaching with graduate student preferences, the department will ask graduate student teachers to list several courses on their preference sheets. In some cases, the Department may need to assign Lecturers and more experienced TAs to courses where they are most needed, rather than courses they may prefer. If there is a great need for a Lecturer or TA with particular experience in a particular course, that assignment will take priority over an instructor’s course request. Sometimes it may happen that the Lecturer or TA is only needed in such an assignment for one semester, in which case the instructor will usually be able to teach his or her requested course during the other semester. However, it is at the discretion of the committee described above to assign courses according to the curriculum prescribed by the Department and the College.

Evaluation of Teaching
Teaching Evaluations

The Department requires all instructors, including TAs and Lecturers, to collect student evaluations at the end of each semester. The Knight Institute issues a form which is required for all First-Year Writing Seminars, although you may use your own forms in addition. If you are assigned to a lecture course, you should hand out the TA Evaluation Form “Teaching Assistant in Lecture Course,” (available in the department office) at the same time as the instructor obtains student evaluations. The only way to get complete evaluation results is to ask the students to fill out the evaluation forms in class.

It is important that evaluations be collected in such a way that students feel their anonymity will be preserved and that teachers not look at the evaluations before turning in grades for the course. You should follow College policy in this regard by asking a responsible student in your class to collect and deliver all evaluations to Alex Hanson in Goldwin Smith 250, where you can consult them after you have handed in your grades. Alex Hanson and Vicky Brevetti will keep your evaluations on file. When you leave the university, they will be returned to you for your own files.

Course Leader Reports

Every course leader is expected to evaluate every TA for the purposes of course assignment, course supervision, and the reviews mandated by the Lecturer Policy (see below). These evaluations are intended to help the Department provide the best possible teaching for our undergraduates. In addition, these reviews are essential for determining who might be nominated for teaching awards. They are kept in special files in the Chair’s office and are reviewed by the Director of Graduate Student Teaching. Under no circumstances are they shown to anyone outside the department or placed in Career Center dossiers. Make sure you arrange a time with your course leader when he/she can observe one of your classes.

The Teaching Review

Formal teaching reviews occur during the fifth year of residence for Ph.D. candidates and after the second semester of teaching for MFA candidates. At this point all students who wish further employment as TAs or Lecturers must request a formal review from the Lecturer Policy Committee. Teachers who pass this review are eligible to teach for an additional one or two years, although appointments to these positions will depend on the resources available for the Department’s teaching program. Student evaluations are indispensable evidence for the teaching reviews; the department will keep yours on file.

Evaluations are also essential for determining who might be nominated for teaching awards. Each year, the Arts College holds a college-wide competition for a small number of teaching awards for TAs and Lecturers. The department has a very strong teaching staff, and its members win awards every year. In addition, TAs and Lecturers are also eligible for a small number of departmentally funded teaching awards.

A major purpose of this monitoring of teaching is to ensure that, when the time comes to apply for jobs, all of you will have documentation of your excellence as teachers. Graduate students who would like formal evaluations of their teaching to be a part of their credentials when they go on the job market should ask for a letter from their course leader written expressly for this purpose. In no cases will previous course leader evaluations be used as teaching letters for job dossiers.

Job dossier letters regarding teaching must be uploaded to your Interfolio account just like other recommendation letters. Students may wish to have their committee chairs or other appropriate people, as well as the course leaders, visit their classes and put letters on file for later use. Recommenders who write letters for job dossiers understand their intended purpose and audience and write accordingly. For further information about this process, see the Department’s Placement Officers, or stop by to see Michele Mannella, who coordinates the placement process for English Department graduate students.

TAs and Lecturers Beyond the 2nd (MFAs) and 5th (Ph.Ds)

This is the official department policy:

  • Students in the Ph.D. program who will have completed five years of residence may apply to continue teaching for another year if positions are available. They may be appointed as teaching assistants if they have not completed the degree or as lecturers if they have completed the degree and have sought but have not found employment elsewhere.
  • Degree recipients of the M.F.A. program who will have completed two years of residence and have defended their theses may apply under the same conditions. Such an appointment will be made only after a substantive review of the applicant’s academic status and performance as a teacher and will be renewable for one year only. The number of these lectureships awarded in any given year will vary, and are not guaranteed.
  • Post-grad Lecturers can serve for a maximum of two years and may if they wish teach two courses each semester, if the Department has enough sections available. While it is expected that this post-graduate teaching program will continue, the number of positions is limited.
Readerships

Readerships help faculty keep up with paper-grading in lecture courses, and give graduate students the chance to be part of the running of an undergraduate lecture course, while earning some extra money. When this arrangement works as well as it usually does, readerships meet the needs of both faculty and graduate students. Overworking readers in lecture courses is, however, much more likely to be a problem than overworking TAs in such courses. This problem results from certain structural features inherent in teaching lecture courses, which make it necessary to take care not to exploit readers of such courses. Because readers receive about one-third the pay of TAs, they should perform ideally about one-third the work of TAs. In practice, they might need to do slightly more than this, but should not do much more. Faculty members must be mindful not to assign readers more than 100 hours of work in a semester.

The time a reader spends for a course should be calculated in the same way a TAs time should be calculated: in particular, hours spent listening to lectures should be part of the tally, but hours spent reading required course materials (or previewing films) should on the whole not be part of the tally. It is generally expected that readers will attend lectures if they are expected to grade papers, with the exception of the rare case of a reader who previously graded for the same course. It is worth emphasizing that readers who attend all the lectures for a MWF class have already spent nearly half the time that can be expected of them.

To keep the workload at this level, faculty members should meet with assigned readers prior to the commencement of the course to calculate roughly the time expected to be spent by the reader on the work of the course.

  • Please follow these uniform guidelines in calculating workloads for readers:
  • 1. attending lectures will generally consume 2 1/2 hours per week;
  • 2. grading papers will take roughly 5 minutes per page or about 20 minutes per 3-4 page paper;
  • 3. leading discussion sections, screening films, etc. and the like are harder to quantify. Faculty members should remember that leading a discussion section is generally much more labor-intensive than grading papers, and usually requires additional outside preparation. Only in courses where paper and exam grading is unusually light might one fairly expect a reader to lead weekly discussion sections. In any case, the assumption is that the instructor will lead and do the grading for at least one section.
  • Please also respect the following measures to avoid overworking readers:
  • 4. Like TAs, readers should never be required to give lectures.
  • 5. Readers should normally be expected to give significantly fewer office hours than TAs.
  • 6. Except in courses with an extremely large enrollment, readers should never be asked to grade more than two-thirds to three-fourths of the papers and/or exams, for reasons of pedagogy as well as equity. At no time should a reader be expected to grade all course papers.

Readers who believe that they are being asked to do more than is outlined in these guidelines should feel free to discuss their concerns with the Chair of the English Department.