Grad students meet with CGS head about stipends

Graduate student leaders met last week with College of General Studies Associate Dean Richard Hendrix to discuss salary differences between CGS and non-CGS teaching assistants. The meeting focused on a discrepancy in pay that leaves non-CGS teaching assistants earning, at the most, two-thirds of the approximately $4500 per semester that daytime TAs make. While the meeting did not result in any concrete decision, it did provide a forum for graduate students to air this particular grievance. The pay gap does not reflect a difference in responsibilities between the two types of TAs. CGS teaching assistants are responsible for teaching a class, grading the exams and holding office hours. Most non-CGS teaching assistants do not have as much responsilibilty, yet receive a greater stipend. To help offset the discrepancy in pay, some departments, such as philosophy and mathematics, supplement CGS teaching assistants' stipends with money from a discretionary fund. Many non-CGS TAs are upper-level TAs in their final years of work on their doctorates. The national average for the amount of time required to earn a doctorate is between seven and eight years, and typical University stipends for non-CGS teaching assistants expire after four years, according to Graduate Student Associations Council President Mike Polgar. Polgar knew of the difference in stipends because he taught a CGS class last summer. He said that for graduate students who have taught non-CGS classes, teaching a CGS class "is like getting a demotion, but receiving more responsibilty." "It is good experience but not good pay," he said. Hendrix said that the amount of money CGS has to spend is limited by how much revenue it brings in. The money is allocated to instructors, with priority going to professors who opt to teach CGS classes. Departments without enough professors fill the void with TAs.

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