Rodin to personally fund prizes for top TAs

Ten graduate student teaching assistants nominated by undergraduates will be awarded $500 scholarships. Those teaching assistants who spend hours of their time outside of class working with their undergraduate students can now receive more than just personal satisfaction. They can receive a financial reward as well. To reward those TAs who make a particularly strong impact on undergraduates' academic careers, University President Judith Rodin will offer $500 scholarships to 10 TAs who receive special recognition from their students. The prizes are good in any University school and TAs in all Penn courses -- from Art History to Biology to Marketing -- are eligible. And this year, Rodin said she will fund the scholarships herself. "There are a lot of wonderful, hard-working TAs that the undergraduates appreciate," Rodin said. The awards will be based on undergraduates' recommendations as opposed to professors' nominations. For future years, the Graduate Students Activities Council will look for alternative sources of funding. GSAC President Eric Eisenstein, a Wharton doctoral student, approached Rodin last year with the idea that undergraduates, in addition to professors, could have the chance to rate their teaching assistants. "What GSAC realized last year was that no one was giving any awards for teaching based on undergraduates' ratings," Eisenstein said. "TA prizes, historically, have been nominated by professors," he added. Eisenstein, who TAs an Introduction to Marketing course, lauded Rodin for her willingness to fund the awards this year, calling it an "unprecedented move in modern academic history." "This is something that just makes the University better for every constituency," he said. While Rodin also acknowledged that there have been grumblings among undergraduates about certain TAs, she said the awards will honor those who are particularly outstanding. "The cultural change might be more important than the monetary significance [of the award]" Eisenstein said, explaining that having the award can initiate a greater overall sense of recognition for TAs which could give them an incentive to improve. Eisenstein met yesterday with Deputy Provost Peter Conn to flesh out some of the details, including what criteria students will use in rating their TAs. Eisenstein said yesterday that it is important that the ratings be more than simply "uniform" fill-in-the-bubble sheets. Undergraduates interested in nominating their TAs might have to write paragraphs, for instance, describing the ways in which their TA has benefitted them. The cash prize, Eisenstein said, is something that nearly all graduate students would welcome. "From the point of view of graduate students, [$500] is no joke at all," Eisenstein said.

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