Philosophy

This document is a guideline for ranking TAs into an ordered list, going from highest to lowest priority for summer teaching. It is designed to facilitate consistent decisions, and it should function as a guideline--it can be overruled by faculty preference if there is a good reason to do so. It is not to be published or made available to anyone other than the department faculty.

The basic philosophy behind this proposal is approximate equity of support. This set of guidelines strives for criteria that fit with the promise we make to our students of at least 3 years of support.

Basic prioritization ranking

1. First priority is given to Ph.D. students who are regular half-time TAs, over TAs who are M.A. students and non-regular TAs (they go to #5).

2. Second priority will be given to TAs in reverse order of number of summers they have received support and year of entry into the program.

3. Third priority goes to TAs who requested summer teaching the previous year but were denied due to lack of sections available.

4. Within any remaining grouping of equally-ranked TAs, prioritization may be assigned based on teaching quality and productivity as a student. If all TAs seen as approximately the same in this regard, the order may be determined by random draw.

5. TAs who are M.A. students, TAs who don't teach every semester, OTS, and Theater TAs, in that order

Issues associated with different summer classes

1. TAs need to be matched to the class (have the background to teach that course). This might necessitate skipping over candidates who are higher ranked.

2. For media classes, preference for summer teaching will be given on a rotating basis from year to year. Those who taught haven't taught that course as recently as others receive higher priority.