Graduate Assistantships

Graduate Assistant Teaching (GAT) assistantships must be under the direct supervision of a faculty member. A GAT must be an instructor of record for undergraduate courses or be assigned to activities such as assisting with courses or teaching labs, grading assignments and exams, or assisting professors with large lectures and/or online courses. The duties must be attached to a specific course or courses in order for a graduate student to be hired as a GAT.

• GATs who are instructors of record have primary responsibility for teaching a course for credit or noncredit and/or for assigning final grades for the course. In order to qualify to be an instructor of record as a GAT, the graduate student must have earned a minimum of 18 graduate semester hours in the field in which she or he will be teaching. Although they are instructors of record, GATs must work under the direct supervision of a faculty member who is experienced in the teaching field, receive regular in-service training and be regularly evaluated.
• GATs who assist the instructor of record with a zero-credit lab associated with a classroom course must have completed 12 hours of graduate or upper-level undergraduate coursework directly related to the undergraduate course being taught. GATs assisting with a zero-credit lab must work under the direct supervision of the instructor of record, complete lab safety and supervision training and be evaluated every semester by faculty.
• Graduate students whose native language is other than English must demonstrate a sufficient level of oral and written proficiency before they may be awarded a teaching assistantship.

Graduate Assistant Research (GAR) assistantships require recipients to aid in the research with the department/professor to which they are assigned. Work may also include tasks such as assisting with labs, offering teaching support, assisting faculty with research, preparing reports, entering data or other responsibilities as assigned.

Graduate Assistant Non-teaching (GANT) assistantships are not assigned to a specific course. Rather, GANTs work in a variety of settings across campus. Responsibilities may be administrative in nature or consist of other activities that do not generally fit within the GAT or GAR job responsibilities.