Responsible Office: Academic Affairs Approved By: President's Council Approved Date: 12/1/2010 Effective Date: 8/1/2016 Category: Academics Description/Purpose: To describe the University philosophy for graduate assistantships, process to secure a graduate assistant, terms of a contract, conditions for the experiential learning assignments, terms for the tuition waiver, associated and necessary information flow, reporting responsibilities, and other constraints and limitations. Procedures: Contract Process: Career Services maintains a record of available graduate assistantships at the University, and applications for potential graduate students interested in graduate assistants. When departments search for GAs, they can peruse applications submitted to Career Services, or use their own information sources to attract applicants, which is often the case in athletics. When a GA is selected by a supervising department, they must also be accepted for admission into a graduate program. Supervising departments should be careful to inform potential GAs that they must already possess a bachelor degree and are required to meet graduate program admission standards to be eligible for a graduate assistantship. If the GA position is a replacement for a previous GA position, the graduate program that has admitted the student will prepare a GA contract that includes the number of free credits each semester (for at most two semesters for an initial contract) and the required number of corresponding work hours required (150 total hours for each three free credits; or 870 hours for 18 free credits in a typical full year). The student must then sign the form, and obtain signatures from the graduate program, budget director of the supervising department, and the Chief Academic Officer, who is responsible for administering and monitoring the program. For new GA requests, a new Graduate Assistant Request form should be completed by the Supervising Department/Director, Division Head (VP), Chief Academic Officer, and the Vice President for Finance and Administration. Scanned copies of the approved contracts are e-mailed to all parties in the contract, maintained on the O drive, and available to the business office. Each semester, a summary list is sent to the business office for adjusting the student financial records. Constraints: Departments requesting having a GA must first have available budget to pay half the tuition revenue. They must also have the need for additional work in their office. Since the GA positions were intended to add no costs for the University, departments are not permitted to pay stipends along with the tuition revenue. However, if the GA exceeds the hours required for the assistantship, they should be paid for additional hours worked, and charged to the supervising department. When a GA is working a number of hours beyond those required for tuition remission, they should complete a student time slip to be submitted to the payroll office that indicates all hours worked, and clearly indicate the number of hours completed for the GA position, and the number of hours payment is requested for, that is, the hours beyond those required for tuition remission. If no additional payment is required, the GA and the supervising department track hours worked, with no submission of time slips to the payroll office required. The Vice President of the supervising department and the Vice President for Finance and Administration must both approve of any new graduate assistant positions, exercising the same level of control in establishing new paid positions at the University, and ensuring that adequate budget exists for funding the assistantship position. A GA contract may be terminated by the University if the grade-point-average of the graduate assistant falls below 3.0 or if work performance is unsatisfactory. Alternatively, the contract may be renewed by the agreement of all parties. This policy is administered by the Chief Academic Officer who will, at his or her discretion, determine any and all exceptions. Details: Procedures: When a GA is selected by a supervising department, they must also be accepted for admission into a graduate program. Supervising departments should be careful to inform potential GAs that they must already possess a bachelor degree and are required to meet graduate program admission standards to be eligible for a graduate assistantship. If the GA position is a replacement for a previous GA position, the graduate program that has admitted the student will prepare a GA contract that includes the number of free credits each semester (for at most two semesters for an initial contract) and the required number of corresponding work hours required (150 total hours for each three free credits; or 870 hours for 18 free credits in a typical full year). The student must then sign the form, and obtain signatures from the graduate program, budget director of the supervising department, and the Chief Academic Officer, who is responsible for administering and monitoring the program. For new GA requests, a new Graduate Assistant Request form should be completed by the Supervising Department/Director, Division Head (VP), Graduate Program Director/Chair, and the Vice President for Finance and Administration. Scanned copies of the approved contracts are e-mailed to all parties in the contract, maintained on SharePoint, and available to the business office. Each semester, a summary list is sent to the business office for adjusting the student financial records. Constraints: Departments requesting having a GA must first have available budget to pay half the tuition revenue. They must also have the need for additional work in their office. Since the GA positions were intended to add no costs for the University, departments are not permitted to pay stipends along with the tuition revenue. However, if the GA exceeds the hours required for the assistantship, they should be paid for additional hours worked, and charged to the supervising department. When a GA is working a number of hours beyond those required for tuition remission, they should complete a student time slip to be submitted to the payroll office that indicates all hours worked, and clearly indicate the number of hours completed for the GA position, and the number of hours payment is requested for, that is, the hours beyond those required for tuition remission. If no additional payment is required, the GA and the supervising department track hours worked, with no submission of time slips to the payroll office required. The Vice President of the supervising department and the Vice President for Finance and Administration must both approve of any new graduate assistant positions, exercising the same level of control in establishing new paid positions at the University, and ensuring that adequate budget exists for funding the assistantship position. A GA contract may be terminated by the University if the grade-point-average of the graduate assistant falls below 3.0 or if work performance is unsatisfactory. Alternatively, the contract may be renewed by the agreement of all parties. Details: Financial Implications: Because GAs receive tuition remission, they bring no additional revenue to the University, however they bring no additional costs either. Accordingly, GAs cannot receive tutorial instruction or any other arrangement where faculty are paid per student for instruction. GAs occupy seats in course sections that already meet enrollment requirements. Having a course section, for example, that included only graduate assistants, would cost the University directly, so that is unacceptable. However, to add two or three GAs in a course section with 20 other students adds no additional cost to the University. Athletic Graduate Assistant Program Administrative - Graduate Assistants: Revised: 7/12/23 |