Responsible Office: Academic Affairs
Policy Administrator: Chief Academic Officer
Scope: |Faculty |Staff |Student

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:
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), 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.
This policy is administered by the Chief Academic Officer who will, at his or her discretion, determine any and all exceptions.

Details:
History: Graduate assistants (GAs) were first introduced at Saint Francis in 1995 to bring additional graduate students into our graduate programs AT NO COST to the University. Most colleges and universities with graduate programs offer GAs, though most include a stipend in addition to tuition remission. These were introduced to include no stipend, so there would be no cost to the University, only providing seats in courses. Yet, these graduate assistants can provide valuable service in the offices they work and learn for as much as 20 hours each week, where they bring in their individual talents and experiences to share. And, the GA gains real-life and practical experience to complement their graduate education.
Many of the GAs are in positions that complement their education directly, like a student enrolled in the Human Resource Management program working in the Human Resources Office on campus, a Master of Education student involved in coaching an athletics team, or a MBA student working in the Small Business Development Center. GAs were never intended to replace full-time positions at the University, rather to supplement the service provided in service areas while providing educational/training/learning experiences for the graduate student.

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.
Graduate assistants pay no tuition for the credits included in their GA contract. To account for the tuition cost, the supervising department where the GA works uses their own budget, through a graduate assistant expense account, to pay one-half of the graduate tuition cost. The other half of the tuition expense is charged to an institutional tuition remission account, much like undergraduate scholarships. These expenses are then offset by the corresponding tuition revenue, so the net cost to the University is zero.
The University still does receive additional tuition payments (for credits beyond the GA contract) and all fees from these students, and possibly additional revenue from resident students. 
For graduate assistants in either the MBA or MHRM program, with tuition at $875 per credit, the benefit to the student is typically $15,750 for a year with 18 credits. The funding for these assistantships will be split in two ways. One-half of the total amount, or $7,875 will be in the form of a true tuition discount from the institution. The remaining one-half, or at most $7,875 in this example, will be funded from the budget of the department receiving the services. The student will work an average of 29 hours per week for 15 weeks during the fall and spring semesters. That involves 870 hours working for at most $15,750 or an equivalent hourly rate of $18.10. For the department receiving the services, they will spend $7,875 to have the GA work 870 hours, or $18.10 per hour for professional, part-time assistance. 
The maximum number of credits per semester that a Graduate Assistant contract is permitted to include is nine (9) credits per semester. If a student enrolls in more than nine (9) credits per semester, they will be responsible for the cost of the additional credits.
Some additional considerations come in actual expenses or actual revenues for the University. Graduate assistantships for students in the PA, PT, or OT programs are not permitted, because they would represent a direct loss of tuition revenue to the University. The only exception is in the PT department, which during development of the program were approved for a limited number of GAs who would be 5th year PT students assisting in the instruction for 4th year PT students.
The other practical consideration is when grant-funded GAs, for example from the Small Business Development Center, the half tuition paid by those departments is actual revenue for the University.  And, the half-tuition remission provided by the University can be described as a University match for the grant program.

Athletic Graduate Assistant Program 
Part Time Coaches - Graduate Assistants: 
Part time coaches are viewed as exempt under the FLSA coaching provision. 
They are required to track their hours to make sure they have fulfilled their academic hour requirement relating to the tuition credits they have received. Additionally, the coaches are required to track their hours for Human Resources/Payroll in order to ensure that there is an accurate record of the hours they work for ACA compliance calculation determination. If they become eligible, they will be offered health insurance at the appropriate time. 
They are paid a set salary as determined by Athletics.

Administrative - Graduate Assistants: 
Graduate assistants who are working in an administrative capacity are not exempt under the FLSA. 
They are not permitted to work more than 29 hours in a week. They are required to track their hours to make sure they have fulfilled their academic hour requirement relating to the tuition credits they have received. Additionally, they are required to track their hours to be used to determine overall University ACA compliance. Graduate assistants are limited to working a cumulative total of all positions the student holds, not just the assistantship, of 29 hours of service per week. Graduate assistants are able to work more than 29 hours per week and then be compensated at minimum wage for the hours above 29 between academic semesters (fall and spring) and during the summer.
International student workers are limited to working a cumulative total of 20 hours of paid service per week and are capped at 20 hours per week between academic semesters (fall and spring). During winter and summer breaks, international students may be employed for up to 40 hours.

Revised: 7/12/23
Approved by PC: 7/26/23