Building a Better Model of Graduate Employee Support
PSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is home to more than 700 graduate students, around 40% of whom are supported by either a graduate teaching assistantship (GTA) or a graduate research assistantship (GRA).
Our college is PSU’s single largest employer of graduate students — something we’re proud of — but our current model of GTA support and allocation was created for a different time and reality. It’s time to reimagine a more equitable and transparent model that provides our GTAs with the financial and supervisory support, training, and holistic professional development they need and deserve. Better-trained and supported GTAs will lead to better outcomes and experiences for our undergraduate students as well as better career outcomes for graduate students — a win-win.
We’re bringing together a group of CLAS faculty, chairs, staff and graduate students to take up the critical work of proposing and developing a new model for supporting graduate employees in CLAS.
The CLAS GTA Support Model Advisory Group will make a recommendation to Dean Todd Rosenstiel and collective college leadership about how to best foster thriving graduate student programs, including graduate students’ professional development, and the future role of GTAs in CLAS.
The goals of the group include:
- Documenting current GTA practices across the college, including training processes, types of work assignments, workload and FTE, and stipends
- Soliciting information and opinions from CLAS faculty and staff, current GTAs, and other students
- Examining practices around graduate assistantships at peer institutions and programs
- Reviewing additional and/or alternative options for supporting graduate students
- Providing recommendations about best practices to help GTAs meet the needs of CLAS departments and students and to foster professional development that meets GTAs’ own needs