Appointments

POLICY REGARDING APPOINTMENTS

The Committee on Graduate Education afﬁrms the principle expressed by the faculty that, for the vast majority of graduate students, relevant teaching experience is an integral part of professional training.

Teaching fellows must be proﬁcient in English, registered as full-time resident students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), and making satisfactory progress toward their degrees. They teach part-time as an element of their training for the PhD or, in exceptional cases, for a master’s degree. They register for a total of four half-courses (or the equivalent) in each term and are charged the appropriate resident tuition rate (full tuition, reduced tuition, or facilities fee).

Graduate student teaching is supervised and regularly evaluated by the faculty.

The following general rules apply to the administration of teaching fellowships by GSAS and departments. Petitions for exceptions to these policies should be addressed to the dean for admissions and ﬁnancial aid in Holyoke Center 350.

RULES GOVERNING ELIGIBILITY, WORKLOAD, AND DURATION OF APPOINTMENTS

(1) Beginning September 2007, all new international PhD students in GSAS are required to demonstrate a specific level of proficiency in the English language in order to participate successfully in all the various activities that comprise a graduate education, including teaching. Specifically, GSAS requires that, prior to serving as teaching fellows (TFs), all incoming PhD students who are non-native English speakers and who have received their undergraduate degrees from non-English speaking institutions demonstrate oral English language proficiency based on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) internet-based test (iBT) speaking score. Those students who have not met the language requirement will be required to take either a Classroom Communication Skills course at the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning or an ESL course at the Institute for English Language Programs (IEL) in the Division of Continuing Education. After completing a course, students should be rescreened at the Bok Center to determine if they have met GSAS standards. Students must meet the requirement within their first two years. However, they are encouraged to complete this requirement within their first year, or at least two semesters before they expect to teach. For more information, please contact the GSAS Student Affairs Office ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , 617-495-1814).

For more information about Bok Center programming for international TFs, please visit our website at http://bokcenter.harvard.edu.

(2) Graduate students shall normally be given the opportunity to teach at least 16 “term ﬁfths” during their degree programs. (A “ﬁfth” is a fraction of time that represents 20 percent of a full-time workload; ordinarily this is the equivalent of teaching one section in a lecture course.) As a general rule, TFs should expect to spend roughly ten hours per week teaching, preparing, and correcting class work and providing counseling for every “ﬁfth’’ assigned. Many departments require teaching as a part of the graduate degree program. Such requirements are stated clearly in each department’s description in GSAS Programs of Study and the GSAS Handbook.

(3) Usually, no graduate student may hold a teaching fellowship for more than four academic years, regardless of whether the appointment is for one or two terms within the same year. Students who teach 3/5 each year for four years may accumulate as many as 24 “term ﬁfths.” Students who have taught fewer than 16 “term ﬁfths” in four years will be permitted to teach a ﬁfth and sixth year up to the total of 16 “term ﬁfths.”

(4) In general, these limits of time apply to any combination of employment at Harvard and outside the University. Students are expected to use good judgment in accepting additional employment that might delay their academic progress.

(5) Graduate students who receive a PhD Dissertation Completion Fellowship are prohibited from holding teaching fellowships and other forms of concurrent employment. For details on completion fellowship awards, click here.

(6) First-year graduate students are not ordinarily eligible for appointments as teaching fellows. Exceptions to this rule may be granted to students who are certiﬁed as proﬁcient in English and registered in certain natural science departments that have traditionally used TFs in their ﬁrst year of graduate study.

(7) Preference for teaching fellow appointments should be given to students to whom a guarantee of teaching was offered at admission (see 11 bellow); teaching preference is also usually given to students prior to the fifth year of residency.

(8) After those students who are expected to teach as part of their funding packages have been accommodated, departments and course heads are expected to consider and prioritize all other qualified applicants from within GSAS; special attention should be paid to qualified applicants in their third or fourth year of residency from related departments and disciplines.

(9) PhD candidates in the Humanities and Social Sciences receive stipend support in the first two years of study to facilitate the successful completion of course requirements for the degree, and ordinarily do not teach in their second (G2) year. A second-year student may request permission to teach by sending a request to the Dean for Admissions and Financial Aid that describes the academic basis for an exception and is accompanied by the endorsement of his or her advisor. Second-year students in the Humanities and Social Sciences should not commit to a teaching appointment without prior approval. Ordinarily, a second year student will be limited to 1/5 teaching per term or 2/5 in one term with no teaching in the other term of the

academic year. Second-year students in the natural sciences should refer to their program’s teaching policy and consult their primary advisor to confirm their eligibility to accept a teaching position.

(10 ) After the second year, graduate students: a) who have not completed their academic residence requirements (a minimum of two years of full-time study in residence) and who have not passed their departmental PhD qualifying examinations may hold up to a maximum of a 2/5 time teaching fellowship. b) who have completed both their academic residence requirements and passed their departmental PhD qualifying examinations may hold up to a maximum of a 6/5 time teaching fellowship for the academic year. Students may not hold more than a 4/5 time appointment in any one term.

[Note: Those awarded terminal degrees in November and March will normally become teaching assistants for the term in which the degree is awarded.]

(11 ) At admission, PhD candidates in the humanities and social sciences ordinarily are guaranteed assignment of four sections of teaching each year by their departments in their third and fourth years of residency as part of their funding packages. GSAS regards the meeting of that guarantee as a cooperative endeavor between the student and the department. Students whose ﬁnancial aid packages included teaching should consult their departments if assistance in securing a teaching fellow position is needed.

(12) Anyone teaching more than 6/5 during the academic year must be a teaching assistant instead of a teaching fellow, and must register to be on Leave of Absence rather than In Residence.

13) It should be noted that certain awards from GSAS, the US government, and other outside sources impose more stringent limits on teaching fellows’ commitments. Students are responsible for observing the terms of such awards and should consult with their ﬁnancial aid ofﬁcer for more information.

(14) International students should be aware that immigration regulations limit their employment to 20 hours per week while school is in session. Therefore, international students’ employment cannot exceed .57 time during each term. International students with questions regarding this regulation should consult with their GSAS Financial Aid Officer for further information.

(15) Students who have not completed residence requirements or who have not passed their departmental qualifying exams may not average teaching fellowship fractions over the academic year. They are subject to the aforementioned rules, which are enforced on a “per term” basis.

(16) Graduate teaching fellows may not receive course credit for the time they devote to teaching. However, at the discretion of their department, students may have their teaching efforts recognized—and recorded—by signing up for “TIME-T” on their study cards. (see “COURSE LOAD OF TEACHING FELLOWS AND RESEARCH ASSISTANTS” section below for more details). Graduate students “receive credit” for teaching in the sense that TIME T activities appear on the GSAS transcripts; these entries, however are not graded.

COURSE LOAD OF TEACHING FELLOWS AND RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

Students holding teaching fellowships or research assistantships are advised to consider their course load carefully in consultation with their advisors. The four-course registration requirement must be made up of formal courses and the appropriate dissertation-level course or fraction of “TIME.” (TIME is the term used by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences to designate independent study (TIME –C), research (TIME-R), or teaching (TIME-T). At the discretion of departments, students may register for “TIME-T” while serving as a teaching fellow as a means of indicating that appropriate independent work is replacing numbered courses. “TIME” or the appropriate dissertation-level course is undertaken with a faculty advisor who must sign the study card. One unit of “TIME” is the equivalent of one half-course and may serve to indicate that a student is engaged in full-time study even though the total of numbered courses enrolled for is fewer than four. Experience has shown that TFs whose course loads exceed these limits frequently encounter academic difﬁculties.

If, as a teaching fellow, you perceive that you are spending more of your professional time on teaching than you are being compensated for, that the work required is unrelated to the course, or that you feel victimized by the course administration in some fashion, discuss the matter with the head tutor, director of graduate studies, or other appropriate ofﬁcer in the department where the appointment is held.

If the difﬁculty is not resolved after such conversations, you may wish to review the matter with the GSAS dean for student affairs. He can help advise you on further steps, which might include a written appeal to the Administrative Board of the Graduate School.

TEACHING FELLOWS APPEALS PROCEDURE

If the difﬁculty is not resolved after such conversations, you may wish to review the matter with the GSAS dean for student affairs. The dean can help advise you on further steps, which might include a written appeal to the Administrative Board of the Graduate School.

Appointment Procedures, Evaluation, and Beneﬁts

When a teaching fellow is assigned to assist in any given course, the department or committee chair recommends the appointment to the Harvard College Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE), which, along with the GSAS Office of Admissions and Financial Aid, is responsible for reviewing and authorizing the appointment. The TF appointment form is checked by both OUE and GSAS to ensure that the appointment request is in accordance with GSAS rules regarding teaching fellowships and that the appropriate payment has been specified; GSAS then completes the final appointment confirmation and processing.

After the appointment is approved, an e-mail message is sent to the teaching fellow to confirm that he or she has received an appointment. This message provides TFs with instructions for logging onto a website where they can view the details of their appointment.

Teaching fellows are eligible for officer-level library privileges and for membership in the Harvard Faculty Club.

To receive an employee ID card, please note the following:

• If you already have a photo in the HUID system, an employee ID card will be created and automatically mailed to your ofﬁce address either on the start date of your appointment or on the day the appointment data enters the HUID system, whichever date comes ﬁrst.

• If you do not have an image in the HUID system, or your employee ID card does not arrive within two weeks of your start date, contact the ID Ofﬁce. [Note: University employee ID cards no longer have designations such as “Ofﬁcer” printed on them. Student ID cards still say “Student.”]

COURSE EVALUATION (Q)

The Committee on Undergraduate Education and the Committee on Graduate Education oversee a process of course evaluation each term. This online evaluation process serves several purposes. It provides feedback from students to the head of a course about reactions to course structure, the quality of the presentation, and the nature of assignments. The process also provides important feedback for instructional support staff, many of whom are in their early years of teaching and beneﬁt from the comments of students.

Finally, the evaluation process is the basis of the Q: Course Evaluation Guide, written and edited by College students under the guidance of the Committee on Undergraduate Education. The Q Guide is intended to provide undergraduates with reliable information for use as one of many sources of input during the process of choosing courses.

Participation in the Q evaluation process is mandatory for teaching fellows.

Summary statistics and comments submitted by students are made available to the course heads of evaluated courses after ﬁnal grades for the term have been submitted. Teaching fellows and teaching assistants will receive an e-mail with a link to a PIN-protected evaluation website when evaluation results are made available. They can access their course evaluation results independently of the heads of courses through an online application.

Faculty and instructional support staff, particularly teaching fellows, are encouraged to keep this information, as it will be useful in a professional dossier. Online evaluations remain available and can be printed from the evaluation website. Copies of old paper evaluations can be requested from the Ofﬁce of Academic Programs ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).

• A sample of the universal form for course evaluations is available here.

• An explanation of the specialized question sets, including the questions asked in each, may be found here; one of these modules is the set of questions asked speciﬁcally of GSAS students.

• Finally, each course head has the ability to create a few customized questions for a course; the recommendations provided by the Registrar’s Ofﬁce are available here.

The Ofﬁce of Undergraduate Education reviews the forms for any member of the instructional support staff whose average “overall” rating raises concerns about the quality of instruction. In these very few cases, the Dean of Undergraduate Education may send a letter to that TF, copied to the course head(s), urging him or her to seek appropriate advice on how to improve his or her teaching. If members of the instructional support staff receive such cautionary letters a second time, they may be prohibited from further teaching in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

TEACHING CONSULTANTS AND DEPARTMENT TEACHING FELLOWS

A small number of graduate students who are experienced TFs and who have achieved distinction in their teaching are selected each year to be afﬁliated with the Bok Center. Their work as teaching consultants includes helping with teaching fellow training programs, observing classes taught by other TFs, and providing feedback. A number of deparment teaching fellows also do this work. Generally they are nominated by, and based in, their home departments. For additional information, contact the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.

RECEIVING RECOGNITION FOR YOUR TEACHING

The University recognizes excellence in teaching with Certiﬁcates of Distinction awarded each term by the deans of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and of Harvard College. These certiﬁcates are presented by the Bok Center to TFs and teaching assistants who receive exceptionally high scores on the Q course evaluation. Other teaching awards administered through academic departments or by special committees include:

• Allen Young Prizes in Social Analysis 10 (economics)

• Jack M. Stein Prize (Germanic languages and literatures)

• Distinguished Teaching Award (government)

• Botein Prize (history and literature)

• Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prizes

• White Award (physics)

• Travel Study Prize (Romance languages and literatures)

• Special Committees: Thomas Hoopes Prizes and the Levenson Award for Distinguished Teaching in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (awarded by the Undergraduate Council)

• Stanley Hoffmann Prize (social studies)

• Derek C. Bok Awards for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching of Undergraduates (selected from among Bok Center Certiﬁcate of Distinction awardees), made possible by a generous gift from Dr. and Mrs. David G. Nathan, AB ’51, MD ’55.

FACULTY CLUB MEMBERSHIP

Complimentary membership in the Harvard Faculty Club is available to TFs with a valid ID and can be activated online. Located at 20 Quincy Street, the Club offers warm hospitality in comfortably elegant surroundings. Facilities include restaurants, open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Monday through Friday and for Sunday brunch; private function rooms; and guest bedrooms. Reciprocal privileges exist with many faculty clubs within the United States and throughout the world. For more information, call 617-495-5758.