Wednesday. August 20,1986
Campus
University Daily Kansan
5
GTAs teach with 'empathy'
By DeAnn Thomas
Staff writer
Although they may get no respect from their students, graduate teaching assistants are competent and can bring a fresh outlook to their courses, the chairman of the French and Italian department said recently.
Most first-year courses and half of the second-year courses in the French and Italian department are taught by GTAs.
"It's a psychological problem, not a matter of teaching, for freshmen who come to KU and have mostly GTAs," said Norris Lacy, the chairman.
"Students may feel they re not getting the best KU has to offer."
Although most GTAs have little or no teaching experience, they are often fresh and enthusiastic, Lacy said. Most establish a good rapport with the students and are effective teachers.
All departments of the University use GTAs. Math, English and foreign language departments frequently use GTAs to teach the introductory courses.
Janet Riley, assistant to the vice chancellor of academic affairs, said GTAs were qualified to teach any beginning level courses.
Several department chairmen said that complaints about the quality of GTA instruction occurred no more
often than complaints about the quality of regular faculty instruction.
Margaret Baker, department secretary for Germanic Languages, said it was much better to use GTAs for the introductory courses.
"They are closer to the students' position," she said. "It hasn't been that long since they were in school and they know what it is to learn a language. It makes them a little more empathetic."
Charles Himmelberg, chairman of the department of mathematics, said GTAs make it more feasible to get elementary courses taught within the budget.
"It would triple the budget if we tried to teach students with all faculty." Himmelberg said.
GTA's average between $6,000 and $7,000 a year, officially working 20- to 22-hour weeks, he said.
There is an 80 percent chance that GTAs will teach the introductory math courses, Himmelbog said. a few professors teach 101 courses. The math department hires between 45 and 50 GTAs each year.
The job also supports the GTAs while they put themselves through graduate school. Himmelberg said.
Barbara Paris, administrative assistant to the director of freshman-sophomore English, said that the English department was hiring at least ten more GTAs for the 1986-87 school year because of the increase
Haskell Springer, director of freshman-sophomore English, said GTAs usually taught ENGL 050, 101, 102 and 203 courses.
in enrollment this year.
Several departments require foreign GTA applicants to take the Test of Spoken English. The test consists of a recording that asks questions which test the fluency and vocabulary of the applicant.
Himmelberg said one sample question asked the person to describe how to ride a bike. The answer requires the ability to think through the process and intelligently answer in English. The answers are recorded and reviewed by a committee.
The applicants are required to make a score of 240 from a possible 300, which Himmelberg said was among the highest standards in the country.
Himmelberg said that only Colorado State University required the same high score of its applicants. Other universities required a score of 220.
The Department of Academic Affairs requires all new GTAs to attend a meeting one week before school starts to orientate them with teaching instructions and how to manage a class.
The GTAs then meet with their department heads and are given further instruction on how to teach their particular course.
him and Long. Plans call for the bookstore to completely cover the second level of the Union.
Long Continued from p. 1
The Oread and the textbook departments will be next to each other, Word said. The used-textbook department of the bookstore is presently in the top 10 in North America in sales.
But the renovations include the entire building. Designs of the building are reviewed periodically by the state architecture department, Long said.
Even with all of the hectic work going on around him, Long remains cool. And he always remains open to his employees.
"Even on a bad day, he's always open to see people." Word said. "He has his quiet times when he is preoccupied."
the June 6 Senate debate that researchers had become lobbyists and that proposals needed to be judged by their merits and not just pure politics.
Continued from p. 1
Supporters of the funds argued that merit reviews by other scientists of the funding proposals often are biased in favor of those made by elite East or West coast schools. Direct congressional appropriations may be the only way some schools have a fair opportunity to secure funds.
He said that the lack of a peer review system within the Defense Department for the allocation of funds meant that the best projects would not be funded and basic research would suffer.
Francis Horowitz, vice chancellor of research, graduate studies and public service agreed that
prestigious schools sometimes had a better chance of securing government research funds.
"It is true that the schools on the East coast have built reputations, and proposals from those schools may be more acceptable. That's part of human judgment and fallibility." she said. "But I am basically very supportive of the peer review system. The problem is that it is not used in the Department of Defense."
Michaelis said KU was not taking an easy route by not having the merit of its proposals reviewed by scientific colleagues.
Toxin
"The University of Kansas was not out to bypass the peer review system where scientists look over the quality of our work," he said. "We submitted a research proposal and discussed it with representatives."
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