Graduate Student Workload Guidelines

Owned by Aaron Wilson
Last updated: Mar 05, 2024 by Melissa Casagrande
3 min read

Updated - 7 October 2021

  • Guiding Principles:

    • 1) Compliance with contract. Workload for all graduate assistants at UConn must be within the terms set out in the Graduate Employee Union contract, as specified in its Workload section.

    • 2) Equity. Specific duties will necessarily vary widely across a College as diverse as CLAS. To the extent possible, workload should be equitable, so that graduate assistants with equivalent levels of appointments are working the appropriate number of hours, whether they are primary instructors of record, secondary instructors, lab assistants, teaching assistants for lecture sections, teaching coordinators, or graders.

    • 3) Resource management: ensuring that the funding for GAs is supporting our teaching mission appropriately and efficiently.

  • Further information and suggestions

The GEU contract specifies that the workload for a full-time graduate assistant “shall not exceed an average of twenty (20) hours per week during the term of the GA’s appointment” (Article 10, workload). Workload may vary somewhat over the course of the appointment but should not “unreasonably exceed twenty (20) hours, or the pro rata equivalent, in any given week.” All required work, including training, attending lectures, office hours, conferences with students or instructors of record, teaching and preparation, grading, answering emails, laboratory preparation and clean-up, and course administration must be considered when assigning workload.

Since the amount of time spent on tasks such as grading papers and preparing for class can vary greatly, departments might consider establishing norms for specific tasks. If the workload required for a GA assignment requires more than 20 hours a week on average, the department should address the problem; strategies might include training to expedite grading, developing some self-graded assignments, reducing the number of assignments, developing clear expectations around responding to email, or similar. Department heads are responsible for ensuring that the GA workload accords with the contract, in coordination with individuals directly responsible for the course or program.

  • GAs assigned to non-Laboratory Courses

    • For GAs who teach their own sections as the primary instructor (instructor of record): 2 sections a semester; with a listed capacity of 19 students in W sessions; typical capacity of 40 students in non W sections. 6-8 contact hours per semester, plus office hours. (coded in BMS: PITA)

    • For GAs who serve as a secondary instructor: 2 (3 or 4 credit) sections a semester; with a listed capacity of 19 students in W sessions; typical capacity of 40 students in non-W sections; 6-8 contact hours per semester, plus office hours. (coded in BMS: SITA)

    • For GAs who serve as Teaching Assistant: usually 4 contact hours a week of discussion sections with papers/quizzes/problem sets and associated grading and office hours; 25-40 students per section. (coded in BMS: TA)

    • For GAs who serve as graders (Teaching coordinators with no student contact), 2 courses per semester, each with a minimum of 80-100 students per course per semester; graded assigned in accordance with 20-hour contract limit (coded in BMS: TC)

  • GAs assigned to Laboratory Courses

    • GAs assigned to laboratory courses perform a range of duties, including, for example, mandatory TA training/coordinating sessions; grading lab reports; lab quizzes; contact time in lab, office hours; preparing and cleaning labs; supervising makeup labs, and field trip travel.

      • If one TA is assigned: 2 lab sections (6-8 hours per week); minimum of 16-24 students/section; plus other workload as described above.

      • If two TAs are assigned: 3 lab sections (9-12 hours per week for each TA); minimum of 16- 24 students/section; plus other workload as described above shared between the TAs.