WHY DO YOU USE GRADUATE STUDENTS TO TEACH?
and
WHY FOREIGN GRADUATE STUDENTS TEACH



Why don't you use tenured faculty in front of all classes instead of sometimes using graduate students?

To do that, we would have to hire many more professors. But for many purposes and reasons, graduate students make excellent teachers. Moreover, using them as teachers provides benefits to both the graduate students and to the University and State.

The most common uses of a graduate student are as a research assistant, (occasionally) as a grader, or as a teaching assistant in the laboratory. The research assistant helps the professor do research and is usually paid from grant money. That graduate student does not actually teach a class. The same is true of the grader, whose job is to grade homework and to help grade tests under the direct supervision of the professor. On the other hand, the laboratory assistant does interact with the students. To understand this person's job, you need to know that many lower division courses are made up of two parts. First, there is the lecture, given three or so hours per week by a skilled specialist in the field, such as a tenured professor or specialized lecturer. For the second part, the students will gather in smaller groups in laboratory sections, each usually led by a graduate student. This person's job is to help the students understand the lessons given in lecture and to guide the students in carrying out experiments and setting up and using laboratory equipment. The laboratory assistant meets regularly with the professor for guidance. About 71% of freshman and sophomore laboratory sections, and about 38% of junior and senior labs, were taught by graduate students in Fall, 1995.

But don't graduate students sometimes actually teach?
Yes. More advanced graduate students are sometimes used as lecturers. Theirs is a more responsible position, since the lecturer usually prepares the lessons, often makes up the tests that are given, and assigns the grades at the end of the term. But this responsibility is not given lightly, and supervision by experienced faculty is regularly given. In fact, we are very proud of our graduate students' teaching. They are closer to the undergraduates in age than most of the faculty, and closer in immediate life experience, since they are still students themselves. These factors often prove to be a real advantage for the undergraduates who have the graduate student instructors, since they can more easily communicate with each other. In Fall, 1995, about 14% of freshman and sophomore lecture classes, and about 6% of junior and senior classes, were taught by graduate student lecturers.

Graduate students are used as lecturers only near the end of their graduate training. These men and women are brilliant, able, and well trained. Most have already taken all of the courses they need to graduate and are working on other aspects of their degrees. As teachers to an undergraduate student audience, they earn their own living, thus removing that burden from their parents, and they function as cost-effective supplements to the efforts of faculty. This service saves the taxpayers millions of dollars each year. A formal program of teaching assistant recognition has been in place at TAMU for the past several years, and many of our teaching assistants have been honored for their excellence and classroom contributions. Because of this sort of training at the nation's graduate institutions, even new faculty are experienced teachers.

But many graduate students are foreigners. Surely it is not good for students to wade through a hard subject and a foreigner's poor English at the same time?

Let's distinguish between an accent and poor English. Those graduate students whose native language is not English must pass the "Test of English as a Foreign Language" (a national exam) before being admitted to the University. In addition they must pass a second, more difficult set of tests, the English Language Proficiency Exam, before they are allowed to teach. The exam is administered by the Measurement and Research Services Office of the University; a passing score requires a minimum grade of 80% on each section of the exam.

Interacting with these foreign teachers is good for our students. Texas A&M graduates often work for companies with branches in foreign countries. It is common for recruiters to express a preference for hiring university graduates who can work in a multinational environment because of the increasingly global nature of the work place. Early contact with international students gives our young people a chance to understand cultures they may be working with in their professional futures.

Is that the only reason foreign students are allowed to study at Texas A&M University? Don't we actually subsidize their education?

The state does not subsidize their education, although individual professors may support some of these students through grants.

The university and the state realize long-term benefits by teaching and employing international students. These students, many of whom study business and engineering, return to their native countries with a greater appreciation of U.S. values and standards. They strengthen U.S. ties abroad, particularly in South and East Asia and the Middle East, where the U.S. will increasingly transact business and cultural exchanges in the twenty-first century. In turn, international students broaden the cultural knowledge of U.S. students, which promotes respect and harmony between nations.

Moreover, by drawing some of our graduate students from an international pool, the average quality of graduate students, and thus the quality of research in which they participate, is raised. Thus the University, the state, and the nation gain by their presence here.

There's one other thing about them you might find interesting. Although only about 29% of our graduate students are international students, in the 1994/95 academic year total expenditures by foreign students in the state of Texas exceeded three-quarters of a billion dollars and created over 8000 jobs.


To summarize the matter of using graduate students as teachers: The use of qualified teaching assistants to supplement available faculty permits considerable cost savings to the taxpayers of the state and thus to our students, provides supervised training for graduate students as teachers, and provides the undergraduates with instructors who enhance their educational experience.