We have made a considerable amount of effort in expanding TA orientations and TA training, bringing a more comprehensive perspective to that and focusing more on issues of diversity in the classroom. We have made the groups participating in TA training smaller, which has also increased the interactions among the instructors of those sections, the faculty and the students. Please keep in mind, however, that we tend to have a more non-traditional student population at both levels of study at this university than do some other universities. Some of the characteristics among graduate students and undergraduates overlap. But others do not.
Graduate students tend to have more family responsibilities.
They tend to be the income generators for their family units. The whole issue of the financial burdens incurred by graduate study and by life is a major concern for graduate students. It is one that we will continue to have to address. We have, as you know, among the lowest graduate assistantship stipends in the country in many of our disciplines. It is something that we get criticized for by every review team, yet we don't need to hear it externally as we are painfully aware of it ourselves.