The Chair has final responsibility within the department. Grades you have to assign or report must be turned in to the Departmental Office for filing by a Departmental Staff Assistant. Payroll information and your paychecks are handled by Martha McGrew. Graduate teaching assistants have a dual role, serving as faculty when they are teaching during one hour, then being students themselves in the next hour. Behavior that is quite acceptable in a graduate seminar might be wholly inappropriate while teaching an undergraduate class.
Undergraduates expect a TA to conduct a class with the same professionalism as a faculty member.
Criticizing departmental faculty, other TAs and their procedures, as well as socializing with students outside of class, are acceptable behavior from a graduate student, but singularly unacceptable conduct in the teaching role. All TAs are required to participate at least once in the TA Orientation Program given before the start of the Fall Semester. There is also a shorter orientation at the start of each semester for those students who have not previously taught the laboratory to which they are assigned. In addition to these orientation programs, there are one credit graduate courses each fall in the teaching of laboratories and recitations that all TAs are required to take if they have not previously taught that course. In these courses, various teaching methods and practices are discussed and applied to the courses being taught.