Duke relies on grad instructors

When sophomore Amanda Tong enrolled in Math 32 last year, she found herself having a hard time with the professor and soon switched out of the class.

"I didn't understand a word he said," Tong said. "His delivery wasn't confident and he was always mumbling."

At the front of the classroom was a graduate student instructor--something typically associated with large, impersonal state schools but in reality not uncommon at Duke.

The Chronicle found that in some departments it is possible to take a half-dozen courses and satisfy 50 percent of requirements for a major without being taught by a faculty member.

Administrators justified the prevalence of graduate instructors and many students said some of their best classes had been led by graduate students.

There are certain economic realities at hand and it is important to provide graduate students with teaching experience, said Robert Thompson, dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences and vice provost of undergraduate education.

"We always try to get the highest level of instruction and sometimes there's a real supply-and-demand issue," Thompson explained.

The decision is not simply financial, he said.

There is not clear evidence that graduate students are inferior instructors, Stern explained, noting that in many course evaluations, graduate students outperform professors.

"At the lower-level classes, sometimes the undergrads like having someone who is closer to them in outlook," he said.

This semester, 66 percent of first-year mathematics classes--which cover material through Calculus II--are being taught by graduate students.

Stern defended the practice as necessary, adding that no one teaches without training, which includes teaching a lab under an experienced professor.

"If we have someone who we deem not a good teacher then we don't put them in a classroom right away," he said.

But Jason, a senior who asked his last name be withheld, said he currently has a graduate instructor who is not ready to teach.

"She's not used to delivering lectures, so she'll just ask a lot of questions," he said. "There is usually just dead silence."

Graduate students in English teach classes only after they are finished with their own coursework and are working on their qualifying exams and dissertations, said Ian Baucom, chair of the English Department.

Even then, only one of 10 required classes for the major can be taught by graduate instructors, whom Baucom called "teachers in formation."

"The University understands the importance of doing that," Baucom said, referring to the prevalence of full-time faculty in English. "There are other departments [at other universities] that don't receive that type of support."

Baucom said that since his department does not have a lot of lecture classes with sections, many graduate students design their own courses, aimed at first-year students.

"It hasn't ever been an item of concern that we've had graduate students who undergraduates haven't responded to," he explained.

That may be because some students are avoiding classes taught by graduate students altogether.

After having a bad experience in a class taught by a graduate instructor last year, sophomore Naomi Schwartz said she now refuses to take a class with anyone other than a full-time faculty member. "I actually was in a class this semester with a graduate student and I switched out of it," she said.

A closer look

The Department of Romance Studies makes for an interesting case study.

Every Trinity College student is required to take three semesters of a foreign language or prove proficiency in one, so there is a steady demand for lower-level classes in Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.

Duke has no graduate programs in the latter two, but the 767 students currently enrolled in beginner or intermediate Spanish and French classes are more likely than not to have a graduate student as their instructor for a few semesters.

"Getting enough Spanish faculty is a challenge," Thompson said.

The idea that graduate students are inferior language instructors is untrue, though, said Margaret Greer, chair of the Department of Romance Studies.

The syllabus for beginner and intermediate language courses is set departmentally, not by the individual instructor, she added.

"Students sometimes get the wrong idea that graduate students are fully in charge of the classes," she said. "They are supervised by an experienced coordinator."

Every graduate student takes a one- week workshop before their first teaching experience-no small consideration, as the majority are not native English speakers, she said.

Although foreign graduates are sometimes unfamiliar with the difficulties American students face while learning a language, Greer said the increased cultural enrichment makes the exchange worthwhile.

The first year is always tough, Greer said, adding that graduate students are required to take a teaching methodology course in their first semester as instructors, which comes no earlier than the second year of graduate school.

"We've tried it both ways-methodology, then teaching--but I think they get more out of that course when they're actually in the classroom," Greer explained.

More prevalent than graduate instructors, she said, are non-tenured adjunct professors with master's degrees who are not working toward a Ph.D.

Because graduate students take classes while teaching, they are limited to one class per semester, but adjuncts may teach up to three-and they actually are paid less per course, she said.

"It's a system that's taking over at many U.S. universities," she noted.

Lesson learned

The Writing 20 program is a cornerstone of the first-year experience.

Every freshman, regardless of school or academic interest, must take a seminar to shore up the basics of college writing.

Revamped in 2000, the program has won national awards for excellence. Only eight of its 140 sections are taught by graduate students.

Back in the 20th century, however, Writing 20 was significantly less lauded.

"What was happening wasn't of the quality that we expected because we hadn't made the investment in it," Thompson recalled. "We had previously relied almost totally on graduate students and we needed to do better than that."

The University re-conceptualized the course by providing several million dollars of additional funding and replacing the graduate students with post-doctoral fellows, Thompson said.

The graduate students each currently teach only one course per year, said Joseph Harris, current director of the University Writing Program.

With mentoring from senior faculty, they can be effective, Harris said.

"I'm very happy to have a small cadre of graduate students be part of our program," he said.

The end result

Still, if the solution to Writing 20's woes was to replace the graduate instructors, why not apply that philosophy to the rest of the University?

Administrators said it's not only about the undergraduate experience, but it is also about the need for graduate students to have time in front of a classroom.

"There's no such thing as the gentleman scholar, where you just research and work for a living," explained Larry King, interim chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Stern echoed that sentiment.

"A university can't survive without teaching its graduate students to teach," he said.

Eliminating all graduate instructors is simply not an feasible option, said Baucom, of the English department.

"We have a responsibility to help them in their movement to become teachers themselves," Baucom said.

"The graduate students are the American faculty of the future," he added.