To teach or to have the graduate student teach? That is the question.

Last Thursday, a bill was proposed in the North Carolina General Assembly that conditions the salary of University of North Carolina school system professors on teaching a four course minimum per semester—up from the current average of 3.7 courses. For some UNC system schools, the average professor is already in compliance or close to it. In others that are much more heavily involved in research, the average is as low as 3.0, at N.C. State, or 2.5, for tenured UNC Chapel Hill professors. The bill is intended to make professors choose students over research when their attentions are divided. Besides its likely negative impacts on research, the bill asks a basic question about whether professors or their graduate students should be teaching our classes. Ultimately, however, such blanket legislation as this is entirely precluded by the uniqueness of every department and class syllabus.

For graduate students, there are concerns about how well they are suited for teaching roles given that their graduate studies do not necessarily indicate an interest in or propensity for teaching. Furthermore, graduate students typically have a very strenuous workload, particularly in Ph.D. programs, and classes stand to suffer in their priorities. This is not to say there are no classes suited well to graduate student teaching. Introductory classes with simpler syllabi that are more straightforward may be well-suited to graduate students whose fundamentals are fresher in memory and who can more closely identify with students who are just getting into a discipline.

However, as course numbers climb to more nuanced classes, so does the expectation of a teacher’s ability to communicate complex and more obscure material. Many students prefer professors simply because they are more qualified to teach and have more experience with educational pedagogy and the disciplines themselves. For these classes, graduate students can function well as graders and discussion section leaders, attending to specific material and well-defined topics. This allows graduate students to wear training wheels for their development as educators, with potential, of course, for larger roles.

With respect to research and the effects of this legislation, teaching fewer classes than average is part of how professors balance teaching and research. The pursuit of research is not only for academic exploration and the receipt of accolades but also for attracting graduate and undergraduate students alike to doing research in their fields. The dichotomy between a professor who focuses on students and a professor who focuses on research is a false one. Many professors keep a successful balance and make use of their research to expand the effects of their teaching and access to students.

To what extent a course should include a graduate student is a decision best left to individual departments given the high variation in the types of knowledge between and within each department, let alone among every class. The generation of knowledge that is hopefully incorporated into the lecture hall, in addition to teaching, is the true role of a professor but is sometimes achievable by graduate students. Thus, the best way to ensure a university’s educational mission is being accomplished is close attention to the details, not blanket legislation that holds salaries hostage for an almost arbitrary teaching requirement.