All faculty members who have or anticipate having funding to hire one or more Graduate Assistants (e.g., through an external grant, award funding, or other internal funds) must use the following process to request the assignment. This process is intended to support faculty/graduate students with opportunities for GA assignments, while ensuring that the department can meet its staffing needs.
Process
- Each semester, the Associate Chair of Operations (or their designated staff member) emails all faculty to announce the GA Assignment Request Deadline, the deadline for making requests for an RA for the following semester (typically near the beginning of November for new Spring assignments, and late April for Fall assignments).
- Faculty members who have or anticipate having funding should express their interest in hiring a GA in writing to the Associate Chair of Operations/Scheduling Staff Assistant as soon as they are aware of potential or confirmed funding, and by the GA Assignment Request Deadline. No RA assignment should be promised to a graduate student without first confirming availability with the Associate Chair of Operations.
- The Associate Chair of Operations/Scheduling Staff Assistant provides the faculty member with the xlsx, and notifies them of the deadline to submit the form.
- The faculty member completes the xlsx, providing information about the faculty supervisor, project name, student name and major, start and end dates, fractional time, worktags, and responsibility statements. This information is necessary in order to process the LOI.
- The Associate Chair of Operations/Scheduling Staff Assistant shares the request form with the Graduate Staff Assistant, who creates and processes the LOI for the GA appointment.
Requests for a GA to be re-assigned from an existing assignment made after the GA Assignment Request Deadline cannot be guaranteed. We recognize that external funding is sometimes confirmed after these deadlines, and all attempts will be made to honor such requests. However, approval of the re-assignment will be dependent on available departmental resources to re-assign the student from their current assignment.