Fostering future faculty: How chairs can support graduate teaching assistants

As the chief academic officer of a department, the chair can largely influence the quality of graduate and undergraduate education. Attention to issues of graduate teaching assistant (GTA) preparation and support will likely benefit undergraduate education. It is increasingly common for GTAs to be responsible for large introductory sections, and undergraduate students’ experiences in these classes affect their likelihood of taking future courses in the department. When GTAs lack training, they learn by “practicing on [undergraduate] students” (Sohoni, Cho, & French, 2013, p. 2). The quality of GTA instruction affects undergraduate students, and in turn, can impact undergraduate student satisfaction and retention. Not only can the quality of undergraduate education improve, but better training and support of GTAs may help reduce the frequency of common problems that chairs must deal with including grade appeals and formal student complaints as GTAs may have little training on assessment and classroom management.