A draft of the survey was created by task force members Sandra Hoeflich, assistant dean of the graduate school, and Lynn Williford, director of institutional research, to explore the distribution of TA salaries by weekly hours and levels of instruction.
The survey is one way the committee is studying TA compensation because of its importance in attracting top graduate students to UNC.
Branson Page, Graduate and Professional Student Federation president, said Monday's TA Task Force meeting focused on verifying the information on the draft of the survey so Williford can release a final survey to all departments.
Williford said the survey aims to clarify the average TA salary based on each person's specific duties.
"The reason that we are going to talk to the departments about the TA data is because essentially we don't have data on what exactly each graduate student does," Williford said.
Donna Bailey, director of TA development for the UNC Center for Teaching and Learning, said there are four levels of graduate teaching assistant duties. TAs can be instructional assistants, teaching associates, teaching fellows or senior teaching fellows -- each involving varying amounts of commitment.
The task force already has payroll data for TAs, but the survey will break down this information to better understand what specific instructional tasks TAs are being paid for doing.
Steve Allred, associate provost of academic affairs and task force chairman, said sending out the survey to each department will help the task force get an accurate picture of TA levels of responsibility.
The group's members hope to get the survey out by Friday and anticipate that departments will take about two weeks to gather all the information.