Members of the TA Task Force met Tuesday afternoon as part of an ongoing effort to ensure that TAs at UNC-CH are appropriately compensated. Five key issues were identified at the meeting, and task force Chairman Steve Allred said the committee must focus on these issues before Jan. 17, when the task force wants to present its proposal to the provost.
The task force reviewed the results of a survey sent to UNC departments concerning TA pay. The data, compiled by Lynn Williford, director of institutional research, showed that UNC-CH's compensation is significantly behind peer institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, N.C. State University and the University of Virginia.
"First of all we need to double-check our data to make sure it is completely accurate," Allred said. "We also need to draft a recommendation on what the standard course load and number of hours per week should be while pursuing a degree."
Based on the data presented at the meeting Tuesday, Sandra Hoeflich, associate dean of the Graduate School, made a motion to set a goal of putting UNC-CH's TA compensation level in the top quarter of its peers when considering average and minimum compensation levels.
Although MIT, the institution with the highest salary, had an average TA pay of $16,792 for TAs teaching one class per semester at about 20 hours a week, UNC-CH's average was significantly less at $11,379 for the same amount of work. The average TA salary of the 17 peer institutions was $13,272, $1,893 greater than the average TA salary at UNC-CH.
But everyone at the meeting agreed that the figures in the survey could be misleading considering that cost of living was not factored into the data.
Allred said he would prepare a draft of the proposals made at the Tuesday meeting and forward that draft to all committee members in anticipation of the next task force meeting. He said he would include Hoeflich's motion in his draft but said there must be concrete goals in place before a final proposal is made.
"We must identify the gap, including both raw data and including the cost of living, and decide on our goal," he said. "Then we must decide our funding strategy."
Branson Page, Graduate and Professional Student Federation president, was a strong advocate of a proposed three-pronged effort, which included raising funds using campus tuition increases, state funds and private money from the Carolina First campaign. He also supported a proposal that would institute a monitoring system that would annually update data regarding TA compensation.
