Welcome to Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Each year we conduct training and orientation for new graduate assistants.This year we are again pleased to have all-campus training sessions for Teaching Assistants (TAs), and sessions for Research Assistants (RAs) and Administrative Assistants (AAs) as well. You may have the following questions:

What is expected of a teaching assistant? For prospective graduate Teaching Assistants, your supervising faculty member may assign a variety of instructional duties such as:

1) Conducting independent teaching or co-teaching with colleagues;
2) Being a teaching assistant to a professor for a certain course and doing grading, answering questions, etc.;
3) Leading lab experiments, lab discussions, grading lab reports as a lab assistant.

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Departmental Training -- Various departments conduct formal training of three days or more in length for their teaching assistants. You should check with your supervisor, departmental director of graduate studies, or department chair to determine if your department has a 3+ day program. If your department does have the formal training, you may not be expected to attend the campus wide training series.

If your department does not have 3+ days of formal training/orientation, then you are expected to attend the Graduate School's Graduate Assistant Workshop series (click here to see the agenda for 2009). Some departments which have a formal program may also expect you to attend the workshops either on Tuesday afternoon or Friday morning of the week prior to fall semester classes. Check with them.

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International Teaching Assistants -- For all prospective and/or new graduate Teaching Assistants, if you are a non-native English speaker and/or if you have your higher education in another language other than English or you received your Bachelor's degree at a higher education institution other than in an American institution, you are an international teaching assistant (ITA).

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ITA Oral English Proficiency Screening Test -- In response to the Illinois Senate Bill 1516, the University requires all prospective International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) to take the all-campus ITA Orientations held typically on the Monday, prior to the beginning of classes for the Fall semester, and to take and pass the ITA Oral English Proficiency Screening Test. For the ITA Orientations, the ITA Oral English Proficiency Screening Test and other activities for new ITAs during this training week, please click here for more detail.

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Are there any extra requirements for RAs and AAs?

Yes.

Research Assistants and Administrative Assistants -- To help meet the requirements for Research and Administrative Assistants, the University requires all new RAs and AAs to attend two sessions:

1) Session on the SIUC Sexual Harassment Policy;
2) Session on the Responsible Conduct of Research;

Please click here for a more detailed schedule about these two sessions.

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Are we the Graduate Assistants all required to attend the workshops?

Yes.
ABSENCES -- There are situations in which you are wondering if you can be absent from the required training. If that is the case, please:

1. E-mail to your department's Director of Graduate Studies and/or the Chairperson of your Department explaining the reasons you will not attend; AND
2. Copy that e-mail to the Center for Graduate Teaching Excellence (cgte@siu.edu). A decision will be made if your absence is permitted.

ATTENDANCE -- Attendance is taken at each of the workshops. After the series of workshops is completed, a compilation of workshops with attendance at each is emailed to the various college deans, department chairpersons, and directors of graduate studies.