DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS, OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

TA TIME DISTRIBUTION

TAs are appointed term by term, each term consisting of 13 weeks:

Fall: Sep 16 – Dec 15
Winter: Dec 16 – Mar 15
Spring: Mar 16 – June 15

A full-TA appointment in the Physics department is considered a 0.4 FTE appointment, and a half-TA appointment is 0.2 FTE (FTE = full time equivalent ). No student may be employed at greater than 0.49 FTE. A 0.4 FTE appointment requires a maximum commitment of 208 hours per pay period. (See the Coalition of Graduate Employees webpage at http://oregonstate.edu/admin/hr/gradstud/home.html).

Compensation includes a full tuition waiver for TAs with a 0.2 FTE or greater appointment and a stipend. Stipends are paid at the end of each calendar month for the work performed in that calendar month. Note that the first portion of Winter and Spring pay periods are during the break between classes in winter and spring respectively. The University does not recognize these as breaks for employees.

The work load does not fall evenly on a weekly basis. You should spread preparation work out to lower the peak burden. Remember to budget time for midterm and final exam grading in those weeks. Below is an approximate schedule, but adjust for the fact that the 15^th of the month (last day of pay period) is not always a Friday (last day of academic term), and that winter break is 2 weeks and spring break is 1 week.

WEEK	RESPONSIBILITIES
Week 1	-
Week 2	Orientation (Fall)
Week 3	1^st week of class (TA meet, no lab/rec, no OH)
Week 4-11	Full swing (lab, rec, OH, TA meet, 2 midterm exams)
Week 12	Dead week (OH, rec, makeup lab, TA meet)
Week 13	Finals (OH, proctor, grade, no lab/rec)

Below is an approximate* time distribution for the average TA in introductory courses:

Activity	Per week or per exam	Total (hr)	Comment
Lab/rec	6-9	54-81	9 lab weeks
OH	2	20	10 OH weeks
Prep	3	27	9 prep weeks**
Grading/admin	3	27	9 weeks
TA meet	1	10	10 class weeks
Exam proctor	3	9	3 exams
Exam grading	9	27	3 exams
Additional tasks		34-7	See below
TOTAL		208

* PH201/2/3 lab has 4 sections @ 2hrs/section; PH211/2/3 lab has 3 sections @ 3hr/section. Recitation has 6 sections @ 1 hr /section.

** One lab week is a makeup lab for which no preparation is required.

Answers to some questions:

• "Additional tasks" in the above table refers to time spent furthering the instruction in that course. Additional tasks may include training and/or extra preparation time for new TAs, mentoring activities for experienced TAs, curriculum development, or administrative assistance for the instructor. Other classes carry different distributions, and typically employ fewer TAs.

• If a TA is no longer a student, that TA may be required to refund the University for overpayment in certain cases. One example is if the TA withdraws from the University for just prior to winter term. Salary may have been paid for the last two weeks of December, but the TA will not take up duty for winter term. The salary would be refunded to the University in that case. A second example is that of a TA who holds a thesis defense in the middle of the term, such that the final copy of the thesis is submitted in the middle of a pay period. The TA's compensation ends on the day the thesis is submitted.