Even though overuse of teaching assistants (TAs) has become common in institutions of higher education, administrators say that Tufts is bucking that trend.
Teaching an introductory course has become "beneath the dignity of the tenured set," leading to the overuse of TAs and graduate students, according to an opinion piece published in the influential Chronicle of Higher Education by Louisiana State University Professor David D. Perlmutter.
"An analogy here may help," Perlmutter wrote. "If your children were visiting a foreign country, whom would you rather have as their tour guide: a newcomer or a longtime native?"
At Tufts, administrators are striving to answer that question with, "Why not use both?"
According to Dean of Undergraduate Education James Glaser, the claim that teaching introductory courses is "beneath" senior professors is "bogus." "If someone had that attitude they probably would not be happy here [at Tufts]," he said.
At Tufts, high-demand courses often use TAs to facilitate teaching. "The compromise is to teach large courses with a break down into smaller units -- in the form of labs, recitations, etc. -- so that students have the chance to engage the material in a more active way," Glaser said.
But there are no available University-wide figures on the number of TAs and graduate students who teach or assist in teaching courses, according to Glaser.
"To be fair, lecture classes have a place in the mix of courses students should take," Glaser said. "I don't think that every class has to be 10 to 15 students; being exposed to different styles, methods, and approaches is part of what education is about -- it lends to the diversity of experience."
Graduate economics student Kavita Srinivasan, a TA for "Principles of Economics," believes that TAs are useful because "it's always easier to talk to someone your own age," she said. TAs can also give helpful information on choosing graduate schools, internships, and careers, she said.
And TAs at Tufts are meant to supplement the expertise of the professor, according to Assistant Director of the Department of International Relations Malik Mufti.
"We attach a great deal of importance to teaching here," Mufti said. "TAs and recitation sections complement the professor and lectures rather than standing in for them."
In Political Science 51, a class Mufti teaches, "the job of the TAs is to answer questions and lead discussions on the material presented by the professor, not to present new subject matter themselves," he said. "Of course, [the TAs] can provide supplementary insights from their particular experiences and areas of expertise."
TAs sometime have extensive experience in a subject that, given their closer contact with students, may have more of an impact that professors' greater knowledge.
According to Yevgeny Bendersky, a student at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a TA for PS 51, his fellow TAs have worked for foreign embassies, written books, among other achievements. Bendersky himself guest-lectured at a high school for two years and helped facilitate learning workshops for adult professionals while working in a non-governmental organization before coming to Fletcher.
In addition to whatever background experience they arrive at Tufts with, new graduate student TAs participate in full-day training sessions taught by Chemistry Professor Tufts Morse.
In large science classes such as Chemistry 1, Morse must balance managing over about two dozen TAs with remaining in contact with about 250 students. And this semester, enrollment is low for the course -- average enrollment is usually 300.
Morse manages two types of TAs for the class -- laboratory TAs and recitation TAs. A lab coordinator -- a full-time staff member with a Ph.D. -- helps manage the 18 lab TAs.
Despite the large class size and multiplicity of TAs, Morse tries to live up to Tufts' standard that professors should be involved with their undergraduate students.
Morse makes every effort to not lose contact with his students. "Logistics in big class is a big problem -- I probably get 20 e-mails a day from my students, in addition to the ones who stop by my office and for office hours," he said. "Having the TAs have office hours as well is a great way of just having more resources."
Morse said he personally comes up with the grading schemes for his class and all TAs grade together alongside him to maintain uniformity in scoring.
"I don't want a big class to feel anonymous and uncaring," Morse said. "I make my lectures as interactive as possible, but I still have [so many] people in the room so I design the recitations to bridge that gap between the big classroom setting and working on problem sets and exams for the students."
Classes at other universities can be even larger than Tufts' Chemistry 1 -- at Northwestern University, professors use even more TAs for classes of 300 to 500 students, according to Associate Provost of Undergraduate Education Stephen Fisher.
Students aren't the only ones benefiting from existence of TAs -- the relationship seems to be a symbiotic one.
Anupama Arora, now an assistant professor of English at Earlham College in Indiana, taught English 2 last fall when she was a graduate student at Tufts. "Many times, the questions my students would ask provided me with a different perspective, a new way of thinking about a text that I hadn't thought of before even if I had read [it] a dozen times," she said.
Junior Natasha Chadha had Math 5 with a graduate lecturer and though wary at first, she emerged satisfied with the experience. "It was more on a student-to-student level and I felt very comfortable," she said. "I'm not saying there was a lack of respect, but there was a different, higher comfort level."
