New tactics tried, but Spence's class still capped

As Yale undergraduates enter the spring semester, one of the greatest concerns among history majors and students taking history classes is whether there will be enough teaching assistants (TAs) to teach the course sections. Due to the smaller job market for history PhDs, the graduate school has admitted fewer graduate students to the history department, thus affecting the number of history TAs available for large lecture classes.

During the spring and fall semesters of 1999, the lack of TAs led the history department to form a student-faculty committee on the TA shortage and hold a forum to address what they termed a "crisis." However, it is questionable whether the situation is still a crisis. "This semester, there is a potential for crisis, but that is not the word we are using now," Robert Johnston, the director of undergraduate studies for history, said. "We are instead calling it a `major issue.'"

ANDREW HEID/YH OBJECT LESSON: Professor Spence's, SY '61, GRD '65, overflowing Chinese history class was capped by random lottery due to a lack of space.

Due to the publicity of the TA situation last semester, more students than ever before have applied to serve as TAs, especially from the law school and graduate program of International Studies. For the first time, there are more graduate students from outside of the history department serving as TAs than from within it. "We won't know for a few weeks or even until toward the end of the semester [whether this is a lasting solution]," Johnston said. "We've decided to slow things down regarding the TA situation."

John Demos, the director of graduate studies and head of the student-faculty committee, also thought it was too early to tell. "We've bare-ly started the term," he said, and "most courses haven't even met yet, and most TAs don't have section assignments."

However, issues that were raised last semester in regard to capping certain large class-es remain. Many students were disappointed in the fall when Professor John Gaddis' Cold War course was limited to a reduced number of upperclassmen. Not surprisingly, due to the experiences with courses from the fall term, much anticipation surrounded Professor Jonathan Spence's, SY '61, GRD '65, History of Modern China course for this spring, which was expected to be understaffed. "Since East Asian history fields do not admit many graduate students, and a lot of undergraduates seem to want to take modern Chinese history, there is bound to be a gap," Spence said. "We also use well-qualified students from other Yale departments, schools, or programs if they are eager to teach and are well prepared. If that figure falls short of the amount of students interested in the course, then we just have to cap in some way." Indeed, Spence was forced to limit his class, choosing a random lottery as his method. He was insistent that his course not be limited to upperclassmen, stating, "Because this is an introductory level course, freshmen are just as entitled to take it as seniors."

Unlike Yale, Harvard and Princeton seem to have few problems with TA shortages. At Harvard, classes are often lotteried, giving preference to juniors and seniors and students who need a particular class in order to fulfill their major. At Princeton, most courses operate on a first-come, first-serve basis. Those courses have a set number of spots and when the set capacity is reached, the course is closed. Although those schools have far less trouble finding enough TAs to teach the courses, Harvard has had a problem with psychology undergraduates outstripping gradutes. In order to compensate for its lack of TAs, the psychology department has been forced to overwork its graduate students.

As the spring semester continues, it is the hope of the history department that the TA situation will improve. Johnston explains that the proposals made during last semester's forum, such as making sections optional or eliminating them or capping classes further, are still under consideration. "This is the right time for concerned undergraduates to be vocal about their history TAs," he said.

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