Yale's history department tackles the TA crisis

JOHN YI/YH At a panel on Tues., Nov. 16, History Professor Jon Butler, right, and Graduate School Dean Susan Hockfield discusses changing the history department policy on TAs.

"One of the reasons I chose the psychology major over history," Andrew Gurman, BK '98, reflected, "is that in psychology, most classes don't have sections. I didn't get as much out of them as I wanted and felt that there was little continuation—I didn't know if I would ever see a teaching assistant again after the semester the way I would see my favorite professors." For many students, these observations about history sections ring only too true. On Wed., Nov. 16, the history department held a forum for its majors and other undergraduate students on what they have proclaimed as the TA crisis.

With an increasing number of students enrolling in history classes—enrollment topped 6,300 students this year, an increase of 800 students from the previous semester—the history department has deemed it necessary to address growing concerns about teaching assistants and sections. Obstacles such as finding enough TAs, have also become prominent. The history department estimates that the department will be short by approximately 15 TAs next semester.

The forum drew about 25 undergraduate students, almost all of them history majors. Present were members of the student-faculty committee on the TA shortage; members of the TA crisis committee, who discussed history department concerns over the summer and this semester; Robert Johnston, the director of undergraduate studies for history; John Demos, the director of graduate studies and head of the student-faculty committee; Jon Butler, a member of the student-faculty committee; and Professor John Gaddis.

One of the most prevalent points of the discussion was whether enrollment should be limited in certain classes. "Capping might not be so bad in smaller classes because then only students who really want to take them would," Jacob Remes, SY '02, said. K. Connor Martin, TC '00, disagreed, explaining that capping "might push students out of the history department." Johnston emphasized that although he was proud that history is the most popular major at Yale, "we're not pushing to stay as the megamajor."

Gaddis suggested pre-registering for popular classes as a feasible means of capping. Elizabeth Purdom, CC '00, disagreed. "I am opposed because nothing is advertised well," she said. "There is a problem in knowing the deadlines and I often don't know if I want to take a class until I shop it. Furthermore, a lot of students find classes through word of mouth and pre-registration would not allow for that." Remes felt differently. "A lot of people have some classes like Gaddis or Spence's courses in mind years beforehand and know that they want to take them," he said.

Another focus of the discussion was whether sections should simply be made optional, or even eliminated. Steve Barrows, ES '02, complained that often "students just go to class to sign the assignment sheet." Some students suggested that if sections were made optional, only the students who really wanted to come would, which would improve them for those students. Others felt that since most students sign up in a course to hear the lecturer, some sections could be eliminated. Stephen Vella, GRD '03, strongly disagreed. "Group instruction on a small scale is integral to a history class," he explained. Professor Gaspar Gonzalez, GRD '98, who teaches the Formation of Modern American Culture, added, "My course would be much less ambitious without sections. I don't always talk about the readings in lecture and without sections, I would have to spend time on them and less time on outside information. Without sections, you wouldn't get as good of a product from the course." The TA crisis committee has found that approximately 85 percent of students go to optional sections.

Ameliorating the section problem has been a concern frequently addressed publicly in graduate student venues such as the Graduate Employees and Students Organization (GESO), yet this problem clearly concerns undergraduate students and faculty as well. The Tuesday meeting was the first such open forum specifically addressed to undergraduates. Previously, on Mon., Nov. 1, the history department held a similar forum for graduate students. Also, on Wed., Nov. 10, a group of graduate students started informal meetings with the goal of eventually drafting a resolution or statement to the faculty and undergraduate committee on possible solutions. International studies lecturer Mark Lawrence, GRD '97, explained, "Consulting undergrads will bolster many of the arguments that grad students and many faculty have been making for a long time." Gonzalez added, "The goals of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty are in line, but the Administration has separated the graduate issues from the others." While Tuesday's forum attracted less than 30 undergraduates, about 60 graduate students—half of the history graduate student population—attended the graduate forum.

Both graduate students and undergraduates shared similar views on the possibility of hiring post-doctorate students to take over some sections, known as the "Princeton plan," due to its usage at Princeton. Most students felt that they would rather see the University hire more junior faculty to teach instead. Martin said she thought it was a "horrible idea to get post-docs and for Yale to invest in second-class jobs." Remes said, "It would trouble me to have an advisor who was there one year and not the next—one of the benefits of full-time faculty is that there is consistency in that relationship." Lawrence asserted, "It is frankly scandalous that Yale, with its $7.4 billion endowment, relies so heavily on casual, adjunct labor and drags its feet on creating new professorships." Opponents of the "Princeton plan" further emphasized that an important component of teaching at Princeton is its use of full professors in the classroom in addition to post-doctoral students. Vella hopes that the history department would try to emulate Princeton's model of having faculty members teach two sections of their own courses. He advocates lifting the present limitation of TAs to teaching two courses and allow them to teach more for more pay. "By having professors pick up a share of the section load, they were more involved in all aspects of the courses from grading papers to finding out directly what students were absorbing from the lectures," Vella said.

The history department will have to decide by next semester what measures they will take to ameliorate the problems they are facing. But this week's event was a step in the right direction, generating positive comments from students who attended. "It's going to take a lot more to get to a solution, but we really got to see how undergraduates felt," Joshua Marks JE '01, a member of the student-teacher committee, said. Johnston added, "I found the forum immensely useful. I am grateful for the open-endedness of the discussion, as well as its discipline in handling certain issues."

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