TAs Worry Budget Cuts May Affect Stipends, Classes

Before the class on evolutionary mechanisms begins, he reviews the reading assignment and prepares discussion questions.

Harper makes $5,000 a semester as a teaching assistant, but he and other graduate students are increasingly concerned that pending budget cuts will cost them their main source of income.

If the N.C. legislature passes a 4 percent budget cut to UNC-system schools, officials say some teaching and research assistant positions might be eliminated. "Minus (the stipend), I can't afford to live here," Harper said. Even with his TA income, Harper said, he still must take out student loans.

The state legislature will consider a campus-initiated tuition increase of $300 this summer that might raise TAs' salaries. The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees passed a recommendation in January to earmark 5 percent of the tuition increase to raise graduate student stipends.

But in the meantime, officials say recitation sections, which often are taught by TAs, might be the first sections of classes to be cut.

Peter Coclanis, chairman of the Department of History, said the department does not want to eliminate entire courses, so its only option is to cut the number of sections. "Sometimes we have to cut the number of TAs because there are no funds for discussion and recitation sections," Coclanis said. "It's not a great scenario, but it's better than cutting classes."

But Branson Page, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, said education will suffer if course sections are eliminated.

"If you eliminated TA positions, you're not just hurting graduate students, you're dealing a real blow to undergrads," Page said.

Page said cutting TA positions might increase class size and, in the midst of enrollment growth, could worsen the class shortage UNC might face.

Michael Poock, assistant dean of academic and student affairs, said TA positions are valuable for graduate students. "This is their training. It's a good thing to do," Poock said. "It benefits the University, and it benefits the students."

In addition to the impact on graduate students' pay and education, fewer TA positions would make it difficult to recruit outstanding graduate students, Harper said. "It is already difficult to recruit to this University because of low TA pay," he said. "We have no doubt ... that it has cost us promising graduate students."

Page said members of the GPSF will lobby the state legislature this summer to minimize budget cuts. He said he hopes to make legislators aware of the important contributions TAs make. "Graduate students at Carolina ... help recruit more and better graduate students to Carolina, which could only enhance the quality of education throughout the state."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.