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Report of the Graduate School Task Force
on a Variable TA Rate
The Graduate School invites comments from graduate students and faculty regarding this report. Responses may be sent to tarate@grad.washington.edu.
Introduction
In March, 1998, Dean Marsha Landolt convened a task force to consider two questions: (1) whether the University should institute a variable salary rate for teaching assistants (TAs), and (2) whether there should be a post-candidacy reduction in tuition for Ph.D. students. In the course of its deliberations, the committee collected and studied data from other institutions. It also interviewed David Asher from Institutional Studies, Associate Dean David Hodge from the College of Arts and Sciences, and Provost Lee Huntsman. This report discusses the first of these topics, the possibility of a variable TA salary rate.
Framing the Issues
It is appropriate first to discuss briefly the present TA compensation system, and problems caused by it, some, but not all of which, would be addressed by a TA variable salary rate. For many years, UW policy on graduate teaching assistants (Executive Order 28) has provided a fixed schedule of activities and compensation for these appointees. Three salary levels (TA, PDTA1, PDTA2) are provided for all disciplines. Problems inherent in this system caused Dean Landolt to ask us to consider a new method of compensating teaching assistants.
One attempt to address the standard compensation system was the creation of the variable RA rate plan in 1989, by then Dean Gene Woodruff. In this arrangement, departments may pay research assistants above the standard rates if every research assistant in the unit is paid at the same rate. While this strategy is helpful to some units with few teaching assistants and the means to supplement them, the RA rate is invariably higher than the TA rate, sending to the TA the message that teaching as an enterprise is relatively less valued. This is not the norm nationwide: at peer institutions, it is not unusual to find a TA salary that is higher than the RA salary. Thus, neither the standard system, nor the variable RA system, is adequate to address concerns caused by the inability to vary TA compensation by discipline.
We note at the outset that the current TA salary rate is 3.1% below the average of our peers and 14.8% behind the UW goal of the 75th percentile. These statistics do not correct for the relatively high cost of living in Seattle, which is a growing concern for many graduate students. Given these circumstances, the task force concluded that if a change in TA compensation is adopted, no TA should experience a reduction in salary.
A second issue, which could in principle be addressed by a TA variable rate, is that despite the existence of three TA salary levels, TA compensation is frequently in practice unrelated to the complexity of duties assigned to the TA. A variable rate would allow departments, where appropriate, to adjust TA pay in the unit to reflect the tasks TAs perform.
The most important reason for considering a flexible TA pay scale is the nationwide competition to recruit the best graduate students, a competition which varies significantly by discipline. At UW, units which find the mandated TA salary scale too low to compete for the best prospective graduate students are responsible for addressing the problem. At peer institutions, this problem is usually handled centrally, by either authorization of a salary level that varies by discipline, or provision to the unit of financial supplementation (fellowships, etc.).
The problem of a TA wage that is inadequate to compete for the best graduate students has been addressed by a wide variety of methods by UW units with the financial ability to do so.
- One approach includes provision of "supplemental" employment (e.g., greater than 50%) as an RA or TA. For example, a student might be 50% TA and 5% RA to achieve a competitive wage. This is of course only practical if the TA has documented activity on a research grant. Federal rules prohibit appointment at less than 5% on a federal grant, limiting the ability of this approach to "fine tune" salaries. Another method that can be used to fine tune is hourly employment. However, both of these approaches are administratively cumbersome and invite the attention of auditors.
- A second approach is provision of a supplemental award from appropriate gift funds, which not all units have. These funds have usually been contributed for the broad purpose of advancing graduate education, rather than the more specific purpose of providing supplementary salary to TAs. If a department wishes to invest these funds in advanced students who are known quantities, this need must be sacrificed in order to support newcomer TAs.
- A third approach used by some units is to start beginning TAs at a point on the salary schedule above the entry level in order to address this problem. It must be emphasized that even the highest of three currently allowed levels is below the competitive wage in some disciplines.
- A fourth approach is that some units that have no state-funded TA positions ask TAs to teach as a degree requirement while they are being funded on an RA using a higher rate the variable arrangement allows.
- Some units use all of the above mechanisms.
The existence of these mechanisms indicates a need on the part of units in some areas of campus, to provide compensation at rates above those found on the TA salary schedule in order to be competitive with peer graduate programs. This is not surprising, considering the fact that faculty salaries in the various disciplines are structured to be similarly competitive.
It is the opinion of the task force that UW is not well served by the current TA compensation policy. Other than its simplicity, there is no obvious reason for a policy which leaves to impacted units the task of solving the problem of competing with their peers in this arena, particularly when, as noted below, the majority of peer institutions deal with this problem centrally. The present policy leaves the upper administration without tools to help academically strong units experiencing this problem. The present policy needlessly places the burden on chairs and directors of impacted units to find creative solutions at the unit level, time which these leaders might spend on other pressing problems or their own scholarly activities. Units lacking aggressive leadership willing to pursue implementation of strategies such as those outlined above are at risk of falling behind their off-campus peers.
The task force discussed the advantages and disadvantages of abandoning the current TA salary policy and implementing in its place a variable rate. The new policy would be predicated on the idea (used at a number of institutions) that the Graduate School would set minimum salary rates and that departments in consultation with and with permission from their college dean could set departmental rates above these floors. Such a scheme would make it easier to recruit well-qualified TAs in certain disciplines. The following list illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of using competitive variable rates:
Advantages
1) Provides Deans and Chairs a tool available at many competing institutions to manage their portfolios
2) Helps to maintain the quality of both undergraduate and graduate programs in departments competing in higher-paid fields
3) Provides a mechanism to reduce or eliminate need for administratively cumbersome supplementation
4) Assists departments in balancing TA and RA rates within the unit, or even enabling TAs to be paid more than RA as is done at some peer institutions
5) Provides to units a mechanism to vary TA rate according to TA duties
6) Will place units closer to peer parity
Disadvantage
Faced with competing demands of sustaining undergraduate and graduate programs, Deans and Chairs might reduce TA FTE number with a net negative effect on undergraduate education
Strategies Used by Other Institutions
Task force members consulted with colleagues in their discipline at institutions they believed to be their competition and found three basic patterns for addressing this issue. In the majority of instances, the TA salary rate varies across campus and is set either by the department chair alone or in consultation with the college dean. In a smaller number of cases, TAs are unionized and this fact determines the salary schedule and how it is set. Another small set of institutions, particularly the University of California schools, offers campus-wide rates with supplemental block grants, provided by the institution, to assist units in being competitive with peers. The annual AAU Data Exchange survey of graduate assistantships shows similar patterns.
While many institutions deal with TA compensation by means of a variable TA rate, as a point of comparison it is worth looking at an institution, such as the University of California at Berkeley, that does not use such a system. Three factors at the UC Berkeley transform a uniform system, such as the one at the UW, into one that can deal with some of the disadvantages of the variable rate listed above:
1) Block grants are given to departments in the form of flexible funds (not considered employment) whereby departments that wish higher compensation for TAs may create legal supplements;
2) Both experience as a teacher and experience as a graduate student are considered in setting a TA's salary level, based on the kinds of work the TA will do;
3) More salary levels are available so departments may make various kinds of appointments without seeking special permission from the Graduate Division for an exception.
All of these enhancements would be attractive at the University of Washington and would make the current system more responsive to a variety of student and departmental needs. The main stumbling block is the level of funding that would be needed from central sources for such a strategy. Indeed, if UW departments had access to sufficient flexible funds, they would not have ventured into such practices as the use of hourly or small appointments on research grants and contracts for supplementation.
Factors to be Considered at UW
The task force believes that the present TA compensation system is in need of reform. The group considered the two systems employed by peers (TA wage that varies across campus vs. centrally provided supplementation) to overcome the problems at UW. The committee believes that while the features of supplementation ("the Berkeley model") would address the background issues surrounding the TA rate question in ways that would be applicable to all departments with graduate teaching assistants, it is extremely unlikely that flexible funding to supplement graduate teaching assistants' salaries will be forthcoming from central sources to make this approach possible.
Therefore, the task force unanimously recommends that UW adopt a TA rate that varies by discipline. We argue that: a) The existing campus-wide TA salary schedule constitutes a UW imposed constraint on leaders attempting to optimize quality and quantity in a severely resource-constrained situation, b) the existence on competing campuses of a centralized method to deal with varying departmental recruitment needs (either by a variable rate or by centrally provided supplements) places UW, with its campus-wide salary schedule, at a disadvantage; c) UW's failure to respond to market competition in graduate programs while addressing the needs of undergraduate programs through the mechanism of teaching assistantships damages both graduate and undergraduate education.
The task force recognizes that there may be opposition to implementation of a TA variable rate. The arguments against are that: a) the variable rate would cause units which are not at this time experiencing competitive pressures at the same level, units which also in general already have fewer financial resources, to fall behind, and b) the current uniform schedule provides a salary floor for TAs in these fields, protection which might be lost under a system that relies upon competitive factors.
As noted earlier, a variable rate will solve a number of problems for some graduate degree-granting units. It will offer departments, working with their respective deans, the flexibility to set TA salaries that raise the level of support that is offered for all. However, it will not necessarily assist departments that compete using some of the other mechanisms mentioned above, nor will it ensure that the overall rates for all graduate teaching assistants necessarily will rise in a way that significantly addresses their cost of living concerns.
The task force considered the effect a variable TA rate would have on undergraduate education, the motivation for the state to provide instructional funding. It was suggested that chairs might choose to offer fewer courses for undergraduates because it could afford fewer TAs paid at a higher rate, thus reducing access, or might increase the number of students assigned to each TA, thus decreasing instructional quality. The fact that many competing institutions use a variable rate but do not experience these difficulties suggests these fears are without foundation. The task force argues, rather, that the lack of a variable rate poses the greater risk to undergraduate education, as the quality of TAs is destined to decline if units are unable to compete for outstanding graduate students. These fears do, however, argue in favor of assuring that Deans approve each TA rate. It seems reasonable to imagine that Deans and Chairs working together will arrive at TA salary levels that will balance the competing needs for access and instructional quality.
The task force noted with great interest the contemporaneous report of the task force that considered the faculty salary problem we are presently experiencing. That task force adopted a discipline-based comparison method by which UW salaries were compared to those of our peers. Thus some disciplines were found to be much farther behind than others. Though it will likely always be the case that faculty members who receive below average compensation will argue that faculty salaries should not vary so greatly as they presently do (thus arguing to increase their own salary), we know of no serious consideration of a uniform campus-wide faculty wage. One is then left to ponder what justification remains for a uniform campus-wide TA wage.
The task force also considered the issue of how salaries would be set, that is what factors would determine salary levels, under a variable rate policy. Our peers have considerable experience along these lines upon which we can draw later if the committee’s recommendations are accepted; the task force did not explore this detail at this time in our peer surveys. The task force favors a model in which units requesting a TA salary above the floor compare themselves to off campus peers of comparable academic stature or, better yet, just slightly ahead of it. Thus a top-decile department would be expected to argue for a TA salary that would allow it to compete with top-decile peers. A third decile department would correspondingly compare itself to third decile peers. There will no doubt be instances in which the strategic considerations, for example the desire to improve substantially in a given area, will argue for choosing a peer group of higher stature. We also can envision circumstances when geographic considerations may influence selection of a peer group.
Recommended Action
The task force recognizes that there are two components to the issue of a variable TA rate: whether the concept is viable and, if so, how to fund it. Thus it is possible for the task force to agree on the concept without knowing the origin of the funding. Therefore the task force members unanimously recommend implementation of a variable TA salary rate. Task force members are in agreement that the floors for a new variable rate arrangement should be set at or above the current rates.
As an implementation strategy, we recommend that new instructional funds from the legislature be allocated differentially to the schools and colleges and thus to departments, consistent with the competitive environment experienced by the units. The alternative strategy of reallocating existing university funds to institute a variable rate appears to the task force impractical, because it is not obvious how this could be achieved without reducing TA budgets in some units, and the committee stands by the principle that no current teaching assistant should experience a pay reduction. In any case, departments requesting such a rate would have to negotiate with the school or college dean to set the rate and to specify how the department will meet its instructional goals within a fixed funding base.
The task force judged as inferior, but nevertheless preferable to the present system, a plan whereby a uniform salary schedule were supplemented centrally to help departments respond to competitive pressures. If fully funded (which seems unlikely!), such a plan would address the recruitment needs of all departments and provide raises periodically to all graduate teaching assistants. The committee has insufficient information to estimate the cost of such a plan.
In the final analysis if a TA variable rate or supplementation system were fully funded to allow every TA at UW to receive a living wage and competitive wage, then it would make no difference which plan were adopted. Unfortunately, the notion that UW could fully fund such a system flies in the face of decades of experience. Because the TA variable rate would allow Deans and Chairs to collaborate, using existing budgets optimally to advance the joint mission of undergraduate and graduate education, the committee favors the variable TA rate approach to this problem.
There seems to be little disagreement that the current salary schedule for TAs does not assure the long term quality of either the undergraduate or graduate program at UW This report conveys difficulties with the current system and alternatives for addressing them. Therefore, the task force further recommends that Dean Landolt take whatever further actions she deems necessary, including consultation with any appropriate parties, to move this issue forward.
Elizabeth L. Feetham, Associate Dean, Task Force Chair
Professor William Beyers, Geography
Professor John Coldewey, English
Professor Paul Hopkins, Chemistry
Professor Barry Hyman, Mechanical Engineering
Mr. Jun K. Kim, Psychology
Professor Francis Spelman, Bioengineering
To comment on the Task Force's report, please send an email message to tarate@u.washington.edu.