Graduate Catalog — Assistantships and Financial Aid
Graduate Assistantships
The university offers a limited number of graduate assistantships to qualified students. There are four types of assistantships:
- a graduate employee who is primarily assigned to instructional support activities;
- a graduate employee who has independent responsibility for the teaching and grading of a lecture section of a course;
- a graduate employee who performs work primarily related to academic research, including the gathering and analysis of data and conducting of bibliographical searches. Research assistants may be employed to perform research work not directly related to their own research;
Administrative Assistant (AA) - a graduate employee who performs work of an administrative or technical nature.
All assistantships carry stipends and full tuition waivers. Some carry full or partial Education Operations fee waivers. Compensation levels and work conditions for graduate assistants are governed by a collectively bargained agreement between the University and the Graduate Employees' Organization (GEO), an affiliate of the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW) and its Local 1596. During AY ‘04-'05, the minimum full-time, nine-month stipend (where full-time is defined as twenty hours of work per week) is $12,600. Stipends and workloads for part-time assistants are prorated according to the percentage of assistantship held. A new agreement is being bargained between the University and the GEO as this Bulletin goes to press.