Teaching in a Different Department

[kateausten]

Does anyone teach in a different department than they are getting their degree from?  How did you balance the demands of that department (beyond your teaching hours) with the demands of your own department and other things related more to your studies and career?   I'm a terminal MA student on a professional track (language-related, but not teaching-related, and I don't intend to do so at any point after school) and I'm teaching a language.  We are strongly urged - at times it feels more like "pressured," and "this is mandatory" is implied - to put a lot of time into learning foreign language pedagogy, including weekend meetings of language teachers (mainly high school teachers) and conferences.  We already have to take 4 credits worth of pedagogy-related classes (a formal class and a practicum) to keep our TA-ships.  I understand that enough professional development to make us passable teachers is a good thing, but this is beyond what is necessary for that.  There is no way I can do all of the things we are being told to do without dropping meetings, conferences, social events, and other duties that are far more relevant to my own studies and career.  What is the best way to say "No" to this extra stuff without damaging my relationship with the professors that I TA under, who I do like and respect and want to keep as references if I can?  Or should I just make time for these things by factoring them into the number of hours of TA duties in my contract?  (That would mean it would be at the expense of time grading, prepping lessons, etc, and counterproductive to the actual quality of my teaching.) 

 

The professors seem to pre-empt the objections of people in this situation by saying "Even if you don't plan to continue in teaching or academia, this will be valuable because of X, Y, Z" -- and I agree, there is probably some value in any sort of academic or professional event.  But there's also an opportunity cost, and there are other things I could be doing that relate directly to my plans. 

[TakeruK]

 Or should I just make time for these things by factoring them into the number of hours of TA duties in my contract?  (That would mean it would be at the expense of time grading, prepping lessons, etc, and counterproductive to the actual quality of my teaching.) 

 

This is what I do, even for TAships in my own department. But this is from experience TAing in a unionized position where we had hourly contracts. These contracts explicitly state that any mandatory training sessions related to TA work count towards our hourly contract. In one example, the provincial law required all public sector employees (e.g. grad student TAs because universities are public sector employers) undertake Workplace Harassment training. When the university notified grad student TAs that we had to attend this workshop, during the summer, where we normally do not have TAships to deduct hours out of, we argued that we should be paid the normal TA rate for the 3 hour workshop. The University refused, stating that since as graduate students, we were not "employees" but "students" (although for other purposes, they treated us as "employees" when it benefits them). We countered that if we are not "employees", then we are not covered under this law change and thus should not be forced to attend the workshop.

 

However, It was a very awkward scenario because we believed the workshop was very important, but at the same time, our ability to be treated fairly as employees was also very important. It did lead to uncomfortable conversations between me (our department's TA union steward) and the prof who was the TA coordinator for the department. But I think these conversations are important to have, because everyone else has their priorities and graduate students are vulnerable to be taken advantage of since we want/need to earn the respect and reference letters for our future careers.

 

What happened in the end? The decision was made that since it was the summer, none of us were employed at TAs at the time, so the training will not be mandatory nor will it be paid for. However, this would only delay the problem until the fall, when most of us would be employed as TAs, and thus required by law to undergo this training. But, they will have another training session in the fall, and then the current TAs can deduct these hours from their hourly contracts. So, it worked out in the end, except for the small part where the University still "encouraged" current grad students who would be TAing later in the fall to attend the workshop voluntarily anyways (and for free). But I think this is still a reasonable compromise and allows for each TA to make the individual choice whether or not to voluntarily go to the professional development program. (I think the correct and most legal/contract binding resolution would be to credit the students that attended the summer session for hours worked in their next TA contract). 

 

So in your case, it is a tough scenario. If you don't have a union, you might not have the same protections I theoretically had when I brought up this issue on behalf of the TAs in my department. Graduate students are in a vulnerable position and we have to pick and choose our battles wisely. This is why I think properly run unions are important, so that we are able to make arguments in situations like the one above without burning bridges etc. (since the one representative would speak for us and individual TAs would be protected by the group). But without that, each TA would have to make their own decision whether or not to speak up. In the example above, since I was the representative, it's pretty easy for the department to choose to subtly retaliate against me even though I should be protected, but I "chose" that battle because it involved people I am not academically involved with and took place a few months before I was going to defend and leave (and thus would not be TAing in the future with this school anyways). I also attended that workshop voluntarily.