Description of The TA MENTOR Program

The Office of Instructional Support and Development established The Teaching Assistant Mentor Program in 1990. Academic Affairs and The Graduate School fund the Program. Participants are experienced teaching assistants who are preparing for careers in higher education. The purpose of the TA Mentor Program is to provide graduate preparation that reflects future faculty roles, to develop discipline-based pedagogy and to increase peer mentoring in academic departments. Each year, approximately fifteen TAs are selected from a variety of disciplines to serve as TA Mentors. These TA Mentors participate in bi-weekly meetings and several retreats during an academic year. In addition, past and present TA Mentors are able to participate in a private list-serv discussion on teaching while they are serving as TA Mentors and as they move into their faculty positions. A ten-year longitudinal study to track the career path of these outstanding TAs includes more than 100 former TA Mentors.

The TA Mentor Program is professionally valuable as each TA Mentor is given the opportunity to focus on the issues that will help them to successfully make the transition into a faculty career. They are given a cross campus impression of academic cultures, opportunities to document the scholarship of teaching, access to some of the best teaching faculty on this campus and the resources which reflect the best teaching approaches in the country including an intensive opportunity to develop the use of technology for teaching. In addition, they are encouraged to share their teaching successes at various teaching conferences and workshops. They are also mentored through the job search process and the early years as a new faculty member.

The impact of the TA Mentor Program is professionally significant for the participants, but also has a valuable impact at the departmental level. The TA Mentors take a leadership role in their academic departments by developing teaching resource areas, lab handbooks, and materials related to teaching. They establish teaching seminars and share materials they have received through the TA Mentor Program. Peer mentoring has dramatically increased in a number of departments as a direct result of the activities of the TA Mentors.

Outcomes of the TA Mentor Program

Recipients of UGA's Outstanding and Excellence in Teaching Awards who are preparing for a career in higher education are invited to apply for the TA Mentor Program. Fifteen participants are chosen each year from this already talented group of graduate students. Particular attention is paid to the applicants' instructional and professional goals as well as to the needs of their academic department in terms of peer mentoring. A cross campus representation of disciplines is included each year. Approximately half of the group each year is made up of STEM graduate students with an attempt to include departments who have not previously had a TA Mentor. Both international and domestic students are represented in an attempt to make the group very diverse. Doctoral level graduate students are usually chosen, though master level students have been included on occasion if they bring to the group a particular talent.

A ten-year study to track the career path from graduate school to academic positions included participants from 1990-2000 (Smith, 2001) The TA Mentors have been highly successful in managing their graduate teaching and research responsibilities, in completing their graduate work, in navigating the academic job market and in finding positions which are personally rewarding and professionally challenging. A goal of the TA Mentor Program is to help participants explore possibilities in academic positions beyond the research-intensive institution. Although many of the STEM graduates do end up at research-intensive institutions they often negotiate a fairly balanced teaching and research role. Other STEM graduates have consciously chosen teaching intensive institutions and tell us they appreciate our TA Mentor discussions in helping them to make that decision. We have also introduced a variety of post-doctoral teaching positions as a way to help STEM graduates obtain more teaching experience before they go into the tenure track job market.

The TA Mentor program has profoundly impacted the teaching culture of the University of Georgia because of the leadership these outstanding graduate students provide in academic departments. Although only fifteen TA Mentors work with us each year, they are each working on a peer-mentoring project in their department and share the information we provide them with their departmental peers. They also are a great source of inspiration to new teaching and laboratory assistants as they lead our fall orientation, and teach the departmental teaching support seminar. Faculty members have been drawn into the teaching discussions in the TA support seminars and often remark on the impact it has had on how they view teaching. In addition TA Mentors stay in contact with our office and other former TA Mentors as they move into their faculty positions via a national list discussion. In reflecting on the reality of faculty roles and their graduate preparation, they have helped us add needed components to our TA support structure and in identifying the pivotal events that contribute to their successes. (Smith, 2001)

Smith, K. S. (2001).

Implementation of the TA Mentor Program

The strength of the TA Mentor Program is tied to selecting participants who have already been recognized by their departments and the university for their outstanding teaching contributions. All the recipients of the Outstanding and Excellence in Teaching Awards are invited to apply to the TA Mentor Program. Each of these applicants has already expressed an interest in good teaching and in pursuing a college career. The fifteen participants we choose each year become peer mentors to other participants in the program and to their departmental colleagues. They are a source of inspiration to each other and to new teaching assistants and wonderful role models of how to successfully take advantage of their graduate program related to teaching. They also provide valuable information to help us in supporting all teaching and laboratory assistants.

Since the program is considered a valuable career opportunity and an honor we have more applicants than we can accept each year. However, we have insisted on keeping the number at fifteen to maintain the small group dynamics of a successful peer mentoring experience. Although the participants receive a $1000.00 salary stipend for their participation in the program, that is not the main incentive for joining. The Graduate School also provides $2,000.00 for meeting costs and $5,000.00 in TA Mentor resources. Instructional Support & Development resources of personnel, food and retreat expenses are variable and depend on budget constraints. Most bi-weekly meetings and two retreats yearly are coordinated by one staff member with help from a graduate student and an events coordinator. Both the TA coordinator and the events coordinator are full time OISD staff while the graduate student is twenty hours a week. The TA Mentor program is, however, only one program in a very large faculty development office so the TA and Events Coordinators and the graduate student have many other duties.