Teaching Liaison Committee (adopted 10 May 1997)
There are multiple pedagogical and programmatic advantages to maintaining a close relationship between graduate students teaching 100-level political science courses and faculty which justifies the creation of a new committee to guarantee the resources for such a relationship.
Teaching assistants and teaching initiatives in the Department of Political Science assume particularly heavy responsibilities. They teach from their own syllabi, according to their own methods, and by their own sense of their professional standards. This has many pedagogical advantages for these student-instructors which we believe should be respected and continued. Foremost among these is the creative imperative which stems from full control of classroom and curriculum. At the same time, experiences with the Teaching Initiatives program and with seminars run by the university's Center for Teaching Excellence suggest that an opportunity to share ideas, concerns, and problems with peers and with faculty may augment the learning process, integrate teaching more into the program of graduate learning, and make teaching more satisfying. This need is not met entirely by the Tl program (which, at most, is run every other semester), or by the CTE (which has sporadic seminars to which TA's may feel invited). Although there is a great deal of informal mentoring which takes place, this is dependent upon networks not available to every student teacher.
The duties which this departmental faculty have to their undergraduates, a further set of pedagogical concerns, are not monitored in any ongoing fashion. To be sure, graduate students are carefully reviewed, their syllabi scrutinized, and opinions solicited from faculty who know them and have an opinion as to their effectiveness as teachers before they are chosen as teachers. At least yearly, their performance is assessed. However, if problems develop during the semester there is frequently little awareness on the part of the departmental faculty, and little incentive for instructors to reveal major difficulties. While, for the most part, our graduate student instructors are excellent, in no small degree due to the responsibility we allow them, we have an affirmative duty to our undergraduates to pursue excellence wherever we can. Maintaining some regular contact with our graduate instructors, offering them whatever advice we can while respecting their professional autonomy, and offering them the possibility of a faculty mentor (as well as the mentorship of more experienced graduate instructors) serves the double pedagogical purpose of furthering graduate and undergraduate education. Finally, undergraduate teaching is advanced because such interaction will facilitate the assessment of graduate teaching.
With these concerns in mind—and in light of the Department's commitment to democratic representation on its official institutions—we propose that a new committee, entitled the Teaching Liaison Committee, be established. This committee will consist of two graduate students with at least one full year of teaching in the Department as a TA or as a lecturer appointed by their fellow students, and one or two faculty in whose teaching experience, knowledge, and quality the Department chair has confidence. On semesters in which the TL program is being conducted, the TL instructor can also take the role of sole faculty representative due to commensurate duties. The members of the liaison committee will be encouraged to meet regularly with the 100 level teaching staff individually (perhaps once every three weeks or so) and collectively (perhaps twice a semester or so). In addition, they will make themselves available for consultation on an irregular needs basis. Their duties will, further, unwire maintaining an awareness of university resources available to TA's in aid of their teaching effectiveness.
The social role of Liaison Committee members is not one of oversight, nor surveillance, but should be as immediate resource to student teachers. In every way, these committee members are to operate as advocates, and as mentors, and should render support to graduate instructors. This is in keeping with the spirit of respect for these instructors' professional autonomy which this Department has long championed. At the same time, liaison committee members—especially the faculty representative(s) as agents of the University—maintain their affirmative duty to pursue undergraduate teaching excellence. In nearly all cases, this duty will only reinforce members' duties to aid graduate instructors reach their fullest teaching potential. In very rare cases, this might mean a more direct form of intervention, but only when the committee members, in direct consultation with the Department chair, and with full respect of departmental, university, and legal norms, reach a common consensus to act on behalf of these undergraduate students.