Teaching Fellow Program

The Teaching Fellow Program (TFP) provides the principal framework at Yale in which graduate students learn, under faculty guidance, to become effective teachers and to evaluate student work. This learning is integral to the preparation of graduate students for professional lives of teaching and scholarship. Teaching by graduate students also provides undergraduates with valuable additional educational experiences and feedback on their academic work. Please see the annual Deans' Letter on Faculty and Teaching Fellows for guidelines regarding the role of teaching fellows in the classroom. In addition, the TFP office maintains a list of courses in which there are teaching opportunities that arise during the course selection period at the beginning of each term.

The TFP Office is headed by a Director appointed jointly by the Deans of the Graduate School and Yale College. The office oversees the annual assessment of departmental teaching opportunities, administers the appointment of teaching fellows to specific courses, and provides information for Teaching Fellows. Decisions regarding the program are made in close collaboration with the Chairs, Directors of Graduate Studies (DGSs), and Directors of Undergraduate Studies (DUSs) of the arts and sciences academic departments and programs, and with the Deans and their associates.

Another important resource for Teaching Fellows is the programs offered by the Graduate Teaching Center (GTC). These programs are designed to assist Teaching Fellows with a range of teaching experiences to make the most of their teaching opportunities. Teaching Fellows are urged to take advantage of these programs as well as of departmental programs designed toward the same end. Additional information about the GTC is available in Becoming Teachers: The Graduate Student Guide to Teaching at Yale.

Annual Assessment of Departmental Teaching Opportunities In the spring of each academic year, departments and programs are asked to submit lists of the undergraduate courses to be taught in the coming academic year that are appropriate for graduate student teaching, describing for each course the teaching structure (e.g., lecture or laboratory with sections, lecture with graders) and the projected number and levels of Teaching Fellows. Requests are based on standard teaching fellow levels. Discussion sections in lecture courses are normally limited to eighteen to twenty students. Departmental requests are due in mid-April and are reviewed by the TFP Office in light of historical enrollments and teaching patterns. Here as elsewhere in its work, the TFP Office consults frequently with DGSs and DUSs and the Deans of the Graduate School and Yale College. The TFP Office normally notifies departments of their approved number of Teaching Fellows for the year by June, in ample time to appoint Teaching Fellows for the next semester.

Appointment of Teaching Fellows Departments and programs are responsible for selecting individual Teaching Fellows and submitting their recommendations for appointments to the TFP Office. For fall semester courses, departments are asked to submit their teaching fellow appointments to the TFP Office before the end of August. For spring semester courses, they are asked to submit their recommendations for appointments by early December. The TFP Office reviews the recommendations for eligibility and finalizes the appointments. All appointments are made contingent on the student's satisfactory academic progress. It is the practice of all departments to send letters of appointment to graduate students, signed by both the department and the TFP Director, indicating the courses in which they are expected to teach and the level and stipend of their assignment. For 2006-2007, the TFP Office is working closely with all departments to encourage them to write appointment letters and to send them, whenever possible, well before a semester begins. As enrollments stabilize in the first few weeks of each term, departments are asked to closely monitor course and section sizes, and it is occasionally necessary for departments to change teaching fellow appointments in response to unexpectedly high or low enrollment. Responsibility for monitoring and reporting enrollments rests with the faculty member in charge of a class. At the end of shopping period, the TFP Office will survey Teaching Fellows for confirmation of their appointments, so that students and faculty can verify the accuracy of appointments and make any needed adjustments or corrections. Letters of admission inform students of the years in which they are expected to teach and will receive a teaching fellowship (the department's "teaching years"). For students in the teaching years of their departments, appointments will not be adjusted in response to changes in course enrollments. Appointments for these students will change only if a course is cancelled or if the student, course instructor, and DGS all agree upon a reassignment. For students who received a university fellowship upon admission, if appropriate teaching is not available in their teaching years or if their teaching fellowship is less than the standard departmental stipend, the Graduate School supplements the teaching stipend with a fellowship to reach the level of the departmental stipend. Such funding adjustments are made with the participation of a student's Associate Dean and DGS. For Teaching Fellows outside the "teaching years" of their departments, appointments will be made with the understanding that they are contingent upon satisfactory academic progress and on sufficient enrollment in the courses. If enrollment in a course does not support the projected number of Teaching Fellows, every effort will be made to identify another appropriate appointment for the students affected. When an appointment level is increased, it is accompanied by an appropriate increase in the teaching fellowship. The effective date of the increase in teaching fellowship is made to correspond with the date the student actually assumes the greater level of responsibility. In the very rare instance when an appointment level is reduced because of lower-than-projected enrollments or when an error was made in the original appointment, any change in fellowship level is implemented from the day of the revised appointment going forward.

Information for Teaching Fellows Throughout the year, the Director and Assistant Director of the TFP Office work with students and departments to meet their various needs. The staff is available to answer students' questions about their teaching fellowships and to serve as a clearinghouse helping to match interested students to teaching opportunities in departments and programs other than their own. Students who have questions about any aspect of their appointments at any time during the semester are encouraged to contact the Director of the TFP Office or their Associate Dean.