On 8/27/2019 1:43 PM, Bill wrote:
Frank wrote:
Grad school was paid for with a teaching
assistantship.Â* Pretty hard to do this today.


I know I left out the earlier part of Frank's paragraph.
I just wanted to mention that departments are staffing the
majority of their teaching position with graduate teaching
assistantships. For a large department, maybe 2/3 of the courses are
taught that way. That translates into there not being very many real
academic positions available to students who do earn a terminal degree
(like a PhD). Having witnessed it firsthand, it's really disrespectful.
It's mostly about the $$$.... I guess this is a separate, but admittedly
widespread problem (think Walmart).

That is interesting. My assistantship had me teaching labs which was
mostly just babysitting. Courses were taught by professors but my last
year, when I had a fellowship, they wanted me to teach undergrad organic
chemistry but I turned them down because it meant no extra money.

This was a private school but thinking back at U of Del. there were
graduate students teaching more courses.