Lab Working Hours for GA/RA

[kerprof]

Our university has started functioning almost normally in Fall 2021 post COVID-19. All the classes in our department is conducted in person. Everyone within the University building should wear masks, unless they are alone in their office.

I am having following issue with one of my international PhD student, who started in Spring 2021.

I am supporting the tuition for the PhD student using my research funds. PhD student's stipend (the minimum required payment for 20 hour per week TA help for PhD level student), is actually less than semester tuition cost that I support with.

When I asked the student about coming to lab and work (Due to COVID, in her first semester she was working remotely), student is asking if she can be in the lab "few" hours per week. Student lives within 10 minutes walk from the building, where the lab is located and comes to the University  at least 2 days per week for in person classes.

Please advise what I should expect in terms of number of hours per day or per week the PhD student be in the lab.

[Hibush]

The 20h of TAing is what she has to do in return for the opportunity to spend the rest of her time getting a graduate education by doing her research in your lab. It sounds as if she is failing to make adequate educational progress if she is only spending a few hours a week on it. 

ETA.  My grad school is starting to ask faculty to work with first-year grad students to develop an explicit set of mutual expectations. Hours in the lab is one obvious item. It seems like a good idea (if a real pain to actually execute). Making an abbreviated version available to prospective students seems worthwhile so there are no misunderstandings.

[fizzycist]

Is the student doing a TA or an RA?

If they are doing a TA then why would you be paying their tuition out of your research funds? Is that even legal? Everywhere I have been the Dept pays tuition for TAs.

A reasonable request, to me, is to ask for 40 hrs/wk after accounting for courses (~10 hrs/wk for normal 3 credit course) and TA load. Often a first yr grad student here does 3 courses and 20 hr/wk TA. In that case, the only thing I would ask students who want to join my lab is that they attend group meetings.

[kerprof]

Is the student doing a TA or an RA?

If they are doing a TA then why would you be paying their tuition out of your research funds? Is that even legal? Everywhere I have been the Dept pays tuition for TAs.

A reasonable request, to me, is to ask for 40 hrs/wk after accounting for courses (~10 hrs/wk for normal 3 credit course) and TA load. Often a first yr grad student here does 3 courses and 20 hr/wk TA. In that case, the only thing I would ask students who want to join my lab is that they attend group meetings.

Actually Dept is paying only stipend amount, which is less than tuition. I am planning to inform the student that from the next semester, that I will pay the stipend, which is equal to the tuition amount (which is more than minimum amount for 20 hr/week PhD student pay)  for RA work only.  If she wants  to do TA work then I will not support tuition or any other stipend from Research funds.

In that case,  how many hours per week, I should expect the student to work in the lab starting next semester.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Actually Dept is paying only stipend amount, which is less than tuition. I am planning to inform the student that from the next semester, that I will pay the stipend, which is equal to the tuition amount (which is more than minimum amount for 20 hr/week PhD student pay)  for RA work only.  If she wants  to do TA work then I will not support tuition or any other stipend from Research funds.

I am curious how this setup is expected to work out?
Unless I am misunderstanding something:
RA covers only tuition and prevents student from getting extra income from TA => student has to find other sources of income to cover living expenses

[doc700]

For my grant supported RA students, they are expected to work on science/make academic progress 40 hours a week.  Of that, 20 hours should be directly related to the grant activities.  The other 20 hours can be coursework, attending seminars in the department or otherwise making academic progress that might not be directly grant related (or just additional work for the grant).

So far my grants (or start up/whatever source I am using to fund the student) have aligned with the students' research projects.  I dont have any industry funding or other funding that have the students working on projects unrelated to their thesis.  So in the summers etc the students work full time on their thesis research which is effectively full time for the grant.  But at all times if I am funding them, they must keep 20 hours/week of work directly related to their funding source.  Our TA positions pay full tuition/stipend/fees and require 20 hours/week.

My university has a separate structure for 1st year graduate students.  In my department, 1st year students pretty much do full time coursework and have very little time for research.  We don't fund them on our grants though and by the time they hit 2nd year there are only a few electives left that can easily fit into the 20 hours/week leaving the remaining 20 for their funding source.

Is the student doing a TA or an RA?

If they are doing a TA then why would you be paying their tuition out of your research funds? Is that even legal? Everywhere I have been the Dept pays tuition for TAs.

A reasonable request, to me, is to ask for 40 hrs/wk after accounting for courses (~10 hrs/wk for normal 3 credit course) and TA load. Often a first yr grad student here does 3 courses and 20 hr/wk TA. In that case, the only thing I would ask students who want to join my lab is that they attend group meetings.

Actually Dept is paying only stipend amount, which is less than tuition. I am planning to inform the student that from the next semester, that I will pay the stipend, which is equal to the tuition amount (which is more than minimum amount for 20 hr/week PhD student pay)  for RA work only.  If she wants  to do TA work then I will not support tuition or any other stipend from Research funds.

In that case,  how many hours per week, I should expect the student to work in the lab starting next semester.

[fizzycist]

Is the student doing a TA or an RA?

If they are doing a TA then why would you be paying their tuition out of your research funds? Is that even legal? Everywhere I have been the Dept pays tuition for TAs.

A reasonable request, to me, is to ask for 40 hrs/wk after accounting for courses (~10 hrs/wk for normal 3 credit course) and TA load. Often a first yr grad student here does 3 courses and 20 hr/wk TA. In that case, the only thing I would ask students who want to join my lab is that they attend group meetings.

Actually Dept is paying only stipend amount, which is less than tuition. I am planning to inform the student that from the next semester, that I will pay the stipend, which is equal to the tuition amount (which is more than minimum amount for 20 hr/week PhD student pay)  for RA work only.  If she wants  to do TA work then I will not support tuition or any other stipend from Research funds.

In that case,  how many hours per week, I should expect the student to work in the lab starting next semester.

Still a little confused: so you dept. pays student as TA but does not pay their tuition? And TA stipend is less than tuition, so the student has to pay the difference and has no take home pay?

And if you hire her as an RA you will not pay her tuition but just give her a stipend that is equal to her tuition?

If so, there is something really f'ed up with how your department operates and I don't know what advice to give other than to expect the student to run at the first chance she gets.

If not, please explain slowly the situation with dollar amounts and details so that we can understand, I am genuinely interested.

[Caracal]

I'm unclear on what the student is requesting and how reasonable it is. Is she saying she wants to do most of her  lab work remotely and only sometimes come into the physical lab? Or is she saying she wants to only do a few hours of work a week, full stop. Those are very different requests.

If it is the former, is she doing work that could be done mostly remotely with occasional visits? Does work like that exist in your lab that you could assign her to? Could everyone work that way? Or, would it be fine to have a few people who mostly work remotely, but you need most of the people in the physical space for the work to function?

The other questions are about the student. Does she have specific reasons to want to be especially careful about covid exposure? (medical condition, Caregiver for vulnerable family member) If so, you could be legally obliged to accommodate her if the request is reasonable and possible.

[mythbuster]

There is a different way to think about this. Rather than worrying about hours in the lab, worry about what they are getting done each week. Are they making sufficient weekly progress?
      I say this because I just had to have this discussion with my grad student. She had completed an experiment, except for the data analysis and statistics on the results.  So we did not know the outcome of the experiment- not completed by my rules. She waited a full week before getting around to doing this analysis (she doesn't like math!). Now the outcome of this experiment directly impacts what the next step is in her research. So she basically did nothing in lab that week. I told her that at this rate she was not making sufficient progress, and would have to report that to the program director. This kind of warning could result in her losing her TA-ship. Then she would have to pay tuition out of pocket. We shall see if that speeds her up any.

[kerprof]

In our University, the leadership provide the new faculty with a decent start up fund and let the new faculty take care of recruiting PhD students and provide RA/GA etc.,

I joined this University in Spring of 2020... As part of recruiting strategy, I found that other faculty in the department are offering minimum stipend amount (20 hour per week PhD student rate) in Spring ($6500) and Fall ($6500) and full tuition (minimum required 9 credit hour for International Student) for Fall ($7530) and Spring ($7530).

To recruit more PhD students in my group, I decided that for a first year PhD student, for the stipend part, let me try go with getting TA assistantship (again for minimum stipend amount of $6500 for 20 hour/week work) from the department. This arrangement has been working so far for all the three PhD students in my group.

One thing I could have done to make students work on research (in addition to being TA for 20 hours per week) is to have them enroll them in few credit hours of dissertation research along with the course work. That way they can spend some time on Research as opposed to all course work.  I might try this option going forward.

Another option, I am thinking is to split $13000 (or may be $15000) stipend across three semesters (Summer, Fall and Spring) and have the students work purely as RA.

Wondering if the students will request for enrolling in Summer for dissertation credits rather than stipend for RA work?

[arcturus]

If this is in the USA, I hope you are aware that your stipend is extremely low (it may be lower than that required for an international student to qualify for a visa, for example). For context, I earned more than that when I was a graduate student eons ago (in the dark ages) at a university located in a medium cost-of-living area. Our current graduate students, in a low cost-of-living area, make about twice what you are offering, with the costs of health insurance covered by the university (or by the grant, if they are RAs). My school would also not allow the split in funding that you are describing. A student is either an RA or a TA, for any given term.

An RA/TA contract is for 20 hours per week. At my school, students also register for research credits throughout their time in graduate school. So, typically a beginning graduate student (someone still taking classes) will work for 10-30 hours per week, depending on their course load and the source of their funding. A more senior graduate student will work at least 40 hours per week. Putting anything in writing that suggests that they should spend more than 20 hours per week on their funded work, or suggests more than 40 hours per week total, will get the advisor in trouble with the administrators. Spoken words can still be reported, but are less likely to result in legal troubles.

I find it beneficial to set research goals at the start of every semester. This is done in conjunction with the student (I prefer if they determine the goals themselves, rather than imposing them myself). At the end of the semester, we look at the list to see what has actually been accomplished.

Our work can be done remotely, but is better done with regular interactions. Thus, at the start of the pandemic, all of my research students worked remotely, with designated zoom meeting times to make certain they were making progress. My school is now partially open, and my research students have chosen to come back to their offices. This makes it easier to have the informal discussions that are necessary when they reach unexpected roadblocks. It is more efficient. However, if the university shuts down again, I am comfortable that they will still make sufficient progress if they have to work remotely.

[mamselle]

Is this the same situation being discussed on the other thread?

Wouldn't it make sense to have the two threads merged?

Mods?

M.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Another option, I am thinking is to split $13000 (or may be $15000) stipend across three semesters (Summer, Fall and Spring) and have the students work purely as RA.

Is it on top of covering tuition?
Even in this case 13k appears to be very low (even more so if one considers current job market for CS graduates).

Wondering if the students will request for enrolling in Summer for dissertation credits rather than stipend for RA work?

Can you clarify the difference between these options?
It looks as if you are separating work for you as a RA and their own research with only former to be supported by the stipend.
In most cases I would consider these options to be the same with student's own research entangled with supervisor's.

[fizzycist]

In our University, the leadership provide the new faculty with a decent start up fund and let the new faculty take care of recruiting PhD students and provide RA/GA etc.,

I joined this University in Spring of 2020... As part of recruiting strategy, I found that other faculty in the department are offering minimum stipend amount (20 hour per week PhD student rate) in Spring ($6500) and Fall ($6500) and full tuition (minimum required 9 credit hour for International Student) for Fall ($7530) and Spring ($7530).

To recruit more PhD students in my group, I decided that for a first year PhD student, for the stipend part, let me try go with getting TA assistantship (again for minimum stipend amount of $6500 for 20 hour/week work) from the department. This arrangement has been working so far for all the three PhD students in my group.

One thing I could have done to make students work on research (in addition to being TA for 20 hours per week) is to have them enroll them in few credit hours of dissertation research along with the course work. That way they can spend some time on Research as opposed to all course work.  I might try this option going forward.

Another option, I am thinking is to split $13000 (or may be $15000) stipend across three semesters (Summer, Fall and Spring) and have the students work purely as RA.

Wondering if the students will request for enrolling in Summer for dissertation credits rather than stipend for RA work?

Thanks for explaining, now I understand.

In my opinion, this arrangement (you pay tuition from startup, but stipend is paid from 20 hr/wk TA) is a bad deal for both you and your students.

If a student is on a 20 hr/wk TA and taking 1st yr grad classes, they have little-to-no time to do research. You are lucky if they have time to read a few papers and attend your group meetings. If they do spend a substantial amount of time in the lab there is a danger they fail the courses and then everyone suffers. Doing a TA during 1st yr coursework would be great for a student who was unattached and just finding their way, but these students have to worry about pleasing you too or else their tuition waiver is in jeopardy.

Its also a bad deal for you because you are paying a lot in tuition and getting almost nothing in return. You would be better off to pay as an RA and then can reasonably expect to get them to spend 20+ hrs/wk in the lab. You would be paying ~2x what you are paying for the current arrangement but would likely get >>2x the work.

The stipends are indeed low, but presumably you are not able to set the TA stipend so I give you a pass on this. Your proposed RA stipend is not competitive in physical science, but I leave that for another thread if you are interested.

[kerprof]

Is it on top of covering tuition? Even in this case 13k appears to be very low (even more so if one considers current job market for CS graduates).

Yes. It is on top of covering tuition.

Wondering if the students will request for enrolling in Summer for dissertation credits rather than stipend for RA work?

Can you clarify the difference between these options?
It looks as if you are separating work for you as a RA and their own research with only former to be supported by the stipend.
In most cases I would consider these options to be the same with student's own research entangled with supervisor's.

I hope to combine RA work and student research work to be the same. ie., aligning research proposals/grant work tied to the student dissertation work. But not successful so far... Most of my funds are from startup grant... One NSF grant that I recently got is more education oriented. However, I did get recently a tiny industry research grant that can support a student for 1 year starting Spring 2022.