undergraduate thesis supervision and compensation

[Ruralguy]

We do get a little extra for fresh/soph advising (but not majors). We also get a bit more for chair of dept. (but not Chair for some committees that can be more work than a typical dept. chair).

[Parasaurolophus]

Clearly you just need to supervise 50 undergrad theses and presto chango! course release!

Wait, how many undergrads in your program?

Better yet, I could supervise 400 a year!

(Alas, we have 0 students. We just service other programs.)

[kaysixteen]

Independent studies are a different thing, and are very hard to do correctly, esp if the student, ahem, doesn't really want to get with the program.   But honors theses, whether a student is required to write one or not, are the way for the student to obtain, ahem, those honors, and if this option is available for students to pursue at a school, what is the justification for a student whose grades would allow him to do so, not being able to do so because no faculty members would be willing to supervise it?

[jerseyjay]

At my school, students do not do a thesis per se, but are required to take a capstone course, which requires researching and writing a modest paper based on primary source research. In history, the students usually write between 15-25 pages, which I realize that at some schools would be a standard term paper, but it is often the most our students have ever written. It requires at least two drafts and substantial feedback.

We do not get paid extra for the course--it is part of our load. It usually has only 9-15 students. I find that it is like the boiling frog--it starts off  easy (for the instructor) because there is no real lecturing, but by the end (when I have to read multiple drafts of multiple papers) it is more difficult. We alternate this between the full-time faculty.

[Ruralguy]

At my school we certainly have some professors who will just refuse to direct research or agree, then not meet or nudge the student and then say "Well, its *their* research" when the student has a crap paper. But, students can always find *somebody.*I don't think we have ever had an Honors student not graduate with honors because they couldn't find a research adviser. Although, we do have a couple per year who just decide research is too much and decide not to finish off the Honors program.

[Puget]

We do not get any extra compensation or even teaching credit (though it does show up on our teaching record, and so in theory "counts" for T & P in some abstract sense). It would be really nice if we could at least save up a certain number for a course release or something. (Private R1 sciences, for context).

[Kron3007]

Zilch, zero, nada. And, since I'm in a lab science, I also pay for the materials they use to generate their "data" so on any short term scientific level it's usually a net monetary loss. I don't even get teaching credit despite the fact that they are signed up for undergrad research/thesis credits in my lab.

For comparison puposes I am at a large state R1.

Same here.  I didn't know extra pay for this was even a thing, just thought it is part of the job.

I have suggested the students should come with some funds to cover expenses, but that didn't seem to go anywhere, so we just absorb the costs.  In some cases, they are good to run the small projects pushed to the backburner, and provide mentoring opportunities for grad students, so there are some minor benefits to doing it, but overall they drain resources/time (but are part of the job).

[Ruralguy]

Its interesting how we are conditioned to think that some things demand extra pay and other things don't.
I guess it depends a lot on institutional culture and tradition.

[Sun_Worshiper]

At my place you can say no to this kind of thing, although I doubt many of us do. So, no compensation but no requirement to do it either.

[secundem_artem]

Compensation.  Ha. U funny,

[onthefringe]

I actually don't want compensation, or even, really, teaching credit. I do think there should be a mechanism to provide monetary support for students whose research requires it (supplies in the lab sciences, maybe some travel or subscription costs in other areas where data is acquired from things like fieldwork or visits to archives).

[Puget]

Its interesting how we are conditioned to think that some things demand extra pay and other things don't.
I guess it depends a lot on institutional culture and tradition.

I don't necessarily think it should get extra pay (though I wouldn't say no), but I do think there should be at least some teaching credit (e.g., X number of theses/ind studies supervised = 1 course reduction). There is a LOT of work involved, and some of us do WAY more of these than others in my department- it would be nice if there was a least some recognition of that.

[Kron3007]

Its interesting how we are conditioned to think that some things demand extra pay and other things don't.
I guess it depends a lot on institutional culture and tradition.

I don't necessarily think it should get extra pay (though I wouldn't say no), but I do think there should be at least some teaching credit (e.g., X number of theses/ind studies supervised = 1 course reduction). There is a LOT of work involved, and some of us do WAY more of these than others in my department- it would be nice if there was a least some recognition of that.

Yeah, we theoretically get teaching credit for them but it has never come up when discussing teaching load.  Kind of like grad students, they theoretically contribute to our teaching load, but don't seem to influence teaching assignments.

I think the main advantage of supervising them is that it is a good pool to find and  screen grad students.  I have recruited a few this way, and it is nice as they are a known commodity.   Sometimes the thesis can also provide good initial data that can feed into an MSc thesis, which can be efficient.

[mleok]

I'm at a public R1 and we do not receive additional compensation for supervising an undergraduate thesis. I've only supervised two in the 14 years that I've been here.

[AJ_Katz]

No extra pay.  But I don't think it deserves extra pay.  It is easily just part of the job.