Faculty: Teaching Assistants FAQs

TAs will not be required to inform you if they are going on strike. Once a strike has been announced, you should assume that TAs will not be attending to their TA responsibilities.

No.

No. You may not legally ask them if they plan to strike. However, before a strike (and as soon as possible), you should ensure that TAs associated with your class are caught up with their assigned tasks. You may not ask graduate students to work over their allotted time, but you can ask them to ensure that grades and other essential tasks are current.

Please communicate with your students immediately if you anticipate any disruption to your class. Students will have understandable concerns about receiving their final grades on time and the status of their assessments, so please be sure to address your plans in this regard. If a TA goes on strike and stops hosting office hours and replying to messages, provide your students with an alternate point of contact. You can explain the factual background of the strike and share this website with them.

To prepare for the possibility that the union will strike at the end of the term, it is important to prioritize continuity of education for impacted students. Effective immediately, we recommend faculty:

• Identify in advance any course elements that might be postponed, abbreviated, or omitted in the event of reduced learning support;
• Ensure that you have access to all course materials, including all TA lesson plans, grades, graded materials, and submitted work that is yet to be graded;
• Ensure that you have access to all sections of Canvas;
• Ensure that students retain copies of all their submitted work;
• Consider alternate approaches to instruction or evaluation.

Grading for seniors should be a priority to ensure they graduate on time.

If you decide to change modes for instruction or evaluation, please communicate any changes to the syllabus to the students enrolled in your class as soon as possible, explaining the impact of your revised assessments.

Yes. Faculty can hire temporary workers to cover the staffing gap created by a strike. Please contact your associate dean for information.

No. You may not assign additional non-compensated work to your non-striking TAs. However, domestic (not international) TAs are permitted to assume additional work for pay so long as it does not negatively affect their satisfactory progress towards a degree. Please contact your associate dean if a non-striking graduate student volunteers to do extra TA work for pay, copying StrikeQuestions@dartmouth.edu.

Please contact your associate dean to explore your options for coverage and staffing.

Assuming there is a good reason, such as bringing together a class that can no longer be broken up into smaller discussion sections because of absent TAs, then yes, you may use Zoom.

You should not cancel a class. If your discussion or lab sections cannot be covered, consider offering whatever additional support is reasonable.

We will take all appropriate measures to ensure students are not negatively impacted by a strike and that grades are submitted by the grading deadlines. For graduating seniors, grades must be received by the Registrar's existing deadline of 10 a.m. on Thursday, June 6. Other students' grades are due on June 10.

For guidance, see the following documents:

• Learn more about how to schedule Zoom meetings and post recordings in Canvas here.
• Classroom Support includes information about how to run the technology in your classroom.
• The Resilient Course Design guide can help you adjust your course for possible disruption, and includes both technical and pedagogical tips. 
• Using Gradescope for Exams and Assignments in Canvas may help with grading efficiency. 

Please visit this Faculty Support page for more information and to request help.