Duties of a Graduate Teaching Assistant

Graduate Teaching Assistants provide assistance to Faculty in delivering course material. GTAs normally perform some or all of the following duties:

• Prepare and deliver tutorials and labs

• Mark student assignments and/or exams

• Invigilate exams

• Hold office hours

• Give occasional lectures

Job Postings And Appointment Term

Available Graduate Teaching Assistant positions and application procedures are posted on the Human Resources website

• Jobs will be posted as they become available, but in general, assignments will begin to be posted:

  • April 15 for Summer/Spring semesters 

  • July 2 for the Fall semester

  • September 30 for the Winter semester

• Average contract hours can be anywhere from two to 18 hours per week, and will be specified in the job posting as well as your contract and workload agreement. GTAs are hired as salaried employees with contracts lasting one semester in length.

Other types of contracts

There are other jobs you may be offered by your department to perform some of these tasks.  This chart provides criteria for determining whether a position at UNBC should be hired as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) or Student Assistant (SA):

When a role includes responsibilities of both a GTA and SA, that role should receive a GTA contract. If you have concerns about a Student Assistant or Marker position, please contact us at unbc@cupe2278.ca.

Hours

GTAs can’t be asked to work for free. The best way to ensure that is to track their hours. It is the responsibility of the GTA to ensure that they are not exceeding the number of hours in their contract.

 GTA duties in a single day cannot exceed eight hours without your consent. You cannot be required to work before 7:45 a.m. and after 10:00 p.m. You cannot be required to work 24 hours prior to one of your own final exams.

 Any mandatory work that you do as a GTA counts toward your paid hours, including workshops and training, class preparation, attending lectures, marking and recording grades, preparing/conducting labs and tutorials, e-mailing students, administration of online classroom environments, invigilating, and photocopying.

 If while tracking your hours you anticipate that your workload will exceed the number of hours in your contract, you should notify your supervisor before you exceed your hours. Then, your options are:

• Stop working once you hit your contract hours (your supervisor is responsible for reallocating any remaining work)

• Your supervisor can request additional compensation for hours you work past your contract hours.

Workload Agreements

Prior to the beginning of the term, you must be provided with a Workload Agreement. This is a written document outlining your position, the number of employment hours offered, and how these hours should be allocated to various duties over the term.

During each term, GTAs and supervisors should meet at least once to ensure the GTA’s workload aligns with the allotted hours on the Workload Agreement and in their contract.

Vacation Pay and Taking Leaves

All Grad TAs are afforded 4% vacation pay per paycheque in lieu of vacation days.

A Grad TA position allows for the equivalent of one (1) week average hours of sick leave. Grad TAs must notify their instructor that they are sick as soon as possible.

Maternity/Parental Leave is available for Grad TAs. This leave is unpaid, but you may be placed back in your original position or reassigned to a new position when you return.

Indigenous Cultural Leaves is available for GTAs that self-identify as Indigenous to attend ceremonial gatherings or cultural activities in fulfilment of cultural obligations. This leave allows for up to two days per calendar year at the GTA’s regular rate of pay.

Protection from harassment, discrimination and academic harm

Everyone has the right to work in an environment free of harassment. 

Any threat to harm an employee’s academic standing or performance that is intended to prevent an employee from exercising their rights as provided for in this Agreement is a form of personal harassment. 

The Collective Agreement ensures that any attempts to harm a Grad TA’s academic record because of an employment issue, or to make employment decisions based upon a Grad TA’s academic record, are strictly prohibited and subject to the grievance procedure. Your status as a student and as an employee of UNBC are separate and distinct—one cannot affect the other.

Both UBC and CUPE 2278 are bound by the Human Rights Code of BC. 

It is prohibited to discriminate against and individual based on:

• Age

• Race, colour, ancestry, or place of origin

• Political belief or religion, or membership, office, non-membership or activity in any political, religious, labour, or academic organization

• Sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression

• Marital or family status

• Physical or mental disability

• Criminal or summary conviction offence that is unrelated to the employment or to the intended employment of that person

• Any other set of grounds that may be outlined in the Human Rights Code of BC in the future

All workers in BC who face barriers to participation in the workplace due to personal characteristics outlined in the Human Rights Code of BC must be accommodated by the employer, up to the point of “undue hardship.” The term “undue hardship” is a bit of a floating signifier, and you should talk to the Advocate about it if you need to assert your right to accommodation.