Section leaders struggle with inexperience

Three weeks ago Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky devoted much of his annual report to defending the quality of Harvard's undergraduate teaching, and he focused at length on the Faculty's large reliance on graduate students as section leaders, graders, and counselors.

"The rumored weaknesses are familiar," Rosovsky wrote. "It is said that...too much of undergraduate education is entrusted to teaching fellows, and that too little is conducted by the regular Faculty."

Rosovsky's remarks summarized what many observers see as the University's greatest weakness: despite Harvard's almost unparalleled reputation as a research institution, too often the nuts-and-bolts aspects of teaching fall into neglect. Graduate students, forced to earn tuition money as teaching fellows (TF's) thus become responsible for much of an undergraduate's classroom experience.

The issue has become a hot one among both students and administrators. In addition to Rosovsky's report, the Undergraduate Council last month issued its own study of the problems associated with TF instruction. Admissions officers frequently find themselves defending the College's instruction against this reputation. And in recent years officials have created a center for the study of teaching, special funds for TF training, and even a university professorship (see accompanying article) with the intention of improving the Harvard classroom experience.

Sidney Verba, associate dean of the Faculty for undergraduate affairs, has spent much of his three years in that post implementing these new programs.

"The bulk of them are effective." Verba says of the University's staff of some 900 TF's. But he adds that "I don't deny there is some bad teaching going on."

Most TF's come from the ranks of second- and third-year graduate students, although in the natural sciences, the sheer size of many undergraduate lecture courses has forced departments to use first-year grad students as section instructors.

Nearly every course taught by the Faculty (except discussion classes) employs TF's to lead once-a-week discussion meetings, grade tests, and hold office hours. Professors hire their own staffs--a task which, for some larger courses, means finding 20 to 25 knowledgeable grad students--and expect them to devote an average of ten hours a week to the job.

For TF's working in two or three courses, this commitment can at times make for an exhausting workload. But administrators defend the experience as valuable preparation for later academic careers.

Career Preparation

"It is not just work. It's part of the academic culture, a sense of community with associates," says Patricia A. McWade, associate dean for graduate admission and financial aid. She notes that up to 80 percent of the Faculty's grad students list teaching as an ambition.

"For the vast majority of graduate students, relevant teaching experience is an integral part of professional training," explains a University hand book.

Typically a grad student receives financial aid (if eligible) from the University for his first year at Harvard, and beginning with his second year here, he is implicitly expected to earn a teaching stipend. Second year grad students receive $6600, in subsequent years the salary escalates to $7480.

Many critics of the system cite this financial aid structure as a major problem, since it virtually forces a grad student to instruct undergraduates, regardless of his teaching ability.

The University publishes a Teaching Fellow Handbook which attempts to address this issue, saying. "The relationship of the Teaching Fellowship to the Financial Aid Program of the Graduate School should not be such as to lead to systematic violation of [the ideal of TFing being a learning experience]."

But the varying demand for TF's throughout the university seems to be the determining factor in how heavily certain grad students must work, and how selective professors can be in choosing their staffs.

Verba says that "we look for an ability to organize, communicate, and a good knowledge of the subject matter" in the selection of TF's; McWade cites their grades and academic qualifications as other important criteria.

But Edward L. Keenan '57, dean of the Graduate School, is more realistic. "It's a matter of supply and demand" in various departments, Keenan says, noting that each department has its own rules for selecting and evaluating TF's.

Margaret M. Gullette, assistant director of the Harvard-Danforth Center for Teaching and Learning, says that for the Faculty as a whole, more TF spaces exist than applicants to fill them.

Verba concedes that except for obvious exceptions--grad students with poor English, severe nervousness, or poor communicative ability--this shortage means that nearly any student who wants to teach a section gets to. "We can't pick them by how good of a teacher they are, because they don't have any experience," he says.

Given that a certain number of TF's will prove to be peer instructors. Verba has promoted departmental evaluations, regular use of the Danforth Center, and more interaction between professors and TF's as methods of improving teaching quality.

Students have a chance to rate their section leaders in each course during the CUE evaluation, the College conducts each semester.

Those TF's receiving an average rating of 6-0 or better (on a scale of 1 to 7) get a Certificate of Distinction Last year Verba's office gave out 100 certificates to the approximately 900 TF's.

Verba pays closer attention to those who score at the other end of the scale. He chooses 35 to 40. TF's with "disaster ratings" each semester, recommending that they get extra instruction either from the Danforth Center or the summer school's course of English as a second language.

The Graduate School pays for half the costs of the Danforth Center, Keenan says, in order to expose interested section leaders to videotaping critiques, and seminars designed to impart the fundamentals of teaching itself.

Approximately 250 grad students come to use the center voluntarily each year, according to Gullette.

McWade says that while the TF program has an implicit assumption that all grad students can teach, many need to use devices like the Danforth Center to bring out this potential.

"In the Ph.D. program, we assume they're smart and have the ability to communicate," she says. "But there are a lot of very, very bright people here who don't necessarily have the innate skills to make themselves understood."

Other methods of helping these students rely on increased communication between TF's, students, and professors Verba has created a "lunch fund" for course heads to use for hosting regular meetings of TF's to discuss student problems. Rosovsky's recent report urged professors to teach sections themselves and conduct mid-course evaluations to better appreciate the problem facing TF's Gullette tells students with specific complaints about TF's to raise the issue with their professor.

Verba and Rosovsky agree with her that the ultimate responsibility for the system rests with the professors who supervise individual TF's.

"Each department has its own idea of what should be taught. A professor isn't going to appreciate some dean coming in and telling him how to teach his class." Verba explains, adding, "I don't want to set up a rigid police state."

Several departments math and economics are two examples have taken initiatives to train and supervise their TF's unusually closely.

The Undergraduate Council report singled out as exemplary the system for training TF's in Social Analysis 10. "The Principles of Economics," a course which relies on the section as the chief form of instruction. The report urges other departments to adopt similar methods when possible, such as the three day seminar in which TF's are videotaped presenting concepts before other section leaders, and lunches to discuss the topics to be presented in section that week.

And Charles S. Maier, head tutor of the history department, says that these autonomous efforts to address TF performance are probably the most effective. "You can get a lot more done to improve the quality without pushing and nagging [professors] from a central administration," he explains.

Yet while officials throughout the Faculty preach the virtue of the decentralized approach to the TF problem. Harvard seems to be handling the problem more directly from its central offices than in the past.

Verba's programs to encourage evaluations and meetings. Keenan's funding of the Danforth Center, and Rosovsky's decision to make the issue a priority in his annual report all show that complaints about TF quality have hit home with the administration.

"Everyone from President Bok down has been talking about the need for excellence in teaching," McWade says.