Wed, 12 Oct 1994 14:32:28 -0700 for Date: Wed, 12 Oct 94 17:15:17 EDT From: Thomas Loya Organization: Emory University - Atlanta, Georgia, USA Subject: SUMMER RA OBLIATIONS To: SOCGRAD@UCSD.EDU Hi socgradders! Read on if you would be willing to offer a few bits of information about your soc grad program RA obligations. Grads at Emory Soc dept. were recently made aware (by the dean of grad school) that ours is the only program that expects grads to work over the summer for their advisor in an RA capacity. We are considering bringing this up at a meeting w/faculty soon, with the intention of presenting it as in our mutual interest to be free for the summer (to do research, M.A. or PhD work, study for comps, etc.), especially as it would fav- orably impact time-to-degree, something everyone would like to shorten. It's not that were unwilling to work with faculty--of course the mutual benefits are obvious--but we're interested in making this a voluntary cooperation, or payed in addition to fellowships. What we're interested in discovering is how many other medium-sized grad programs expect this (in addition to the obligation to work the entire school year for 4 years as RA or TA). If anyone is interested in the responses to this little survey, I'd be happy to send them back out, in case this is a negotiable issue at other programs. (We don't know how negotiable it is here, but we've got nothing to lose). So, are you obligated, yes obligated, to work over the summer? for a faculty member? If so, how many hours? Is the obligation for entire period of grad school, or 1-2 years? Incidentally, the level of support is not so important. THis is set by the university, and it is up to the departments' discretion what will be expected in return. Don't get the wrong impression--we like to work, but most of must take some additional summer employment, and in addition to 15 hrs/week for a faculty member, we don't tend to get too much done on our own academic work. THanks for your input!!! TOM L.