Graduate Assistantships and Expectations

Graduate assistantships are awarded to help students support themselves while earning graduate degrees and to help the university fulfill its responsibilities in teaching and research. Offers of assistantship are made by the Department Head at request of the Major Professor, after approval of admission by the Graduate Committee and Graduate School . Once an assistantship is awarded, the student must make satisfactory progress toward completing degree requirements and must satisfactorily perform his/her assigned duties in order to be reappointed. Appointments can only be made for a one-year period, with reappointment for subsequent years. Normal duration of the assistantship is two years for the M.S. and three years for the Ph.D. Assistantships currently pay $15,500 per year for M.S. students and $16,500 per year for Ph.D. students.

Assistantships may be terminated following any semester during which the student does not maintain a GPA of at least 3.0 or does not perform satisfactorily in assigned duties. If the GPA of a student falls below 3.0 he/she will be given a semester of grace in which to bring overall grades up to the 3.0 minimum.

Students on regular (0.40) graduate assistantships are expected to work an average of 16 hours per week, or the equivalent thereof, over and beyond the work required to earn credit for CRSS 7000/7300 and 9000/9300 or other courses for which they are registered. This work may or may not be in duties associated with the student's research problem, and may be entirely teaching or research, or a combination of teaching and research duties. In general, graduate students are expected to be at work during normal hours of operation of the University. Students should notify their Major Professor of their class and work schedules, and request approval for times they will be away from campus.

Advisors will provide a written evaluation of each of their graduate student. The CRSS Annual Graduate Student Evaluation form must be turned into the Graduate Coordinator by May 30 of each year.

AVAILABLE ASSISTANTSHIPS