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Department of Biology

Graduate Assistantship Selection

Composition of the Selection Committee
The selection committee is composed of five members of the graduate faculty. Drs. Amos, Maxwell, Dowler, Jones, and Strenth. Committee membership may change at the request of a participating faculty member or by the Department Head. The Committee is chaired by Dr. Bonnie Amos, the Biology Graduate Advisor.

Applications
When assistantships are available, application materials will be solicited twice each year: March 15th for fall assistantships and Oct. 15th for spring assistantships.

Applicants must submit

For an applicant to be considered by the committee, all application materials must be to the committee chair by these dates. The decision to reopen the application period will be decided by the department head and the chairperson of the committee; this decision will be based on the number and quality of the applications received.

Evaluation Procedure for Graduate Assistantships
Each applicant will be evaluated and quantitatively ranked on the basis of five criteria

Special Abilities/Skills
At the present time, we award student assistantships for two reasons: to assist worthy students in their education and to provide our department able assistance in the preparation of laboratories and laboratory instruction. This portion of the evaluation is very self-serving as these points are based solely on how the applicant can help the department. Obviously, departmental needs change from semester to semester and year to year and as such, this portion of the evaluation will change. If a student has outstanding abilities/skills that can be immediately tapped to fill a current need in the department (i.e. microbiology lab prep, teach anatomy/physiology labs, teach 1410/1411 labs, teach zoology labs), he/she will receive more points. Fewer points will be credited to those applicants who have no special background but have demonstrated the ability and desire to be trained in a particular area. The lowest score is awarded to those applicants having no special skills and an average background.

Comparative Evaluation
This portion of the evaluation is based on an overall evaluation of the applicant in comparison to current and past assistants. The highest ranking will be given to an outstanding applicant who is truly exceptional in all regards (grades, competency, desire, enthusiasm); this applicant is comparable to the best assistant ever employed by our department. A high rating would be applied to the applicant who seems to be very good and has the potential of being an excellent assistant. Following this, would be a lower ranking given to the applicant with average capabilities and average desire. Applicants receiving a low ranking in this catagory may not be considered as a viable candidate for an assistantship.

The scores from the five areas will be independently recorded for each applicant by each committee member. Then the sums from each committee member will be tallied for each applicant. These scores will be used to rank the applicants and these rankings will be used to award assistantships (i.e. the applicant having the highest total score will receive the first assistantship and so forth down the list until all available assistantships have been awarded). However, it is also the Committee's responsibility to determine which applicants are acceptable candidates. This responsibility begins with the top ranking candidate (i.e. does this candidate compare favorably with departmental standards) and continues for each listed candidate. The Committee has the choice of sending one of several recommendations to the Department Head: 1) award no assistantships, reopen the application period, 2) award available assistantships to all applicants in the ranked order, 3) award assistantships only to the applicants listed (i.e. top three candidates), reopen the application period for additional or unfilled assistantships.

Term of Employment
Graduate assistants are employed for a nine month period (fall and spring semesters). There is no guarantee of summer employment or second year employment. However, if adequate funds are available for second year employment and if the department head and supervising faculty are satistifed with the work of an assistant, the assistant will be reemployed for a second year. Normally a graduate assistant will not be employed past the two year period. However, under unusual circumstances (i.e. illness, unavoidable problems with research, departmental need), a one semester (fall or spring) extension may be requested. To be considered for an extension, a student must submit to the Biology Assistantship Committee by the application due date a written request in which he/she explains the circumstances requiring the extension. The student's graduate advisor must also submit a letter of support for the extension.

Graduate Assistant Placement
The Department Head will assign graduate assistants to courses each semester based on departmental need and special skills of the assistants. Faculty will be notified of the assignments before assistant assignments are annnounced to review and suggest alternate placements.