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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
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    Default Can a State University Require a Graduate Assistant to Enroll in a Fake Course

    My question involves labor and employment law for the state of: South Carolina

    My university requires graduate students to be enrolled in coursework before it will pay them to teach a summer course. The graduate school does not actually care whether it is a real course, whether the student wants or needs a summer course, or whether the academic department's program of study involves summer course work. They are fully aware that they are forcing graduate assistants to enroll in and pay for a dummy graduate course just so that they can be paid to teach undergraduate summer courses. Is this legal?

  2. #2
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    Dec 2009
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    Default Re: Can a State University Require a Graduate Assistant to Enroll in a Fake Course

    Yes it's legal.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
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    Massachusetts
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    Default Re: Can a State University Require a Graduate Assistant to Enroll in a Fake Course

    I asked a friend of mine who is an expert in Education law to take a look at your post. Here is her response:

    If they consult their Graduate School Handbook (my school has one, theirs most likely does too, being that the rules for grad school and teaching and getting paid are very very precise) the rules for getting paid are likely spelled out. I would not be surprised if the school has a rule (and it's not a state law or anything, but each school is free to make its own rules about grad school). It makes sense from the school's standpoint. Imagine if a grad student taught EVERY SEMESTER but NEVER enrolled in a class? They may have a "no coursework, no teaching, no paycheck" rule.

    I have never heard of enrolling in "bogus coursework," they may mean an Independent Study, Special Topics, or Independent Reading, or maybe Dissertation or Thesis Hours. Why would this student choose to take "dummy hours" when I'm SURE there is something they can take if they want to teach.

    And the grad school would not be "forcing them to pay for a class" because the nature of grad school teaching - being a Teaching Assistant, Graduate Assistant, or TA - means the credits would be comped by the University. The student wouldn't be paying for those hours.

    Long story short - this grad school has rules about credits and teaching, the student has to follow them if he wants to teach, and it would be the student's fault if he took "worthless credits." I'm sure there's something he needs that he can take.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
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    2

    Default Re: Can a State University Require a Graduate Assistant to Enroll in a Fake Course

    Thank you for asking your friend. This is my reply:

    I understand what you are saying about "EVERY SEMESTER," but a summer session is not a semester. Even if the policy makes sense for a semester, it does not make sense for the summer.

    There are no graduate courses offered in my department in the summer other than the dummy course. Yes, this is a dissertation credit, but it is fake. We do not even qualify for genuine dissertation credit until we have passed the qualifying exam. We need the summers to read thousands of pages to study for the qualifying exam. Taking additional and irrelevant coursework in another department would actually set us back in our studies.

    I know for a fact that the university is not paying for the credits, so I don't know what you mean by "the nature of grad school teaching."

    You can make the argument that my department ought to have set things up so to conform with some rather obtuse rules set up by the graduate school, though that would not necessarily in the best interests of the actual graduate students in our course of study, but you cannot make the case that we are not, in this case, being exploited. The only question is whether this exploitation is (currently) legal. If it is, I have a further question for anyone who might be kind enough to help: Where should I go for reliable information on education law as it applies to teaching assistants, or else labor law as it applies to students? I am not claiming the above poster does not know the answer. I would just like to see for myself what is and is not permitted. Thank you.

    Update: The Graduate Handbook says "Graduate Assistants must enroll in 6 to 12 credit hours in the Fall and Spring terms and 1 to 6 hours in the summer terms. Enrollment load exceptions must be approved by The Graduate School." What happened was that the department requested that the graduate school waive the requirement since we do not have summer graduate courses. The graduate school is aware that if students enroll in a department credit it will be a dummy one. The graduate school still declines to waive the requirement. The graduate school has not told the department it needs to offer genuine summer graduate courses.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
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    Default Re: Can a State University Require a Graduate Assistant to Enroll in a Fake Course

    As I told you before, this is all perfectly legal. Annoying and frustrating maybe, but still legal.

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