GTA Preparation as a Model for Cross-Tier Collaboration at North Carolina State University - A Program Profile - Spring 2016 Issue

Oct 15, 2026

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This program profile examines how North Carolina State University’s first-year writing program revised its process for preparing graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). It addresses philosophical and ethical concerns in scaling training for rapidly growing MA and MFA cohorts while acknowledging that many novice instructors will start careers as contingent faculty. Through a cross-tier collaboration model, the authors connect mentoring design and practicum structure to both immediate classroom readiness and future employment realities.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Composition Forum 33, Spring 2016

GTA Preparation as a Model for Cross-Tier Collaboration at North Carolina State University: A Program Profile

Program Changes and Ethical Concerns

Cross-Tier Collaboration Model and Mentoring Cohorts

Teaching Practicum Structure and WPA Responsibilities

Current Issue From the Editors Weblog Editorial Board Editorial Policy Submissions Archives Accessibility Search Composition Forum 33, Spring 2016 GTA Preparation as a Model for Cross-Tier Collaboration at North Carolina State University: A Program Profile Casie Fedukovich and Megan Hall Abstract: This program profile describes recent changes to the process for preparing graduate teaching instructors (GTAs) in North Carolina State University’s first-year writing program. The authors—one a nontenure-track faculty member and the other a tenure-track faculty member—describe the philosophical, ethical, and practical concerns in scaling teacher preparation to accommodate rapidly growing cohorts of MA and MFA GTAs. By providing an example of cross-tier collaboration, the authors propose an approach to GTA preparation that takes into account that many of these novice teachers will begin their teaching careers as contingent faculty colleagues. As Writing Program Administrators (WPAs), we are charged with the immediate and often complex task of quickly equipping new writing teachers with foundational knowledge of both disciplinary content and pedagogical practices. We find ourselves racing against the academic calendar to mentor graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), review course documents, and support in-the-moment teaching needs. Amid these practices, those of us responsible for GTA preparation may also find ourselves in a troubling ethical bind: On one hand, we have the opportunity to raise important pedagogical questions with large cohorts of novice teachers who are preparing to teach first-year writing. On the other hand, we also implicitly support ever-deepening pools of contingent academic labor. WPAs are thus responsible for preparing GTAs for both their current and future students, since many of these graduate teaching assistants will, if they choose to remain in academia, continue to teach first-year writing as doctoral candidates or non-tenured faculty. For WPAs who work with master’s-seeking students as we do, this ethical conundrum provides the exigency for a myriad of difficult discussions with GTAs: to address the reality of contingent employment; to encourage them to consider alternative-academic opportunities in the public sector; to challenge them to think strategically about enrolling in doctoral programs that will likely not provide secure employment and that may level many costs (psychological, financial, professional, and emotional); and, finally—yet most urgently—to prepare them to teach in our classrooms and the classrooms they may lead in the future. Compounding this situation in our program at North Carolina State University is the reality of growing graduate student cohorts, declining first-year student enrollments, and slowly decreasing numbers of full-time, non-tenuretrack (NTT) faculty mentors. In 2015, our cohort of GTAs numbered 22, while our NTT faculty numbered 29. In our program, GTAs historically worked one-on-one with an NTT faculty mentor as they prepared to teach, but as these population numbers grew closer, we had to revise our mentoring program to one based on mentoring cohorts where each faculty mentor works with two or three GTAs. Otherwise, we faced the possibility that every NTT faculty member would be expected to serve as a GTA mentor, a situation that contradicts our program’s philosophical emphasis on faculty autonomy. What started as a logistical conundrum—too many GTAs and not enough mentors—led us to consider the ethical implications of our work in GTA preparation in our program. We reframed necessary program changes as a valuable opportunity to reconsider how we present teaching preparation to GTAs and how we might leverage the mentoring and preparation program to work against future exploitation on the academic job market. With these goals in mind, we began a cross-tier collaboration between the program’s tenure-track (TT) associate director, Casie, and its NTT

FAQs

What key process change does the program profile describe for GTA preparation?

It describes recent changes to how graduate teaching instructors are prepared in the university’s first-year writing program, including how mentoring and training are scaled for larger GTA cohorts.

Why do the authors frame GTA preparation as an ethical issue?

They highlight a tension: preparing novice teachers for responsible instruction while also enabling the growth of contingent academic labor and uncertain employment conditions.

How does the cross-tier collaboration operate in the described model?

It is led by collaboration between the program’s tenure-track associate director and its NTT assistant director, using the mentoring relationship to coordinate preparation across tiers.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay