Legal Studies Appointment Procedures

Department of Legal Studies Appointment/Reappointment Procedures for Teaching Assistants

The Legal Studies Department does not have a graduate program. As a consequence, we recruit graduate students from departments across campus to fill our teaching assistantships. We recruit from departments where the graduate students are likely to have some knowledge of law and legal process to TA for our general education course, Introduction to Legal Studies and for our Junior Year Writing Course, Legal Research and Writing. On occasion, we offer qualified graduate students the opportunity to teach courses in the major. Typically, this offer is made to graduate students who have been teaching assistants for one of these aforementioned courses.

Request for Funding:

Requests for funds are made to the Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Science as part of the annual budget request.

Advertising for TA Positions:

At the end of the previous semester, we send out notices of available vacancies for the following semester. We send this notice to departments where graduate students are likely to have adequate familiarity with the American legal system. These include, Political Science, Sociology, Economics, Anthropology, Psychology, Communication, Public Policy, History and Education. If a graduate student applies from another department, their resume will be reviewed with those of the others. In addition, the Writing Program advertises the TA for the Junior Year Writing course.

Selection and Notification Process:

All resumes are reviewed and prospective TA's are interviewed by the Department Chair and the Chief Undergraduate Advisor. The criteria used in the selection include, knowledge of American law and legal process, recommendations from faculty in the department and interest in working with undergraduate students. Those graduate students who are selected to be TA's are notified by telephone and a letter of confirmation.

Evaluation:

Teaching Assistants are evaluated at the end of the semester by the Professor they worked with and by the Department Chair. If performance is satisfactory, and monies are available, we will offer them another position for the following term. When an advanced graduate student has taught for us for a substantial period of time, and when their area of research is in concert with our program goals, we may, depending on our resources, invite them to teach a separate course.