Job Description: University Teaching Assistant

Lately I've encountered a whole new range of student requests. I have students who do not show up to class and do not show up to office hours ask me to type up lecture notes and send them via email, take time after class to reiterate missed lectures, and meet on weekends to copy my notes. When I set boundaries around what I can and cannot do, the students get irritated with me. I'm not sure when undergraduates started expecting Teaching Assistants to make up for their absences, but I was under the impression that it was my job as a student (both as an undergraduate and a graduate student) to come to class and take notes.

I've been thinking about roles and responsibilities. Students have responsibilities as well as Teaching Assistants. Students are responsible for showing up to class and taking notes. If students miss class, then they are responsible for showing up to the TA's office hours to copy the notes or asking a classmate for notes to copy. TA's are also responsible for showing up to lecture, in most cases, and taking notes, holding office hours, and helping students with papers, helping to explain material and facilitating student understanding of the material (coursework students have already first attempted on their own), overseeing make-up exams, and grading.

I was never told that TAs were responsible for taking class notes home, typing them up, and sending them through email to all the absent students who can't come to class. I was never told that TAs were responsible for verbally repeating lectures to students who don't show up to class, don't show up to office hours, and who don't want TA lecture notes. I was never told that my effectiveness as a University TA was going to be judged based upon my personal willingness to facilitate student absences by mimicking lectures outside of office hours or sitting at my computer and typing three to four pages of notes to send to everyone who doesn't come to class.

What is sad is that students are coming to me with these types of requests more often this year than ever before. Even worse, I am subject to student evaluations where I face complaints against me for not performing the aforementioned duties. What is more egregious is that I get complaints where students just say "not helpful," or "she wouldn't help me." These complaints leave out the part of the sentence that should read "...by not typing the lecture notes for me and sending them through the email when I don't come to class."

I wish there was some introduction for students that explained what the Teaching Assistant's job is and what TA's should and shouldn't do. May be if such an orientation to Teaching Assistants existed, I wouldn't be in such an awkward situation.