On your mark, TAs
Re: Students used for ‘cheap labour’: TA union, Nov. 23
As a TA for the Intro Psych course at UTM, I am in a unique position to comment on the commotion created by CUPE 3902’s grievance over the peer grading system in PsyA01 at UTSC. On one hand, peer evaluation by qualified experts is an integral part of any scientific field, and developing this skill early in one’s academic career is a great idea. On the other hand, resorting to peer grading as a substitute for expert graduate TAs is unfair to the students.
What does CUPE 3902 want? Real, live, expert TAs grading writing assignments. What do undergrads want? Fair marks from real, live, expert TAs. But several people involved in this debate, including Prof. Joordens, claim that grading written assignments in a course this large is financially and logistically unfeasible.
With all due respect, such statements are simply not true. Consider UTM’s Intro Psych course, in which writing assignments form a large portion of students’ grades. The size of the class is the same (about 1500) as at UTSC, but with sufficient TA resources and good management, the written portion of the UTM course is an overwhelming success. What’s the difference? Sixteen TAs, two lab instructors and two professors at UTM, compared to three TAs and one professor at UTSC.
If money is the issue, and UTSC claims that they want more TAs for Prof. Joordens but can’t pay for them (even though revenue from this course is approximately $3 million), the admin should remember who pays for the course and for the university to exist: the students. And what do students want? TAs.
Jon Prince
CUPE 3902 Steward, Psychology
