Graduate Studies
Graduate Assistantship Policy


Phone: 616-331-7105
Fax: 616-331-7317
graduatestudies@gvsu.edu

318C DeVos Center
401 W. Fulton Street
Grand Rapids, MI 49504

Graduate Assistantship Policy
Graduate Assistantship Policy, General Fund Positions

 A. Purpose:

Graduate Assistantships serve a dual purpose: (1) they provide graduate students with part-time, paid work experiences in their field of study, and allow them to expand and/or apply their discipline knowledge and skills under supervision; and (2) they provide GVSU faculty and/or university staff assistance in carrying out special projects or other assignments that require the advanced discipline skills of graduate students. The activities assigned are to have educational value for the student. Graduate assistantships are not to be used in lieu of hiring student employees for clerical and office support.

Grand Valley is committed to an open, well-advertised process of announcing positions and hiring graduate assistants. Each department with approved assistantship positions will publicize them, and ensure that qualified applicants for these positions are offered an opportunity to apply. Available graduate assistantships should be advertised in recruitment materials, on the website of the department offering the assistantship, and on the Student Employment electronic job board. In addition, the Graduate Studies Office will either post or provide a web-link for every graduate assistantship.

In recognition that many assistantships are used to recruit students to specific graduate programs, and that many students may not have ready access to the website, departments may use positions to recruit students to their own graduate program, without posting to the wider student community. However, special positions funded through grants or from other sources that arise during the academic year should be fully advertised as noted above.

 

B. Qualifications:

To qualify for a graduate assistantship at GVSU, the student must:

1. Be fully admitted as a degree-seeking student in a Grand Valley graduate program at the time of appointment,

2. Successfully maintain a minimum course load of 9 graduate credit hours per semester for a full-time graduate assistantship (see section C.2), OR

3. Carry a minimum course load of 5 graduate credit hours per semester for a half-time assistantship (see section C.3).

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C. Terms:

1. The unit offering the assistantship must have a written position description, approved by the Academic Dean of the Division or School or the Appointing Officer of non-academic units, and by the Graduate Dean. The position description outlines the educational and/or research activities to be carried out by the graduate assistant. The position description must be approved before issuance of an appointment letter. Approved positions will be assigned a unique identifier number, which can be used in future offers of the same position.

2. A typical full-time assistantship includes the following responsibilities and benefits during the appointment:

a. A 20-hour per week work assignment for 16 weeks per semester, corresponding to the beginning and ending dates for a semester as published in the university schedule of classes and Bulletin

b. Support from GVSU which includes:

i. A stipend of $4,000 per semester

ii. Tuition credit for up to 12 graduate credits per semester, unless the student is eligible for reimbursement of tuition from another source.

3. A typical half-time assistantship includes the following responsibilities and benefits during the appointment

a. A 10-hour per week work assignment for 16 weeks per semester

b. Support from GVSU which includes:

i. A stipend of $2,000 per semester

ii. Tuition credit for up to 6 graduate credits per semester, unless the student is eligible for reimbursement of tuition from another source.

4. Appointments may vary from above levels (C2, C3). For example, prorating stipends or tuition for longer or shorter appointments may be appropriate during Spring/Summer. Prorated appointments require prior approval of the Graduate Dean.

5. If the student fails to maintain GPA eligibility or carry out the assigned work in a satisfactory manner in a multi-semester assistantship, he or she may forfeit continuation of an assistantship position, for future semesters, thereby forfeiting both stipend and tuition grant.

6. If a student drops below the minimum hours required for the assistantship or withdraws from the program, he/she may forfeit the tuition grant and may not be able to continue work for that semester.

7. The Graduate Assistant appointments may not exceed 20 hours per week.

8. Any deviation from these terms requires prior approval by the Graduate Dean.

D. Assistantship Procedures:

1. Tentative Offers

The following information shall be forwarded to the Graduate Dean, in the form of a tentative offer of an assistantship using the Graduate Assistantship Appointment Form (available on-line at www.gvsu.edu/gsga/gs).

a. Student Name

b. Social Security Number

c. Student Number

d. Student Degree Program/Admission Status/Date of Admission (to be checked prior to posting award to Student Employment)

e. Student Address

f. Student Phone Number

g. Student E-mail address

h. Brief description of assignment (may attach or reference the approved detailed position description)

i. Name of faculty/staff member who will supervise the assistantship

j. Terms of the award. The timeframe for the assistantship should be consistent with the assistantship policy. Assistantship stipends should be pro-rated for any appointment that differs from the 16-week per semester or 32-week per academic year terms.

k. Stipend Amount

l. Account to which the stipend amount is to be charged (should correspond to position number)

m. Position Number (received from Budget Office)

n. Indicate whether the student is eligible for a tuition grant. Tuition grants are only available to students who cannot get their tuition reimbursed from any other source.

o. Tuition Grant Amount/Number of Credits (as described in Section C, items 2 & 3)

p. Account to which the tuition grant is to be charged, if different than the account to which stipend is charged.

q. Required minimum hours per week of work (as indicated in Section C, 2&3 above)

r. Minimum number of hours of enrollment to maintain eligibility for this appointment (9 or 5), (to be verified prior to posting assistantships to Student Employment system)

s. Minimum GPA to maintain the assistantship, if appointment is for more than one semester (3.0 GPA)

2. Award Approval Procedures

a. The Graduate Dean will review each award offer for eligibility and terms, prior to issuance of the offer to the student. Thus, the Graduate Office will determine whether student is an admitted graduate student or qualifies for admission, is enrolled in the minimum number of hours, and whether the appointment offer complies with the authorized terms (start and end dates, stipend levels, fully completed form, and appropriate tuition support levels and so on). If the award offer is approved, it will be returned electronically to the Appointing Officer, with a unique identifier approval number from the Graduate Office.

b. Once the appointment offer is approved, the Appointing Officer will issue the award offer to the student. Once the student accepts and signs the Assistantship Offer, copies of the appointment letter shall be distributed, as follows:

i. Financial Aid Office

ii. Student Employment Office (with payroll forms, including W-4, I-9, bank deposit forms, etc.)

iii. Academic Program Chair/Director of Hiring Unit

iv. Dean of Graduate Studies and Grants Administration

v. Graduate Assistant (Student should receive a copy of the appointment offer for his/her files)

vi. Supervising faculty/staff member (for his/her files)

c. Payment Schedule

GA appointment offers should be in the hands of the Financial Aid/Student Employment Office at least 3 weeks prior to the start of the semester in which the appointment begins. The hiring unit should also provide student with copy of the annual pay schedule, available from the Student Employment Office

 

F. International GA Appointments.

Offers of assistantships to international students must be coordinated with the International Admissions counselor, who will advise international students with Graduate Assistantship appointments on issues of delayed pay and appointments, pending receipt of a Social Security number.

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G. Electronic Distribution.

The Graduate Assistantship appointment letters will be submitted electronically to the Financial Aid Office.

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H. Appeals:

The appointing officer shall submit in writing any appeals to request exceptions to any terms of the Graduate Assistantship Policy to the Graduate Dean.

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I. Grant-Funded or Other (non-base funded) Graduate Assistantships

Grant funded assistantships should follow the above procedures to make appointments including advertising, minimum stipends, terms of service and enrollment, and tuition support. When graduate assistantship positions are to be funded by a grant, the grant writer/PI should make every effort to obtain funding for the tuition grant from the funding source as well as for the stipend for any graduate assistantship. If the grant source does not or will not provide tuition support, the PI must request approval at the time of grant submission for the tuition to be paid by GVSU and count that tuition support as a cash match in the grant budget. Requests will be made through the Office of Graduate Studies and Grants Administration to the Provost.

Approval Date: March 4, 2003

Implementation of this policy shall take effect immediately, with the exception that minimum stipend amounts will not be utilized if the unit does not have adequate funding; the minimum stipend amounts will be enforced once fully funded.

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  Last Modified Date: October 15, 2008
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