Graduate Assistantships
Graduate Assistantships are a great opportunity to learn and help pay for school. Our assistants help run the various offices and facilities vital to our operations. Positions are available in the scene shop, sound stage, equipment room, postproduction suites, media transfer center, digital media lab, and the main office. Many of our assistants also teach courses in cinema techniques, intro to digital technology, intro to film arts, and basic visual design.
Other duties include supervising screenings for film theory courses, department promotion and public relations, website development, and the creation of the department newsletters.
Assistants receive tuition exemption and a monthly stipend for fall and spring semesters.
Policy:
We consider all graduate students for assistantships including those who have not formally applied for an assistantship. We consider a candidate's previous work experience, grades, attitude and performance in classes, and their general work ethic as evidenced in class. We also weigh heavily a student's performance in the 3 credit departmental internship. Typically we look to second year students for assistantships. This is primarily because we depend greatly on our assistants to help run our programs, so they must be familiar with our equipment and procedures. Moreover, a GA is not permitted to be a teacher of record until they have accumulated 19 hours of graduate study. However, on occasion, we have offered assistantships to first year students when they possess a unique skill, already have a graduate degree in another field, or have advanced technical ability.
Assistants must maintain a 3.0 GPA to keep their assistantship. Being placed on academic probation will result in immediate loss of an assistantship.
Assistants must maintain a full course load of at least 9 hours.
There are 11 assistantships in rotation, and all are filled as they become available. We stagger these assistantships using second year and third year students, so that we do not have to do mass replacements as any one class graduates.
Assistantships are yearly appointments and are awarded for two years (three years in the case of a first year hire). Students are not allowed to have an assistantship for longer than three years, nor are they allowed to hold one after their original projected graduation date. The department is under no obligation to renew an assistantship at the end of each year's contract, and will not renew the contracts of assistants who receive unfavorable evaluations.
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