Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs)

Teaching is a vital component of the scientific method. Graduate students in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EARTH) assist faculty instructors teach introductory (1xx–2xx) and advanced-level (3xx–4xx) courses on the Ann Arbor campus or at Camp Davis in Wyoming. Graduate Student Instructors, or GSIs, run laboratory sections, grade exams and assignments, and hold office hours. They teach students one-to-one or in small groups and provide feedback on their performance. Graders, with a 0.25 appointment, grade homework assignments and exams.

We may appoint students from other units as GSIs but incoming and current graduate students in EARTH have priority. Most students are appointed as GSIs several times during their time in graduate school. On average, EARTH students are appointed as GSIs once per academic year.

EARTH has two fractional GSIs appointments:

0.25 (grader) – ten (10) hours per week
0.50 – twenty (20) hours per week

The hours above are averages over the entire term. The workload may be heavy during exam periods and light during breaks.

See the Graduate Student Instructors and Graduate Student Staff Assistants Appointment Guide with details on the deployment of GSIs. The Graduate Student Mentors (GSMs) assist and support GSIs and help answer questions, or address concerns or problems that arise during teaching. See the EARTH GSI Handbook for information specifically for GSIs and their faculty instructors in EARTH. See the Teaching Team Communication Form for clarifying teaching expectations, and the Best Practices for Instructors doc. Additional resources are available at CRLT.

GSI substitution

If a GSI is on a Leave of Absence or must miss teaching a class for some other reason (e.g. medical, parental, bereavement, jury or witness duty, immigration proceedings — see Article XIII, Leaves of Absence in the GEO contract), the GSI should contact the FI for the course with as much advance notice as possible so that arrangements for the absence can be made. It is the FI's responsibility to find a GSI substitute. If able, the GSI is expected to make reasonable efforts to assist in finding a temporary replacement to meet their obligations and to minimize disruptions to job duties and course activities.

The FI may either teach the lab/discussion or ask another instructor or GSI to cover the class. This arrangement needs to be documented in writing and forwarded to Academic Program Manager.

Note that travel related to research and academic conferences is not a valid reason to miss GSI work.

For a GSI who will be absent or has been absent:

Talk about your absence with the Faculty Instructor (FI) of the course and to the Academic Program Manager as soon as possible so they can sort out the logistics and help find a substitute.
If you will be absent for longer than a week, let the Grad Chair know about your situation.

If you are a student agreeing to substitute as a GSI:

Take to your faculty advisor and the Academic Program Manager to determine whether you are eligible to substitute and to discuss how it would impact your academic work.
If you have substituted or will substitute as a GSI, fill out the GSI substitution form.

Potential substitutes for GSIs (and FIs) should be identified during the start-of-term Teaching Team Communication Form meeting. Ideally, substitutes will have previous experience with the course (e.g. former GSI, former student enrolled in course, familiarity through research, etc.).

A GSI substitute must be enrolled in a U-M PhD or MS program for the current term.
EARTH grad students are preferred.
The practice of “swapping sections” within a GSI team to make up for coverage of absences is not the correct practice and should be avoided.
A GSI substitute should have an active GSRA or GSI appointment for the current term. A grad student on fellowship for the current term, but who had a recent GSI or GSRA position, may serve as a GSI substitute as long as the HR appointment has not been terminated.
A GSI substitute may not work more than 26 hours per week total if he/she is already a GSI.
Federal visa requirements prohibit international students from working more than 20 hours per week, and substitute pay is for additional hours worked above the normal 20 hrs/wk appointment. (The exception is if an international student is on half-fellowship and half-GSI/GSRA for the term.)

A substitute GSI will be compensated at the GEO contract hourly rate and should have an active employment relationship with the University.

A substitute GSI must download, fill out, and send the GSI substitution form to the Academic Program Manager as soon as possible. It simplifies the administration and identifying problems. There is not a contractual expiration date for back pay so a substitute GSI must fill out the form also after the substitute GSI work.

GSI appointments of non-EARTH graduate students

We do hire graduate students from outside our program to fill some of our GSI (0.50) and Grader (0.25) positions.

Positions include salary, full tuition waiver and health insurance options.
Students whose undergraduate degree is from an institution where the language of instruction is not English must have taken the English Language Institute’s ELI 994 and have received a passing score of 4 on the Oral English Test (OET).
GSI orientation offered through CRLT and departmental orientation is required for those students who have not served as a GSI for an EARTH class previously.

If you are interested in a position in one of our courses, you must check the course schedule to make sure you do not have time conflicts with the lectures or labs.

To apply for a Winter 2024 GSI Position in Earth, please complete the application on careers.umich.edu. The job opening ID is 242125.

Once first-round applications have been reviewed, those who move to the next round will receive a link to the second-round application.

In Winter 2023, approximately 25 students applied for GSI positions (not exactly the same positions).

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Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs)

GSI substitution

GSI appointments of non-EARTH graduate students