For the first time ever UNM has made the Princeton Review's college rankings of the best and worst colleges nationwide. It was, however, in the negative column - the University ranks sixth out of 351 for allowing teaching assistants to teach too many upper-division courses.
The annual survey ranks the universities in 63 categories: from the biggest party schools, to the school with the best parking, to the one with the most luxurious dorms. It derives its rankings from surveying more than 100,000 students at the 351 colleges, or about 300 students per campus.
Susan Deese-Roberts, director of the Teaching Assistant Resource Center at UNM, which trains teaching assistants to be productive and successful, said that while she advocates student teachers gaining the valuable experience of teaching courses while pursuing their master's degrees, there are instances when TAs have no business in the role.
"It is a real subjective issue," Deese-Roberts said. "There are instances when the TA has been working in the real world for a number of years and has a firm grasp on the field of study. Those people have the knowledge and maturity to handle the requirements of an upper-division course."
She said that there are just as many instances, though, of students entering graduate school immediately after earning their bachelor's degree, in which case she doesn't believe they should be teaching courses above the 200 level.
UNM ranks behind Purdue University and the University of Iowa on the TA list, and according to the Princeton Review's Web site, it reflects a consensus of opinion among the University's students that TAs teach too many upper-division courses.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Jeremy Armstrong, a UNM alumnus, said he agrees with the ranking and feels that he didn't receive the education he paid for because in the majority of the classes he took, a teaching assistant barely older than him was the instructor.
"I appreciate that the teaching assistants need to prepare for the careers in the real world, but at the same time the quality of education that we receive is going to have an impact on our lives," Armstrong said.
There were several instances, he added, when TAs taught his upper division courses and, while he is content they did the best they could, he wonders if he would have come out of the class more prepared if a professor had been in charge.
"Who knows if one of them (the teaching assistants) had not been completely confident in the material and ideas they taught me," Armstrong said. "That is something that could come back to haunt me down the road."
Deese-Roberts said more than 100 of UNM's TAs participate in the Teaching Assistant Resource Center's educational programs yearly, and while the program has been enormously successful, it only scratches the surface when it comes to preparing teaching assistants.
"Every department has different rules regarding what courses its TAs can teach and the training they must undergo," Deese-Roberts said.
David Richard Jones, director of graduate studies within UNM's English Department, said the department's TA program is not only successful, "it provides us with pride."
"We have had a number of TAs who have gone on to achieve great things as a direct result of the experience they gained through being a TA here," Jones said.
Jones said he has complete confidence in the depatment's teaching assistants, but added that there are stringent rules in place about placing the student teachers into classes.
"Teaching assistants who are pursuing their Ph.D.s are allowed to teach upper division courses, while students who are still working on their master's degrees aren't allowed to teach classes above the 200 level."
