Teaching Assistants are the face of the Chemistry Department. Some of our students have more hours of contact with Teaching Assistants than they do with the faculty. While students themselves are ultimately responsible for how much they learn, the degree to which they find the learning experience enjoyable or frustrating is determined by the quality of our Teaching Assistants. 

A Teaching Assistantship entails 20 effort-hours of work per week in duties related to the overall academic mission of the Department.  Exact duties will be assigned by the supervisor of the course which you are teaching.  Certain duties and responsibilities could begin two to three weeks prior to the first day of classes including but not limited to, for example, TA orientation as noted below.

• Abide by and enforce all UK and Departmental safety guidelines.
• Attend and participate in TA orientation sessions as directed. All TAs are required to report to the department in person on the first day of orientation.  Failure to do so will result in immediate revocation of TA support for the semester.
• Attend all TA meetings.
• Schedule, publicize, and attend office hours.
• Participate in a TA development sessions, as directed.
• Proctor and grade exams, as assigned.
• Refrain from using resources in the teaching labs for tasks unrelated to your TA assignment.  Building and/or room access related to your TA assignment will be programmed to end when your assignment ends.
• Be on time to all meetings, class sessions, proctoring assignments, and grading sessions.
• Return grades promptly to students and/or the supervisor. This typically means within a week of collecting the assignment, but may be shorter or longer, as directed by the supervisor.
• Promptly submit information such as attendance.
• Read and answer your mail and email every day. Prompt answers to both student and supervisor email messages is expected (within 24 hours of receipt).  TAs are expected to use a UK email address to correspond with students.  Regardless of what system used to monitor messages, TAs should never contact a student from a personal email account.
• Other duties as assigned by the supervisor to further the teaching mission of the Department which may include, but are not limited to, such things as:
  • ​Proctoring
  • Grading
  • Working in the Learning Center