Responsibilities of Supervising Instructors

Dear Colleagues,

In our most recent round of collective bargaining with CUPE 3904, Unit 3 there were some clarifications made in respect to the responsibilities of Supervising Instructors and Academic Assistants. Supervising Instructors are the faculty members and contract lecturers that the Academic Assistants support and report to. Academic Assistants in this communication refers to individuals hired as Graduate Assistants and Teaching Assistants. The overarching goal of these clarifications is to ensure that there is clear communication between Supervising Instructors and their Academic Assistants. As a current or future Supervising Instructor, we want you to be aware of the responsibilities associated with this role, effective Winter 2019.

Job Posting/Workload Form

It is your responsibility to clearly communicate the key responsibilities and an estimate of the associated hours for the position that is to be posted. You are to share this information with your department administrator, who will prepare the job posting containing this information. Once hiring decisions are made the  (google doc) Assistantship Workload Form (Workload Form) (external link)  will be attached to the Academic Assistant’s letter of appointment. This Workload Form contains the hours of work, the start date/end date, the assigned duties, and the expected hours of work breakdown. The Workload Form is pre-populated with the information from the job posting. This Form will be a point of reference throughout their appointment. In light of this, it is important that you provide the key responsibilities and an estimate of the associated hours to the recruiter in your department so that the correct information pre-populates the Workload Form.

Meeting with your Academic Assistant

i) Initial Meeting: The first meeting with your Academic Assistant is after they receive and accept their letter of appointment. The purpose of this meeting is to review and confirm the hours of work, the start date/end date, the assigned duties, the expected hours of work breakdown, the standard of performance expected, etc. Again, this information is contained in the Workload Form, and the purpose of this meeting is to review this Form with your Academic Assistant, ensure that the expected duties and hours of work breakdown are appropriate in light of the assigned duties that the Academic Assistant is required to perform. If it is determined at this meeting that changes need to be made to the Workload Form, i.e. a redistribution of duties, you will  (word file) revise the Workload Form and both you and the Academic Assistant must sign the Form. The Academic Assistant must receive a copy of this Form. If there is a change to the hours you must share the revised Workload Form with your department administrator so they can complete a job change.

Note: If more hours are required this needs to be discussed with and approved by your Chair/Director prior to revising the Workload Form and completing a job change.

ii) Midpoint Meeting: The second meeting with your Academic Assistant is at the midpoint of the semester. It is a shared responsibility between yourself and the Academic Assistant to ensure that the total hours of work as defined in the letter of appointment and Workload Form are not exceeded on a semester basis. As such, this midpoint meeting is to confirm that the assigned hours are sufficient to carry out the assigned duties.

Again, at this meeting, if you determine that there is a redistribution of duties, you must complete a  (word file) revised Workload Form and share a copy with the Academic Assistant. If there is a change in the number of hours they will be working you must revise the Workload Form and share it with your departmental administrator so they can complete a job change. Again, if more hours are required this needs to be discussed with and approved by your Chair/Director prior to revising the Workload Form and completing a job change. Any time there is a revision to the Workload Form both you and the Academic Assistant must sign the revised Workload Form and the Academic Assistant must receive a copy of the revised Form.

Note: The hours per term for Academic Assistants is up to 130 hours. The Academic Assistant can work over 130 hours per term, but may not exceed the 390 hour cap for the year. Department administrators are able to monitor Academic Assistants’ hours through the Contract Hours Audit Report.

Performance Evaluations

As the Supervising Instructor you must provide your Academic Assistant with feedback regarding the performance of their duties. You should provide verbal feedback to your Academic Assistant at the midpoint meeting, and meet with and complete a performance evaluation at the end of the semester using this fillable  (word file) Performance Evaluation Form. Please ensure that you send an electronic copy of the evaluation to your Academic Assistant and copy your department administrator for record keeping. It is no longer necessary to share a copy with the Union.

Exception: A performance evaluation for invigilators only needs to be filled out when they have an overall rating of unacceptable, and a copy must be shared with the Union. Please send them to l2barnet@torontomu.ca.

Approval of Hours

Managers, administrators, and employees share responsibility for payroll. You are jointly responsible for ensuring that electronic time reporting is completed and approved prior to the deadlines. There are two ways that hours are tracked for Academic Assistants; Average Hours and Positive Hours.

Average Hours: The employee will be automatically paid on each pay day. The employee is not required to report the total number of hours worked and any absences that occur.
Positive Hours: Employees report time in Self Service using an electronic timesheet to record the total number of hours worked each day, and any absences that occur, in order to receive pay.

Some of your Academic Assistants will be on positive hours (also called positive time reporting). If you do not know if your Academic Assistant is on positive hours please confirm with your department administrator.

For Academic Assistants on positive hours, as the Supervising Instructor, it is your responsibility to ensure that their hours are approved in eHR so that they are paid on a timely basis. Follow these instructions on how to do this. Some departments have delegated the task of approving hours to their department administrator(s). Please confirm whether or not this is the case in your department.

The Office of the Vice-Provost, Faculty Affairs and HR, in consultation with the Union, are developing a Guide for Supervising Instructors. The purpose of this Guide is to assist Supervising Instructors in fulfilling their role in relation to TA/GAs in a more effective manner. We hope to be able to share this guide with you in the Winter 2019 term.

In the coming months the Senior HR Consultants will be attending your departmental meetings to review these responsibilities with you and answer any questions that you may have. If you have any questions about the workload form or job change process please contact Client Services at ext. 555075.

Thank you for your patience and diligence in carrying out these duties associated with your role as a Supervising Instructor.

Sincerely,

Office of the Vice-Provost, Faculty Affairs