A tentative proposal to reduce the pay of undergraduate teaching fellows in Math Ar, "Essential Mathematics," who now receive the same salary as graduate teaching fellows, is "terribly unfair," Deborah J. Hughes-Hallett, Preceptor in Mathematics and the main instructor for the course, said yesterday.

The proposal is only a "topic of discussion" for the Finance Office, which may change or even eliminate it, Robert E. Kaufmann, associate dean of finance, said yesterday.

The Finance Office had so many questions about the Math Department's budget when it was reviewed that the Office "simply plugged in figures that seemed right," Kaufmann said.

Back in Line

Chairman of the Mathematics Department Shlomo Z. Sternberg said yesterday the proposal would bring Math Ar into line with a University policy of paying undergraduate teaching fellows less than graduate students for the same work.

But Kaufmann said, "There isn't any policy on this at all."

"I'd feel very slighted by the change--we do comparable work" to graduate students, Michael W. Stewart '79, an undergraduate teaching fellow for Math Ar, said yesterday.

"I would be unhappy to get a higher salary than my fellow undergraduate teaching fellows, since I'm not doing anything more than they are," Karen Hsiao, one of the course's graduate teaching fellows, said yesterday.

Eager Beavers

Hughes-Hallett said teaching fellows for the introductory math course work extremely hard, often harder than do teaching fellows for Math 1a, the next course in the Math Department sequence.

The proposal is "hard on the morale of the course," she said.

Sternberg said the Math Department neither supports nor opposes the proposal, and Kaufmann will make the final decision.

Neither Kaufmann nor Sternberg would say how much the proposal would cut the salaries of undergraduates.

Hughes-Hallett said all teaching fellows in Math Ar now receive three-tenths the pay that junior teaching fellows receive.

She added that she would consider making up the pay difference to the undergraduate teaching fellows out of her own pocket if the proposal were implemented.