"In those areas, there's a competence that can be very easily demonstrated," he says. "It's easy to demonstrate that you have a very good grasp of calculus principles."

Mathematics

For this reason, many mathematics courses rely on undergraduate course assistants, says Assistant Professor of Mathematics Kevin D. Oden.

Oden attributes the large number of undergraduate course assistants in the math department to the fact that many undergraduates want to take courses in a department that admits only 12 to 13 graduate students each year.

In other larger graduate programs, graduate students serve as TF for most classes.

This semester, Oden is teaching Mathematics 112: "Real Analysis" which is staffed by two undergraduate teaching assistants.

But Oden says he relies on these assistants to evaluate students as infrequently as possible, preferring to grade most assignments himself.

"I think the students should get the benefit and detriment of my grading the class," he says. "I think the professor of the course is the one students are coming to class to be judged by or graded by."

But Jeremy L. Martin '96, who has served as a course assistant in both introductory and upper-level math courses, says he feels undergraduates are capable of grading even subjective assignments fairly.

"The rule that the College has about undergraduates not being allowed to make subjective decisions is just plain silly," he says. "How else do they expect us to gain this kind of experience?"

Martin says he believes undergraduate TFs can fairly evaluate their peers.

"A point on a problem set here and there isn't going to make any difference in the long run," he says.

Although teaching assistants grade problem sets in Oden's course, the professor says students' homework scores do not greatly affect their final grades.

"Just about everyone was within epsilon of each other for the homework grade," Oden says. "Assigning a grade to the homework is just to provide a way for students to do the work."

Oden says he views teaching assistants as individuals who "augment" the learning process rather than serve as evaluators.