"It has turned out that the best undergraduates--and there have always been people in that category in these courses--are in many ways as competent as the senior discussion leaders, even discussion leaders with doctorates," says Layzer, adding that he has employed undergraduate teaching assistants' for 23 years.
Although both undergraduate and senior discussion leaders read students' papers Layzer says the undergraduate has no direct responsibility for determining students grades.
"They have no direct responsibility or even indirect responsibility," Layzer says, "You have to distinguish between responsibility and input."
The Future
Although many students are extremely pleased with their experiences with undergraduate teaching assistants, Wolcowitz says it would not be difficult to make the case for eliminating undergraduate course assistants.
"It wouldn't be hard to convince me we should curtail the use of undergraduates," the assistant dean says.
In particular, Wolcowitz says students come to Harvard "to be taught by experts in the field," not fellow students. In addition, he says it is often hard for undergraduates to maintain confidentiality.
"Should undergraduates know about others' academic performance?" Wolcowitz asks.
But perhaps most important, Wolcowitz says he wonders whether a student who is already taking a full course load has enough time to lead a section and be available to answer students' questions.
"When the work piles up, [undergraduate teaching fellows] don't have flexibility," he says.