“We do the best now with a very imperfect system. You can call it being caught between a rock and a hard place,” Gordon said. “We have to offer good teaching to undergraduates…[but] there’s a lot of pressure to put graduate students in the classroom [as section leaders].”

Gordon said that even under a system where TFing is not required, it should still be encouraged, because part of a graduate education entails learning how to become a good teacher.

Logan S. McCarthy ’96, who is a chemistry graduate student, agreed.

“Requiring some teaching seems to be really important to the mission of training potential future professors,” he said.

The current plan does not affect graduate students in the physical and life sciences, who serve as TFs during their first and second years and are subsequently funded by their research advisers.

—Staff writer William C. Marra can be reached at wmarra@fas.harvard.edu.