Faculty members expressed outrage over how the biological graduate assistant teaching program was implemented during a forum Tuesday.

Gary Fritz, biology professor, said the biology department received a proposal late February about funding for a pre-health professions adviser.

“In order to fund that position they were going to fire a Unit B faculty member and have four graduate students teach eight lab sections,” Fritz said.

The program allows graduate assistants to teach undergraduate courses.

Fritz attended the Phi Sigma forum “Graduate student teaching at EIU: Concerns from the biological sciences” in the Physical Science building.

Fritz said the potential firing of a Unit B faculty member was eventually dropped from the proposal because enough faculty members voiced their disapproval of the idea.

Having graduate students teach undergraduate courses was not dropped.

“The graduate program was financially linked to hiring this position,” Fritz said.

Mary Anne Hanner, dean of College of Sciences, said the pre-health professions adviser helps serve about 200 to 300 students in pre-med, pre-pharmacy and pre-veterinary programs.

She added the adviser will improve academics for students in those areas.

“We have a set amount of (money) and our budget is relatively flat,” Hanner said. “We have to meet the needs of students by spending that money in the ways that we think will best fit those needs.”

Fritz said the faculty was also not consulted before this decision was made.

“It was sprung on us in a two week period, so apparently the decision had already been made by the administration,” he said. “That is highly unusual and not in the spirit of shared governance.”

Fritz added the department is supposed to have a discussion and vote on matters like allowing graduate assistants to teach courses and neither happened.

“That’s what blew it up,” Fritz said. “The lack of process and the lack of procedure.”

Graduate assistants currently teach Biological Issues and Principles.

Students often take the 1000 level course to fulfill their general education requirement.

Graduate assistants teach eight out of the 14 sections.

The forum consisted of three presentations by Britto Nathan, biology professor, Ann Fritz, associate biology professor, and Paul Switzer, biology professor.

“We have tried, as a concerned faculty, to express our concern at many levels,” Ann Fritz said during her presentation.

She added those concerns have not been answered.

Nathan said Andrew Methven, the biology department chair, did not consult the faculty, student body or graduate students when deciding to implement this program.

He added one of his graduate students wants to be a brain surgeon and has no desire to teach, but was somehow dragged into teaching students.

Switzer said Eastern’s mission statement clearly states faculty, and not graduate students, will teach students.

He added this is not an attack on graduate assistants, but faculty should be allowed to teach courses because they have the experience.

“It takes years of practice to teach effectively,” Switzer said.

When the forum was opened to questions, many of the audience members were concerned that other departments were being unfairly criticized.

“The anger felt in this room is not directed to the English department,” said English professor David Carpenter.

The English department implemented a similar program in Fall 2005.

Graduate assistants shadow professors for a semester while taking a three-hour course on how to instruct a class.

English graduate assistants teach Composition and Language as well as Composition and Literature.

Carpenter said the English department developed their graduate program the right way and the biology department did not.

Charles Wharram, English professor, said people generalize when graduate students are allowed to teach courses, but added that is not the case when there is extensive mentoring.

The biological science graduate program is a two-year program and only students in their second year are allowed to teach.

Graduate students also act as teacher assistants prior to entering their second year of the graduate program.

Hanner said there will be a meeting Friday with her, the Biological Sciences faculty and Robert Augustine, dean of the Graduate School, where suggestions will be made on how to improve the biological graduate assistant program.

“We are asking them to join with us to further develop and improve the program,” Hanner said.

She added a meeting over the program was not done earlier because the administration believed they did consult the faculty.

“Sometimes you didn’t have a very good map when you started, but (the graduate assistants) are not doing a bad job in the classroom,” Hanner said. “We’ll meet some of the concerns people have raised, but I think we are fine.”