Departments using graduate assistants for supervised instruction are now down to seven instead of eight.

Chemistry Department Chair Doug Klarup realized the chemistry department’s use of graduate assistants was misclassified during the first week of the semester.

The Graduate School asked the department to update the report data on its graduate assistants.

“I was surprised because that hadn’t been my understanding after the June meeting that there was an error somewhere,” Klarup said.

He added he notified the Graduate School of the error, and he presumed it was corrected.

The chemistry department uses graduate assistants for instructional assistance and always have, Klarup said.

Supervised instruction is when the graduate assistant teaches 50 percent or more of the class. Instructional assistance is when the graduate assistant helps the professor in the classroom.

Klarup said, to his understanding, the chemistry department reported in June to the Graduate School that the department’s graduate assistants were being used for instructional assistance.

Barbara Lawrence, chemistry professor and the chemistry’s graduate program coordinator, said, based on her conversations with Klarup, the department informed the Graduate School that the department used graduate assistants for instructional assistance as well.

She, however, was on sabbatical last spring and does not know for sure what could have transpired.

Robert Augustine, dean of the graduate school, said the discrepancy has been fixed and was fixed after Klarup notified the school of what happened.

“My understanding would be that they believed they were using them in according to the definition,” Augustine said of how the discrepancy happened. “But when they re-looked at the definition, they discovered that they weren’t being used in that way.”

He added the Graduate School reports are based on what the departments say.

He said the change would be reflected in his next report.

“We’ll just have a footnote that says that the chair reported they no longer use supervised instructional assistants – they are instructional support,” Augustine said.

He added every year there is a slight change in the report.

The art, communication studies, English, mathematics, counseling and student development, physical education and biology departments now all use graduate assistants for supervised instruction.

Stephen Di Benedetto can be reached at 581-7942 or at sdibenedetto@eiu.edu.