Graduate Student Stipends

A timely completion of the degree is in the best interest of a student. In addition to the degree milestones, yearly progress reports, and departmental support structure, the following mechanisms are available to help with a timely degree completion:

Time to degree and faculty oversight: Students are expected to complete their degree within 12 semesters (6 years). Student status and progress will be discussed at a special faculty meeting once a year in the spring semester. The DGS will prepare a list of students not meeting milestones. Students who are not completing their defense by the end of their 8th year must apply to the Graduate School for an extension.

TA support for fall and spring semesters:

• Funding decisions are made by the Department Chair on a case-by-case basis, in consultation with the Directors of Undergraduate Laboratories and Graduate Studies.
• You can receive at most 10 semesters of full TA funding, not counting summer funding.
• If you have received full TA funding for 10 semesters, you can receive the minimum amount of TA funding ($8,500 per semester as of 2022) to qualify for tuition and health care coverage for up to 4 additional semesters.
• If you have received full TA funding for 14 semesters, you are not eligible for any further TA funding.
• Students who have not completed their degree requirements within eight years are not eligible for TA and tuition support, or benefits.

TA support for summer sessions I and II:

• Funding decisions are made by the Department Chair on a case-by-case basis, in consultation with the Directors of Undergraduate Laboratories and Graduate Studies.
• You can receive at most 4 full summers (this means summer session I and II) of summer TA funding.
• Rising 2nd years: Every effort will be made to provide full summer TA funding.
• Rising 3rd-6th years: Every effort will be made to provide at least one summer session of funding. Students not applying for external summer funding (departmental, College resources, NC space grant etc) will have lower summer TA funding priority.
• Rising 7th year students are not eligible for summer TA funding.

Evaluation criteria:

TA performance will be based on a rubric system following the CARE metric (competence, attitude, reliability, engagement). Whenever student feedback is used to evaluate TA performance, special care will be taken to account for possible biases.  TA performance should never be based solely on student feedback, so faculty evaluation based on personal observations should be included.  TAs whose support is in question will be evaluated by at least two faculty members.

RA performance will be based on the ranking of the yearly progress reports (or, in years of exams, on the exam performance). The yearly progress reports, the DWE II, and the thesis proposal presentation (TPP) will receive a grade on the graduate grade scale (H,P,L,F). For explanations of the scale, see Graduate School Handbook. The table below gives some examples. “Deliverables” mentioned below could be publications, conference presentations, substantial contributions to collaboration, instrumentation, etc.  Other measures are just examples.