Hiring & Appointing Students and Temporary Employees

Graders (GR) support a face-to-face or online course. They have primary responsibility for grading with oversight and guidance from the instructor. Graders are allocated six hours of work per week. In the Spring 2025 semester, the role of grader is compensated at the rate of $20 per hour.

Form: Appointing a Student

Graduate assistants (GA) are master’s-level or doctoral student who may have a wide range of responsibilities that could include providing administrative support to offices and units, working on a project that has a defined scope, providing customer service in a student-facing office, or supporting a faculty member, assistant, or associate dean. Graduate assistants work between 15-20 hours a week during the year.

Temporary grant-supported positions may be available for bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral students who will provide specific assistance to a faculty member that has received a state, federal, or foundation-related grant and is using grant funding to pursue research or center-based activities. Temporary employees may also include, but are not limited to, students at other universities, BU students on a leave of absence, and BU alumnae.

Form: Hiring a Student for a Grant-Funded Position

Form: Hiring a Temporary Employee

Instructors of Record (IOR) are doctoral students who are working under the direction and supervision of a faculty member to teach a course.

Teaching facilitators (TF) support an online course that has been developed by BU Virtual

Roles and responsibilities will vary by course. They may include but are not limited to:

• Evaluating student homework, quizzes, exams, and other performance
• Maintaining an accurate record of student grades
• Placing students in virtual break-out groups during course sessions 
• Holding virtual office hours or review sessions
• Arranging for guest speakers to Zoom into the class session
• Responding to student emails
• Referring students to campus resources such as tutoring and writing programs
• Setting up, operating, and troubleshooting classroom technology
• Taking attendance
• Other tasks as assigned by faculty

Teaching Facilitators are allocated ten hours of work per week. In the Spring 2025 semester, the role of TF is compensated at the rate of $22 per hour for masters students. For doctoral students, the role of TA is equivalent to 50% of service load in the given term per four-credit course.

Form: Appointing an Online Teaching Facilitator

Research assistants are master’s-level or doctoral students assigned to work with individual faculty members on their research projects and in their centers. This may include the opportunity to co-present at a regional, state, national or international conference, to contribute to a publication or grant, or to help maintain databases. See individual faculty members to learn more about possibilities.

Form: Hiring a Student for a Grant-Funded Position

Form: ASTRO Award Request

Teaching Assistants (TA) support a face-to-face, in-person course. Roles and responsibilities will vary by course. They may include but are not limited to:

• Evaluating student homework, quizzes, exams, and other performance measures
• Maintaining an accurate record of student grades
• Holding weekly office hours or review sessions
• Arranging for guest speakers
• Responding to student emails
• Referring students to campus resources such as tutoring and writing programs
• Setting up, operating, and troubleshooting classroom technology and/or navigating the course Blackboard site
• Taking attendance
• Other tasks as assigned by faculty

Teaching Assistants are allocated ten hours of work per week. In the Spring 2025 semester, the role of TA is compensated at the rate of $22 per hour for masters students. For doctoral students, the role of TA is equivalent to 50% of service load in the given term per four credit course.

Form: Appointing a Student

Teaching Fellows are usually doctoral students who are fulfilling requirements for a teaching apprenticeship or assistantship. Teaching fellows are sometimes assigned and matched to courses by their departments in an attempt to assign them a course that corresponds with their research interests. They are usually compensated through an existing doctoral fellowship.

Undergraduate and master’s students can be hired for temporary research positions.

Form: Hiring a Student for a Grant-Funded Position

Form: ASTRO Award Request

Field Supervisors provide supervision in the field for a student in a pre-practicum, practicum, internship, or field-based experience in education or human development. Most field supervisors are former or current educators, counselors, former principals and administrators, or others with years of experience, but sometimes a doctoral student is approved to serve in this role.

Permanent research staff (full or part time).

Form: Hiring Non-Temporary Research Staff

Faculty may request a Grader for an in-person or online course when their in-person class size is 31 students or greater, or when their online class size is 16 students or greater. A second Grader may be requested for an in-person class when enrollment reaches 61 students or when an online class size reaches 31 students, and thereafter in increments of 30 (in-person) and 15 (online). 

Faculty may request a Teaching Assistant when their in-person class size is 31 students or greater. Additional TAs may be requested when enrollment reaches 61 and thereafter in increments of 30.

• Academic Affairs receives requests from faculty for a student to support their classes as a Grader or TA via this form: Appointing a Student
• If the request meets enrollment policy guidelines above, payroll will verify work eligibility of the identified individual and begin the hiring process.
  • Please note that students cannot work more than twenty hours per week during any semester.
• Academic Affairs will share a letter of expectations with faculty and an appointment letter with students regarding the anticipated number of hours, start date, and end date of the role, copying the Payroll Administrator on both letters. Faculty are responsible for ensuring that their Graders and Teaching Assistants are assigned work that complies with the maximum number of hours per week. Faculty are encouraged, when possible, to appoint students as soon as their enrollment qualifies them for a student. This will allow students to earn an hourly rate across a full semester.
  • The start date should be the first day of class according to BU and BUV academic calendars. If hired after the course begins, the start date will be the following Monday after official hire is processed.
  • The end date should be 3 days after the official end of the course. If an exam is scheduled, the end date should be 3 days following the final exam.

Form: Appointing an Online Teaching Facilitator

Faculty may request a Teaching Facilitator when their online class size is 16 students or greater. A second TF may be requested when the class size reaches 31 and thereafter in increments of 15.

• Academic Affairs receives requests from faculty for a student to support their classes as a Teaching Facilitator via this form: Appointing an Online Teaching Facilitator  
• If the request meets enrollment policy guidelines above, payroll will verify work eligibility of the identified individual and begin the hiring process. 
  • Please note that students cannot work more than twenty hours per week during any semester.  
• Academic Affairs will share a letter of expectations with faculty and an appointment letter with students regarding the anticipated number of hours, start date, and end date of the role, copying the Payroll Administrator on both letters. Faculty are responsible for ensuring that their Teaching Facilitators are assigned work that complies with the maximum number of hours per week. Faculty are encouraged, when possible, to appoint students as soon as their enrollment qualifies them for a student. This will allow students to earn an hourly rate across a full semester. 
  • The start date should be the first day of class according to BU and BUV academic calendars. If hired after the course begins, the start date will be the following Monday after official hire is processed.   
  • The end date should be 3 days after the official end of the course. If an exam is scheduled, the end date should be 3 days following the final exam.