Assistantships

GTA/GRA/GA Information

Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA), Graduate Research Assistant (GTA), and Graduate Assistant (GA) positions are administered by individual graduate programs. Ask your graduate program about these opportunities and scan the Jobs at KU listings for opportunities outside of your graduate program.

Background checks are required for all prospective or rehired (break in service for one year or more) GTA or positions. The University of Kansas recognizes the candidate's signature of the GTA Contract as their acknowledgement that they will be contacted electronically by a third party vendor (HireRight) to initiate the process as well as notification that all employment is contingent upon satisfactory completion of such a check. Background checks conducted by Federal Homeland Security for international, non-citizens as part of the visa process will be adequate if the candidate has not been in the U.S. for 30 days or longer. Additional information may be found at KU Policies.

Graduate teaching assistants are eligible for benefits, including tuition and health insurance benefits. Further information may be found in the policy outlining Benefits Available to GRAs, GTAs, and GAs.



Information on the GTA/GRA Health Insurance is available on the Human Resources website.

Information on the Affordable Healthcare Act (ACA) is available on the Human Resources website.

Information on insurance for F1 & J1 students is available on the International Student Services website.



GTA appointments are governed by a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the University of Kansas, Lawrence, the Kansas Board of Regents, and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Kansas.

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play an integral role at KU. All new GTAs must complete a mandatory New GTA Orientation offered by the Center for Teaching Excellence or an approved alternative New GTA Orientation offered by their hiring department. Information on the date and location for the CTE New GTA Orientation can be found on the Center for Teaching Excellence's GTA page.

During the 2018 renegotiation of the Memorandum of Agreement between the University of Kansas and the Graduate Teaching Assistants' Coalition (GTAC), KU committed to managing the storage of student work that does not get returned to students. Departments should arrange to collect from GTAs any un-returned student work and store it in a central, department space (Article 5, Section 2b, p. 7). GTAs should return student work no later than thirty (30) days after the deadline for turning in course grades.

KU has also committed that departments will make arrangements for GTAs to obtain free classroom texts unless the GTA is responsbile for designing their own course (Article 8, Section 1, p. 16).