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Abstract
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) have multiple roles at the university, simultaneously serving as researchers, students, and educators. Many are assigned teaching roles as lower-division instructors, meaning they have a large impact on their undergraduate students’ foundational learning. To effectively navigate these responsibilities, GTAs require support from their departments. Many have an Instructor of Record (IoR) to report to and learn from; First-Year Writing (FYW) GTAs, however, are the IoRs for their courses, meaning they do not gain the same kind of guidance that other GTAs may receive. To best support our new GTAs, especially those who are IoRs, this thesis argues that the implementation of a formalized mentorship program would more effectively benefit GTAs, students, and faculty by facilitating transfer, promoting a heightened quality of instruction, promoting a heightened level of student retention, and allowing faculty to leave their legacy of effective student learning at the university through their mentees.