Medical Insurance:
Medical costs are very high in the United States, and you will be expected to pay for them at the time of service -- unless you have insurance. Therefore, it is essential that all students obtain health insurance. It is your responsibility to compare coverages and costs, and select the plan you want to purchase. Most plans exclude per-existing conditions, routine physical exams, self-inflicted injury or suicide, war, insurrection or act of war, elective abortions, and expenses incurred in the home country of foreign students. Information on medical insurance is available from OFSA.

The student fee paid at registration permits use of the Snow Health Center at a reduced rate (not free), and allows you to put your charges on your student account. Snow Health Center is not a hospital, but it does provide a wide range of services, including treatment for minor emergencies, individual/group counseling, and wellness information/programs. In addition, certain services are available free of cost to all who live in Washtenaw County: measles, tetanus, polio, and hepatitis B immunization shots are available at the Washtenaw County Health Department (971-3993).

Office Assignments:
Each graduate assistant will be assigned office space in the Mark Jefferson Building. Initially, a temporary office assignment is made until a research director is choosen, at which time a desk in or near the students research area will be assigned. We have a limited number of desks which are assigned on a first-come first-serve basis. This is not for all graduate students, just those appointed as graduate assistants.

Keys:
Keys too the outside doors of Mark Jefferson, the graduate student offices, and necessary research space may be acquired by filling out a key authorization form (avaliable from your research director) and presenting it to the Manager of Department Services. A deposit of $8.00 each key will be due before keys are issued. This deposit will be returned when the keys are returned. A $50.00 fine may be assessed against your student account if all keys are not returned by the due date.

Supplies:
Graduate assistants may acquire the paper, pens and other office supplies necessary for their assistantship duties by requesting these items from the secretaries in the Main Chemistry Office. Lab manuals or teaching materials are provided by your supervising instructor for each course.

Telephone Usage:
Various offices (including graduate student offices) and laboratories have telephones. Telephones are not to be used for long-distance calls without specific authorization by a faculty member who will then be held accountable by the department head. Because the department is charged even for local calls, these should be kept to a minimum. There is no charge for on-campus calls. Commonly there are many extensions on one phone number, so individual calls should be kept as brief as possible. Please do not use emergency phones located in the laboratories for personal calls.

Office Hours:
Each graduate assistant must select office hours (5 hours per week for full-time GA's and 2 hours per week for Half-time GA's) during which time s/he will definitely be present in the office to consult with students. If at all possible, these hours should be reasonably distributed between morning and afternoon and among several different days of the week. This schedule of hours must be posted near your office door and copies given to the department secretary and the graduate coordinator. Other teaching duties such as grading lab notebooks, can usually be accomplished during office hour periods.

Academic Standing:
Each graduate student must maintain a 3.0 grade point average (A=4.0, A-=3.7, B+=3.3, B=3.0, etc.) in order to be in good academic standing. Failure to maintain this average over a given academic year (September-August) will result in the loss of your assistantship for the following year. A student may, however, continue to be an assistant during the semester of a given year while on probation.

Department Seminars:
All graduate assistants and full-time graduate students are expected to attend all departmental seminars unless there is a conflict with another class or with a teaching responsibility. Part-time students are urged to attend as many as possible. This broad exposure to current scientific developments is an important part of a graduate education.

Main Office Facilities:
As time permits, graduate assistants may have tests or other materials related to their teaching duties typed and/or copied by the secretarial staff. Such requests should be made at least 2 days in advance. Overhead transparencies can be made upon request. Research related copying should be handled by the faculty research advisor. Personal copying is charged at 7 cents each page copied.

Evaluation of Teaching Performance:
All graduate assistants are required to participate in course evaluations, i.e., to have their students evaluate in writing their performance in each course. These evaluations are intended to assist the individual in improving his or her teaching abilities, and to aid the department in assuring the excellence of the undergraduate instruction program.

Spring-Summer Assistantships:
At the end of the first and second academic years as a graduate assistant, students in good standing are eligible to apply for Spring or Summer (not both) support. This support may be less than full-time, since there are more applications than positions. If you wish to apply for Spring or Summer support, you should inform the graduate coordinator three weeks before the beginning of the Spring semester. The quality of the applicants' prior performance will be considered when making these assignments.