Hiring Graduate Students 2024-25

To: School/Division HR Officers and Secondary Contacts Business Managers
Student Services Managers

From: Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, Dean
Beverly Wyrick, Assoc Dean, Finance/Operations ConnectCarolina HR/Payroll Representatives

Date: May 23, 2024

This memo contains information about hiring graduate students, including guidelines, helpful reminders, and suggested effective dates. Graduate students may be hired for a semester, academic year, calendar year, or other periods as needed. Each campus unit may establish varying effective dates to meet their business needs.

Starting January 2024, a change was made to prorate partial month salary based on the workday methodology instead of the calendar day methodology. This change means that for any partial month payments, the payroll will be based on the number of weekdays (Monday through Friday) during the partial month. Holidays and other leave types are not considered different than a worked day. For employees working the full month there is no change. The graduate student stipend calculator has been updated to reflect this change.

The stipend calculator tool can assist users in determining the monthly flat rate amount to enter on the ePAR form. Use the dates suggested at the end of this memo and the calculator stipend tool to determine the correct amount of pay and to ensure the minimum stipend is met for students who receive tuition and fee awards for purpose of GradStar award entries.

Hiring Actions

Appointments in academic versus hiring units

While there is no formal policy on who should enter actions for students, the usual practice is that graduate students are hired by their academic unit, which is considered their "home" department. This practice ensures consistency and support from the student's perspective and helps the academic department to be in a better position to manage their students' workloads and responsibilities. However, in cases where students are funded and hired by other units, please carefully consider the following:

For GradStar purposes, it does not matter which unit enters the ePAR to hire the student. The department who does the award entry will see the ePAR in GradStar as "view only" and the tuition awards will apply to the budget of the user's department who enters the award.

FTE and Job Titles

FTE should be listed based on hours required per week relative to a typical full-time 40-hour workweek. For example: If a student is expected to work 20 hours per week in the appointment, they should be listed as .5 FTE (even if the appointment is only for one semester). If the expectation is 10 hours a week, they should be listed as .25 FTE. Please adhere to limitations on student work hours discussed in this Student Employment FAQ and in The Graduate School's student handbook, accounting for all concurrent student appointments.

Students should only be hired as a "Graduate Teaching Assistant" or "Graduate Teaching Fellow" if they will be assigned to a course in Connect Carolina. Typically, a "Fellow" is only used for those that are the only Primary Instructor on the lecture component of a course. "Graduate Teaching Assistant" is used for those that are assigned to lead the recitation component of a course or other support relating to grading, tutoring, or teaching for a course. "Graduate Assistant" or "Graduate Research Assistant" are other common titles to use if no course assignment is appropriate. For more information regarding instructor workload options and how they relate to instruction, staff are encouraged to review the Instructor Role, Access, and Workload guidance on the Registrar's website.

Short Work Break Information

Multiple Jobs Summary and UNC Employee Information

Other

GradStar Considerations

To be eligible for tuition and fee awards, graduate students must be appointed as a Teaching or Research Assistant and earn the minimum stipend. The Graduate Assistant job code is not included as part of the minimum eligibility for these awards. The hiring unit and academic unit should coordinate to ensure tuition and fee awards are provided to eligible students. Instate and remission funding are provided by The Graduate School to the academic home of the student, however, if the hiring unit is not the academic department, the hiring unit should initiate conversation with the academic unit BEFORE an offer is made to ensure funding is available. See The Graduate School website for more information.

If you are transitioning a student from Graduate Assistant to Graduate Research Assistant or Graduate Teaching Assistant, you can either 1) submit a hire ePAR and transfer the employee into a position with a GradStar qualifying job code OR 2) update the current position's job code via the Position ePAR, then once executed submit a hire ePAR and transfer the employee into the same position.

For more information, please view the Tips and Tricks for GradStar Load Success microlearning. In addition, please visit the Student Employment website for more information for hiring supervisors, managers, and students.

Helpful Reminders and Tips

HR/Payroll dates and deadlines calendars

Suggested Dates for ePAR

9-Month Appointments

The dates below are recommended for standard 9-month appointments. You may use different dates, but it is strongly encouraged to use the stipend calculator to ensure the intended amount of pay and to ensure the student receives the minimum stipend amount for tuition purposes.

  Start Date Pay-Through Date Expected Job End Date
Fall Only 08/19/2024 12/31/2024 01/01/2025
Spring Only 01/01/2025 05/14/2025 05/15/2025
Academic Year 08/19/2025 05/14/2025 05/15/2025

12- Month Appointments

Units who choose to pay graduate students at an annual rate may also use varying dates to meet their business needs. A best practice is to align hire dates to coincide with the insurance policy year which is August 1 through July 31.

Summer Appointments

For any student teaching through the Summer School program, refer to the Summer Handbook for date information. Appointment dates for summer terms are provided for guidelines only.

Please note that graduate students teaching during summer session II should not have an expected job end date before 08/03/2025 to allow for grading access so you may need to adjust the end date in these cases.

  Start Date Pay-Through Date Expected Job End Date
Summer I 05/15/2025 06/24/2025 06/25/2025
Summer II 06/23/2025 08/17/2025 08/18/2025
Summer I & II 05/14/2025 08/17/2025 08/18/2025

Questions

For policy questions:

For process related or technical questions, submit a service request.

Hiring Graduate Students 2024-25 printable PDFpdf icon