Teaching) assistant

This is not a permanent member of staff, but a young vis­iting foreign teacher in a modern language department, usual­ly appointed for one year to give conversation classes, etc. Thus a French department has a French assistant, a German department a German assistant, and so on.

The following words are also used with reference to uni­versity teachers, especially at Oxbridge:

Don

This does not denote a specific grade of teacher. In prac­tice it is used of any member of the academic staff. Journalists sometimes use it as a synonym for university teacher, since it is conveniently short, but otherwise its use is mainly confined to Oxbridge.

Fellow

A fellowis a resident member of the academic staff of an Oxford or Cambridge college (see unit 29) who is also a member of the governing body and therefore has certain rights and privileges. Most members of staff are also fellows, but they do not become fellows automatically; they have to be elected by the other fellows. A fellowshipis the position of fellow.

A member of a learned society is also called a fellow, for example, Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) (see unit 407).

Research fellowsoften do some teaching but their main activity is research (see unit 384).

Tutor

At Oxford, a tutoris a member of staff who supervises stu­dents' work individually. Peter Bromhead describes the tuto­rial system as follows: "Apart from lectures (at which attend-

ance is not compulsory) teaching is by means of the tutorial system. . . . This is a system of individual tuition organised by the colleges. Each fellow in a college (see above — /. Р.) is tutor in his own subject to the undergraduates (see unit 188 — J. Р.) who are studying it. Each student goes to his tutor's room for an hour every week ... to read out an essay which he and the tutor then discuss. A student does not neces­sarily go only to his own tutor in his own college for all his tutorials (this word being used as a noun to describe these weekly meetings). He may be assigned to another don (see above — J. Р.) in his own college or in another college when he is studying some particular topic which is outside the special interest of his own tutor. Nowadays, with the increased number of students, it is quite usual for two or more students to attend a tutorial together."

The same system exists at Cambridge, but the word super­visor is used instead of tutor.

At other universities and colleges tutor usually has one of the following meanings:

(1) someone like a tutor at Oxford, but in a modified form.
Professors, readers and lecturers hold tutorials in a partic­
ular branch of the subject taught in their department for
students of a particular year, who attend in groups of about
five or six. This cannot be called a tutorial system, because
tutorials are not the main form of teaching.

(2) one of the teaching staff to whom students can go for
advice and help with general problems related to their studies
(for example, choice of courses, difficulty in keeping up with
their fellow-students) and also practical problems, such as
family matters, finding accommodation, and so on. Each
person who acts as a tutor has several students, but they do not
meet as a group, and those students with no problems have
little or no contact with their tutor.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 986