Comparative Literature Department
Fellowships and Teaching Opportunities for Graduate Students
Graduate Office (812)855-9602
Departmental Fellowship Information
Fellowship decisions are made by late March; all successful applications for admission will be considered for fellowship, though the actual resources for support of first-year graduate students are very limited.
No incomplete applications can be considered for a fellowship. It is therefore important that students take the required examinations early enough in the year preceding their projected date of admission so that these scores will be reported to the Department before the February 15th deadline.
Graduate Teaching Opportunities
Teaching experience is recommended for the M.A. and required for the Ph.D. Such experience may be acquired by completing a teaching internship, participating in a course specifically designed for pedagogical purposes, or by appointment in the departmental Associate Instructor Program. This requirement is not to be construed as constituting a guarantee that every graduate student in the Department will receive such an appointment.
It is the policy of the Comparative Literature Department to provide teaching experience for as many qualified graduate students as possible. However, the Department is not in a position to guarantee teaching assignments or to offer an already-appointed Associate Instructor (A.I.) a guarantee of support for a specific number of years. Students who are hired as an A.I. may be eligible for Graduate Fee Scholarships or Remissions.
At the present time, the following courses regularly employ Associate Instructors from the Comparative Literature Department: CMLT C145, C146, C151, and C255, E103, and ENG W131. The specific qualifications and duties for each course are listed at the end of this section. Students interested in applying for an Associate Instructorship are urged to talk with the appropriate course supervisor well in advance of the application deadline in order to gain further information about the course. Preference will be given to students who have sat in on the course they are being considered for prior to application. Preference will also be given to students who have successfully completed C507, or who have taken instructor training in other departments.
To be considered for appointment as an Associate Instructor in Comparative Literature a student has to apply to the Comparative Literature Department Ballantine Hall Room 913A. The student should pick up an application form from the Comparative Literature Office, complete it, and return it by the announced deadline. Students who are not native speakers of English must pass the Indiana English Proficiency Exam (IEPE) and the Test of English Proficiency for International AI Candidates (TEPAIC) in order to be certified to teach on the Bloomington campus. International students must have a minimum TOEFL score of 550 (PBT) or 220 (CBT) to be eligible to take the TEPAIC. (For further information, including descriptions of the exam format and score codes, see Test of English Proficiency for International Associate Instructor Candidates (TEPAIC). Normally, students must be certified at the C1 (Outstanding) or C2 (Satisfactory) level to be eligible to teach C145-C146, since these courses involve instruction in English composition. Students who receive a C3 (Adequate) certification must be further evaluated by the Department before they can be considered for teaching C145-C146. The internal evaluation procedure, which will be conducted by the AI Affairs committee, will consist of a teaching demonstration, correcting and commenting on sample student essays, and an interview. Students must notify the Director of Graduate Studies by January 10 if they wish to schedule a departmental evaluation in time to be considered for teaching the following academic year. The AI Affairs committee will determine if there are sufficient grounds for a departmental evaluation (e.g., prior teaching of English composition at the college level in the United States, extended residency in an English-speaking country, etc.).
The Committee responsible for providing a ranking list of applicants for Associate Instructor positions to the Department Chair is the Associate Instructor Affairs Committee, whose function it is to advise the Chair on all matters pertaining to the A.I. policy.
The following factors are relevant in the ranking and selection process for A.I. positions:
- Graduate students majoring in Comparative Literature will receive preference over students in other departments.
- As a rule, a student can be appointed only after he or she has completed a minimum of one year's fulltime graduate study, preferably with at least 4 courses in Comparative Literature.
- The student's financial situation is not to be considered in the selection process.
- To be eligible for appointment a student must be in good academic standing and making satisfactory progress toward his/her degree. Students with "Incompletes" on their records will not normally be appointed. The student's total academic performance will be taken into consideration in the selection process. Students who are appointed despite having "Incompletes" on their record must have them removed before August 1 of the new academic year; otherwise their appointment may be cancelled.
- In reappointing Associate Instructors, a number of different factors will be taken into consideration. The student's academic progress, the evaluation and recommendation of the course supervisor, and teaching evaluations solicited from the A.I.'s students are the most important. As a rule, good teaching will be rewarded; careless and indifferent or clearly ineffective teachers will not be reappointed. Students in their sixth semester who have not completed the M.A. degree, are normally not considered to be making sufficient academic progress.
- The Committee will each year submit a ranked list of candidates to the Chair which balances experienced Associate Instructors with new ones. After the Associate Instructor has taught the equivalent of three years, her or his position in the ranking, all other things being equal, will begin to drop. This disadvantage of having taught for a number of years may be offset by other factors. For purposes of this reckoning, a normal year's teaching load is two or three sections; one section will count as a half-year.
Courses which regularly use Associate Instructors
C145: Major Characters in Literature & C146: Major Themes in Literature
Students who apply for a position in C145/146 must have a firm command of the fundamentals of English expository style and must be willing to devote a large amount of time and effort to the teaching of basic composition skills, which include grammar, spelling, punctuation, and mechanics. Students must understand that they will be expected to correct and grade student essays according to a standard handbook of English composition. In addition, teachers of C145/146 are expected to teach a pre-selected list of works of literature from a wide range of periods and national language groups. Although a teacher's special interests and skills can always make a contribution to the course, no teacher will be able to center in on special interests to the exclusion or near-exclusion of the other works taught. The teaching of both writing and literature in these courses is coordinated by the structured, organized, and detailed syllabus; thus, the candidate for a teaching position must be willing to work closely with the course Chairperson and with all the others who are teaching the course. In addition, all C145/146 instructors are expected to complete assignments on the books which are taught and to attend regular staff meetings, as well as other pedagogical sessions held during the course of the semester.
C255: Literature and the Other Arts
Candidates for teaching positions in C255 are expected to demonstrate familiarity with an art other than literature. Every teacher of C255 must audit the course before teaching it. There is no guarantee, however, that those who audit the course will be offered Associate Instructorships. All sections of C255 are taught according to a standard syllabus. Instructors are expected to attend weekly meetings conducted by the course supervisor. While the course only satisfies the COAS Intensive Writing requirement when taught by faculty, all sections have the same heavy writing assignment (five papers) and thus require much grading time.
W131: Elementary Composition
Offered by the English Department. Comparative Literature receives two or three AI'ships each year. Candidates for teaching positions in W131 must fulfill the requirements set by the English Department.
Required Courses for Associate Instructors
During the first semester of their appointment, new Associate Instructors in C145/C146 and C255 must enroll in C508: Teaching Literature and Composition (1 cr.), which covers the methodology, theory, and practice of teaching literature and English composition. The course includes an orientation session, weekly workshops, Teaching Resources Center lecture series, and selected readings in the field. It may be repeated once for credit. New Associate Instructors in W131 must enroll in ENG W501.
