Clarification of Guidelines on Supplemental Employment for Funded Graduate Students
History Department
May 5, 2020

If you pursue on-campus (UConn) employment during the 9-month academic year on top of your 1.0 GAship, such as part-time research or archival work at the Dodd Center, and if it entails more than 5 hours per week, you need to fill out the on-line approval form on the Grad school website. The policy and the link to the form are found here. The approval form includes your faculty advisor giving consent to the supplemental employment, given that it is considered a “GA overload.” Note that the approval form is required for each semester. It’s pretty easy and quick to fill out the form.

If you decide to pursue off-campus employment during the 9-month academic year (Fall or Spring semesters), think carefully about the pro’s (more income, broader professional experience) and the cons (shrinking time to spend on your research and dissertation writing), and do discuss your strategy with your advisor. The official Graduate School policy is as follows: “Because graduate assistants divide their full-time efforts between study and assistantship responsibilities, they may not hold concurrent employment outside the University without the written consent of their major advisor.” Thus, in the History department, graduate students pursuing or taking up outside employment (like teaching a course at another institution) are required to inform the DGS and the Graduate Program Assistant by email in advance and include the supporting reasons. Simultaneously, the student’s faculty advisor must email their approval. In general, for PhD students who are 1st to 5th year students, taking on a time-consuming obligation such as teaching your own course in either the Fall or Spring semesters (vs. summer) is not recommended.

The logic behind these policies concerns the additional burdens that are placed on a student’s time and ability to make good progress toward the degree. We do not wish to place undue barriers on graduate students, but we do want to be in conversation with students about the responsibilities they take on as they proceed as funded students in the program.

(Updated 3/12/25)