Conditions of renewal of associate instructorships include the following:

• Good academic standing: a GPA of at least 3.2.
• Good teaching standard. This includes but is not limited to:
  • Meet pedagogical effectiveness, as explained throughout the Orientation Week, and as requested by the language supervisor
  • Respect the syllabus of the classes you are teaching
  • Communicate all necessary information and deliver course materials to the students
  • Prepare original and coherent lesson plans
  • Follow suggestions for teaching improvement given by the course supervisor
  • Grade homework and assessments in a timely fashion
  • Give effective and professional feedback to the students
  • Maintain good midterm and/or end of the semester evaluations
  • Maintain professional behavior in regards to students, peers, or supervisors
• Good progress toward the degree:
  • Incompletes should be taken only as a last resort and be quickly converted into grades before the beginning of the next term (in the case of incompletes taken in the spring semester, students are required to remove them within three weeks).
  • Students with one or more incompletes on their record at the beginning of a semester may lose their student academic appointee (SAA) status.
  • The associate instructor (AI) should be working to fulfill degree requirements at a reasonable rate.
• Good professional standards and ethical conduct. The French and Italian program will not renew the SAA status of students who do not maintain professional standards and/or ethical conduct.
• Associate instructors who do not meet pedagogical standards and the required GPA within the same semester will lose their SAA status.
• Funding may be suspended or revoked for students who receive a grade of Fail or Low Pass in their M.A. or Ph.D. exams.

• No more than two years of funding will be offered to M.A. students who will not continue on to the Ph.D.
• Students who earn an M.A. degree in the department and continue on to the Ph.D. may receive a maximum of 5 years (10 semesters) of funding.
• Students who have already received an equivalent M.A. degree at another institution and are pursuing the Ph.D. in the department may receive a maximum of 4 years (eight semesters) of funding.
• AIs who switch from the French Linguistics to the French/Francophone Studies program (or vice versa) may be eligible to receive an additional semester or two of funding at the discretion of the department.

All forms of support by the department and the university count toward the maximum 5 years (10 semesters) of support for a Ph.D. student who enters the program without a Masters degree, or a maximum of 4 years for those who enter with an M.A. degree. This includes internal and external fellowships, exchange years in France, and any student academic appointments.

Considering these five-year limits on departmental financial support for Ph.D. students, we urge students to complete all course work in three to four years and then directly begin work on the dissertation. Those entering with an M.A. degree should complete all course work within 2 years.

On occasion, graduate students take teaching positions elsewhere or leave Indiana University yet still have semesters of support remaining. The department must agree in advance whether the student can utilize any remaining funding if he/she returns to the Department of French and Italian. Once the student decides to stay away from Indiana University for a second year, the department no longer has any obligation to hold further funding. Exceptions may be made for a student who receives a prestigious external fellowship.

All associate instructors are required to enroll in two French/Italian graduate courses (depending on program of study) each semester in order to maintain their AIships. Exceptions can be made at advanced levels with permission of the graduate advisor. Students holding appointments as associate instructors, graduate assistants, or research assistants must be registered for 6 credit hours of graduate coursework during each semester of their appointment. We advise that the less expensive G901 thesis credits be saved for when the student has run out of departmental funding.