• Time Commitments on Assistantships: University Policy 1.3 outlines expectations for students and faculty regarding assistantships:
  • TA, RA, and GA: For these assistantships, duties should average no more than 15 hours/week over the entire appointment period and no week should require more than 20 hours. An RA is a research assistantship not directly related to the student’s thesis or dissertation.
  • GRA (graduate research assistant): These assistantships focus on thesis/dissertation-related research. Because the student devotes considerable time to degree-related research, the time spent on the GRA is expected to be significant.
  • Holidays: When Cornell is closed for official university holidays, students on assistantships are not expected to perform assistantship duties. When an assistantship requires a student to perform duties on university holidays, arrangements for other, equivalent time off should be agreed upon prior to the holiday by the student and the faculty/staff responsible for oversight. These arrangements should be documented in writing.
  • Vacation: Graduate students on assistantships/fellowships for the full year (August 21-August 20) are eligible for 10 weekdays of vacation each year (prorated if their funded appointments are for a shorter period of time).
  • Additional Time Away: A graduate student on an assistantship who needs time away from assistantship responsibilities should confer with the assistantship supervisor (and special committee chair if different) to create a way for the student to complete their responsibilities at a different time or in a different way.
  • Limits on Additional Paid Employment: TAs, RAs, and GAs may accept a combined total of up to five hours/week of additional paid employment if the combination with the assistantship does not exceed 20 hours/week. GRAs and those on fellowships or training grants may accept a combined total of up to eight hours/week of additional paid employment.
  • Unsatisfactory Performance and Grievances: University Policy 1.3 describes the process for addressing concerns about unsatisfactory assistantship performance or graduate student grievances.
• Consensual Relationships: University Policy 6.3 specifies that romantic or sexual relationships between faculty and graduate students and postdocs are prohibited whenever those relationships have the potential to interfere with an individual’s right to pursue academic, training, research, or professional interests.
• Maternity/Paternity support and Parental Accommodations: As detailed in University Policy 1.6, support and accommodations are available to eligible graduate students for childbirth, adoption, newborn care, foster care, and acute child health care. Lactation rooms are available across campus.
• Student Injuries and Workers’ Compensation: Our network of support helps students who are injured – regardless of the circumstances – with academic, health, and financial issues.
• Disability Policies: Graduate Students are eligible for a range of reasonable accommodations if they have a documented disability or medical condition that impacts their academic or assistantship duties.
• Academic Policies: The Code of Legislation of the Graduate Faculty outlines the rules and regulations of the graduate faculty pertaining to graduate study.  
• Grievance and Complaints: A formal grievance procedure provides third-party support (DGS, Graduate School) to help graduate students and faculty members resolve conflicts.
• Intellectual Property: Policy 1.5 Inventions and Related Property Rights provides licensing services and revenue to inventors, including graduate students.
• Financial Supplementation of External Fellowships: The Graduate School provides generous supplements to external fellowships to bring a financial award up to the standard academic-year stipend rate, if certain criteria are met. This serves to incentivize students to pursue external funding.
• Conference and Research Travel Grants provide funds to graduate students presenting at professional/scholarly conferences or who are conducting research away from campus.
• Health Insurance: The student health plan is platinum-level health coverage. Dental and vision coverage optional plans are available to graduate students.

• Graduate School Career and Professional Development offices
  • Future Faculty and Academic Careers provides workshops on research mentorship, teaching, and other preparation for the professoriate, as well as academic career advice for current graduate students and postdocs, and access to CIRTL Network
  • Careers Beyond Academia provides experiential opportunities for career exploration and internships, so that doctoral students and postdocs can prepare for a full range of career options.
• Office of Graduate Student Life is a source of support and advocacy for Cornell graduate and professional students.
• Office of Inclusion and Student Engagement supports initiatives advancing diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and belonging; fellowships in support of diversity; holistic admissions practices; faculty mentor development; Graduate & Professional Student Diversity Council
• Office of Access and Recruitment designs and supports strategic diversity recruitment and access efforts for graduate education and undergraduate research experiences; Consider Cornell and other virtual and in-person recruitment programs; Graduate Student Ambassadors
• Office of Postdoctoral Studies offers professional and leadership development opportunities for postdocs and career advice for postdocs, and career guidance for graduate students seeking academic and postdoctoral positions.
• Big Red Barn Graduate and Professional Student Center is a central location for socializing and building community. Programs are available for graduate students to meet other graduate students, work on writing with coffee (M-F from 8-11 am) or encourage your students to the popular TGIF (Tell Grads It’s Friday) to have a $1 beer.
• Center for Teaching Innovation provides workshops and courses to prepare graduate students as teaching assistants and teachers.
• Cornell Career Services provides career advice, resume preparation tips, and employer connections for all students, including graduate and international students.
• English Language Support Office (for international students) provides classes and tutoring on oral and written English
• Graduate and Professional Student Assembly is the elected representative body for graduate and professional students.
• Office of Global Learning, International Services supports visa and immigration needs of graduate students.

Other offices you may find helpful as you advise and mentor graduate students include:

• Student Disability Services
• Cornell Health
• Student Support and Advocacy Services
• Office of the University Ombuds
• Office of Institutional Equity and Title IX
• LGBT Resource Center
• Asian & Asian American Center
• Gender Equity Resource Center
• Undocumented & DACA Support

• Support letter from the Graduate School: Contact the dean’s executive assistant at klt8@cornell.edu
• Resources for faculty supporting graduate student diversity, inclusion, and mental health

• Associate Dean for Academics (responsible conduct of research training, grievance policy and procedures, academic integrity and misconduct, field handbooks): Josephine Martell – jem522@cornell.edu
• Associate Dean for Administration (admissions, student services, finances, assistantships and fellowships, parental accommodation policy, personal leave of absence): Jason Kahabka – jek15@cornell.edu
• Associate Dean for Inclusion and Student & Faculty Engagement (fellowships in support of diversity, holistic admissions, faculty mentor development, programming focused on student engagement, mentoring, diversity, inclusion, and belonging): Sara Xayarath Hernández – sh267@cornell.edu
• Associate Dean for Professional Development (skill development and career exploration for academic and non-academic careers, future faculty preparation, postdoctoral studies, and career advice for research degree students and postdocs): Colleen McLinn – cmm252@cornell.edu
• Associate Dean for Graduate Student Life (personal development, health and wellness, graduate student life and community building, health leaves of absence): Janna Lamey – Lamey@cornell.edu
• Senior Associate Dean (graduate student training grant support; life sciences graduate training and research): Robert Weiss – rsw26@cornell.edu
• Assistant Dean for Access and Recruitment: (intentionally inclusive recruitment initiatives and programming, graduate field recruitment customization and support, student pipeline cultivation, Minority Serving Institution (MSI) partnerships, Graduate Student Ambassadors): Anitra Douglas-McCarthy – amd78@cornell.edu
• Assistant Dean and Director of Assessment (data and statistics, student and alumni surveys, doctoral alumni career outcomes, student learning assessment, program planning and evaluation): Anne Laughlin – aml393@cornell.edu
• Director of Postdoctoral Studies: Christine Holmes – ch18@cornell.edu
• Dean: Kathryn Boor – dean_gradschool@cornell.edu