Graduate Student Hire Guide

Contact: Hollesha Foster
Email: Hollesha.Foster@ucf.edu
Phone: (407) 823-0815

 Updated: May 1, 2015

Graduate Student Recruitment

Graduate Studies has many resources to guide and assist with recruitment, please refer to Graduate Studies Recruiting page.

Graduate Student Hire

Here you will find the procedures and process of hiring a prospective UCF employee.

1. Deadlines
2. Assistantships by Term Calendar
3. Various Assignment options
4. Creating an Assistantship Agreement
5. Late Submissions

Deadlines
The Graduate College’s deadlines for contracts are generally as follows; however, you should confirm these deadlines using the Graduate Financials Schedule:

If the Graduate College’s deadlines are missed, the contract is considered late. If a program submits their contracts to the College of Sciences by the announced deadline, we can ensure that it will be submitted to the Graduate College by their deadline.

Assistantships by Term Calendar
In order to be properly reported, assistantships start and end dates should fall within the following assistantship term calendar. For example, if you are appointing a student on a fall/spring assistantship, the start date could be the first day of term and the end date could be the last day of the term. If you are appointing a student on an annual assistantship, the start date should be August 15 or later. Start/end dates for your fall/spring or single term assistantships are based on the term calendar and you should use this term calendar to plan your assistantships. With this calendar, “break appointments” are just other, shorter appointments within the broader term dates.

Various Assignment Options:

Creating an Assistantship Agreement

Assistantship agreements are created in the Graduate Financials System in the GradInfo intranet. They begin with the entry of an assistantship offer or an assistantship award.

For more information, please refer to the Graduate website.

Late Submissions
A “late” contract is:

• A contract that has missed the Graduate College’s posted contract deadline (see Graduate Financials Schedule)
• A contract that is submitted to College of Sciences past the COS posted deadline, and is unable to be forwarded to the Graduate College by their posted contract deadline. If you submit your contract by the COS posted contract deadline, and our office is the cause of the contract being late, we will take responsibility for it.

NOTE: If the student already has an active contract for the semester, and the program wants to add a supplemental assignment or change the assignment, a late justification form is not needed for the second contract.

If a contract is late (see above) then the Graduate College’s (FIN ASST) Late Assistantship Justification form must be submitted with the contract.

• Overdue GRA performance assessments can delay assistantship appointments in subsequent semesters. We strongly urge you to submit the Assessment at the end of each term.
• It should include the reason why it is a late submission (see examples on form).
• Students will not be hired if their contract is turned in late or if the contract is late with a memo/reasoning that is not accepted.
• The COS Associate Dean for Graduate Studies must sign off on all justifications before they are included with the ePAF. Contact Dr. Teresa Dorman to arrange a method for the signing.
• Acceptance of justification is up to the Graduate College

Graduate Student Orientation/Training

If an individual is serving as a GTA (Associate 9183, Assistant 9184, or Grader 9187), you must complete UCF’s GTA training. There is different training for different GTA responsibilities.

*Required for nonnative speakers of English who do not have a degree from an institution where English is the language of instruction.

For more information on Training, please refer to the Graduate Studies Training page.

Graduate Student Permanent Status Change

1) Before Payment Posts
2) After Payment Posts

Before Payment Posts
Changes to standard hours (FTE), stipend amount, job code require a new ePAF and new Graduate Assistantship Agreement

• Changes to Dept/Proj# paying tuition or optional fees
  • Update saved GAA and re-submit
• Changes to hour of enrollment (increase or decrease)
  • Update saved GAA and resubmit

NOTE: TA waiver will only cover 9hrs FA/SP; 6hrs SU (or more if pre-approved by Graduate College)

After Payment Posts
After Payment Posts AND before the Graduate College’s “Final Deadline for Completing Assistantship Hiring”.

NOTE: For the current semester OR for the next semester’s employment (even after the final deadline for completing the current semester’s hiring, see Graduate Financials Schedule).

• Changes to Proj# paying stipend/tuition or optional fees
  • Edit existing ePAF to change funding account
  • Update funding department number in GAA (saved to your computer), save the file, and then select the “Submit This Form” button.
• Increase in hours of enrollment
  • Process Departmental Payment form to cover additional tuition
• Decrease in Hours
  • Follow-up with Graduate College Tuition Office for advisement

After Payment Posts AND after the “Final Deadline for Completing Assistantship Hiring” for the current semester

• Changes to Proj# paying stipend/tuition or optional fees
  • Edit existing ePAF to change funding account
  • Offline Journal Entry to move tuition (use Grant Tuition Calculator)
  • May also need to shift payroll charges
• Increase in hours of enrollment
  • Process Departmental Payment form to cover additional tuition
• Decrease in Hours
  • Follow-up with Graduate College Tuition Office for advisement

Graduate Student Temporary Status Change

N/A

Graduate Student Termination

To terminate a Graduate Contract before the contract end date, an Employee Status Change ePAF needs to be submitted.