Columbia TA Guide

This guide covers requirements and best practices on a variety of topics including academic integrity, student mental health, challenges, discrimination, harassment, sexual misconduct, reporting obligations and other issues.

Responsive to Columbia’s Mission

It is essential that Teaching Assistants and other students who have academic supervisory roles have answers to questions that sometimes arise about how to handle the topics addressed in this guide, including best practices, available resources, and University expectations.

Issues That Impact Our Community

The guide provides tools for recognizing and responding to issues that can have a serious impact on our community, whether in the classroom, labs or more generally on campus.

Platform for New Information

For those who have had in-person training on some of these issues, this guide will provide a refresher as well as new information on other issues.

The course you are required to take on the Stridepoint course listing page is the “Columbia TA Guide: Essential Resources Rules and Guidance.”  For more information on this and other technical questions, see:

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the deadline?

Deadlines are assigned by the student's school.

Who is requiring that I participate?

The Office of the Provost and the Office of University Life worked together to create the guide, with your role as both a student and one who mentors or oversees the academic work of other students in mind. All students who are Teaching Assistants or who supervise other students’ academic work must complete the guide.

How long will it take to complete?

The guide should take approximately 30-40 minutes to complete. Each slide has a brief set time period before you can manually advance to the next slide. Each slide is narrated in order to accommodate everyone who is completing the guide.

Will I be quizzed on the material?

No, the guide does not include quizzes. Instead, the guide includes scenarios with questions; for some of these, there is more than one right answer as there would be in real-life interactions. You should aim to respond to all questions correctly but will not have to achieve a particular score.  Your answers are not tracked or recorded.

How will I know that I have completed the guide?

When you reach the final slide, you have completed the guide. You will receive an email confirming your completion. CUIT updates the completion list once a day, so it may take up to 24 hours to receive this confirmation.

Where can I find more information about Columbia’s resources?

The Office of University Life website compiles resource information related to students. The guide also includes a downloadable resource sheet.

Questions or Suggestions?

Please direct questions, or suggestions on how to improve the guide to [email protected].

For technology-related issues, contact [email protected] or call the CUIT Service Desk at (212) 854-1919.