Supervising students in satellite locations: overlords need minions!

At the University of Wyoming we currently have about 80 student lab assistants. We had talked for years about developing a program where a handful of individuals would be "Team Leaders" for smaller groups. They would provide leadership, assist with training, and be "go to" people in the labs. We kept putting the idea off as we had so much on our plates, just like most of our colleagues at SIGUCCS. After the Baltimore conference, we decided it was time to "get 'er done." We started by examining the costs of additional students and outlining what we wanted them to be doing. After identifying funding for a pilot project, we put out a call for applications to our current employees. Many applied, and we hired five people to test out our ideas. After only five months, the program has had huge successes. We have more accountability for our Lab Assistants (LA's) and they have additional resources. The Team Leaders came up with several good ideas, and at their suggestion we implemented a "Question of the Week" program, helping bring all employees up to speed on critical issues. Comments about LA's have improved greatly on our annual survey, and we've been surprised at some of the benefits we've discovered. This session will discuss our fledgling program and some of the problems we encountered, requiring "on-the-fly" solutions. We'll also look at where we want to go in the future. Anyone who has problems supervising groups of students who are spread out across campus should attend.