Student Employees and Academic Student Employees
As with Classified or Professional Staff positions, please consult with Executive Office HR on Developing Your Position before submitting any hiring requests.
In addition to the items outlined in the Position Development process, familiarize yourself with the requirements and restrictions regarding student employment, including the following.
Student must be enrolled at the UW and meet the following minimum credit requirements (not including correspondence credits) in order to be eligible for student employment:
- Undergraduate students – 6 credits
- Graduate and professional students – 5 credits
- Ph.D. candidates working on dissertations – 2 credits
- Granted “on leave” status
Academic Student Employees, which include Tutors, Readers/Graders, Staff Assistants, and Research Assistants, are in a separate employment program from hourly student assistant positions. All ASE positions are governed by the contract between the UW and the United Auto Workers (UAW) and thus follow a separate criteria for eligibility and compensation. If you plan to hire an Academic Student Employee (ASE), additional enrollment requirements may apply, depending on the nature of the position. Please consult with Executive Shared Services for further guidance if you intend to hire an ASE.
To review the set salary schedule for an ASE, please review The UW Graduate School TA/RA salary schedules.
Students are limited to 19.5 hours per week when classes are in session. Be aware if your student is working multiple positions at UW as the 19.5 hours limit is cumulative across all UW positions. Provided that there is an urgent business need for additional hours, students are eligible to work above the limit during finals weeks, school breaks, or when “on leave”, which is defined as:
- Undergraduates – For one quarter immediately following a quarter in which the student was enrolled for at least 6 academic credits, including summer quarter unless the student has graduated.
- Graduate and Professional Students – When the student has applied for and been granted such status by the Dean of the Graduate School.
In the event that a student (whether intentionally or not) works above the 19.5-hour limit in a given week, the UW is still obligated to pay them for all hours worked. However, it puts the University out of compliance with the hourly limit policy. Be sure you are actively communicating with your student employees regarding work schedules to avoid work-hour overages.
By state law, it is mandatory that anyone working a 5+ hour work shift is given the opportunity to take a minimum of a 30-minute (unpaid) break.
Student employees have a set range for hourly rates, which may be adjusted in accordance with minimum wage requirements and pay determination guidelines set by the UW Compensation Office. Academic Student Employee positions have separate pay scales determined by the UW/UAW contract. Consult with Executive Office HR for guidance on the correct compensation rate.
Once you have consulted with Executive Office HR, complete a New Student Hire Form with all associated documentation attached.
Student job profiles typically do not require an open recruitment. If you have identified a preferred candidate, be sure to note the candidate’s name when completing your New Student Hire Form.
Departments hiring graduate students are required to request that the prospective student employee complete the sexual misconduct declaration in the Sexual Misconduct Declaration Tool prior to receiving an offer of employment. This includes all academic student employees covered by the UAW collective bargaining agreement and any prospective graduate student employee hired into a graduate student job profile.
Before you make any offer of employment, notify EOSS if your finalist is a graduate student, this includes Academic Student Employees, as well as any Graduate Student, recruited into a Student Assistant (non-ASE) job code. EOSS will reach out to the finalist to initiate the Sexual Misconduct Declaration process with UWHR. Based on the completed statement, UWHR will reach out to the Graduate School and the hiring department should there be any result necessitating further review.
For full details, please consult Total Talent Management’s webpage on Sexual Misconduct Disclosure.
Direct Hires for student assistant positions do not require an open recruitment. You may extend a conditional offer to your preferred candidate based on the position details pre-approved in your form. Once accepted, you may move to the background check stage.
Open Recruitments may be done informally via email announcements or formally via Handshake.
NOTE: ASE positions have additional requirements in accordance with the UAW contract. Please consult with Executive Office HR for guidance on how to manage those recruitments.
As with staff positions, all student hires in the Executive Office should also undergo background checks prior to officially starting work. In order to initiate the process, the student should complete and sign the Criminal Conviction and Civil Finding History Self-Disclosure and Authorization Form (pdf). The completed form along with the following information should be forwarded to Executive Office HR:
- List of residence(s) outside of WA state, or United States, in the last 3 years (city, county, state, country)
- Citizenship status
Turnaround time for background checks can vary from a few days (for new hires that have only lived in Washington State) to several weeks (for individuals who have lived abroad in recent years).
Position start dates cannot come before the completion of the background check. As a result, it may be necessary to shift the proposed start in order to accommodate the background check timeline.
Once the background check is fully cleared, the hiring will be completed in UWHIRES and routed to Workday to initiate the onboarding process.