In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:
Does anyone have advice for a graduate student writing a letter of recommendation for a professor going up for tenure/promotion to full professor?
Interesting question. What do readers think?
On two occaisions I wrote letters of this sort. In the one case, I was asked to write a letter for a former (assistant) professor who was going up for tenure and promotion. I merely outline what I learned from her, how she was in the classroom, and how she supported my (successful) application to graduate school. In the second case, I was asked to write a letter for someone who was being considered for an endowed chair. I was already in a tenure track job; and I only knew this person since completing my Ph.D.
But I had addressed her work in my thesis. In this case, I emphasized the ways in which she had helped my career, through mentoring, etc. She had given me extensive feedback on a paper criticizing her work (which was ultimately published in Synthese). She recommended me as a referee for a journal or two, as well as to be a commentator at an APA conference. I was delighted that in both cases the professors got what they wanted (and deserved).
As a non-American, this question seems so bizarre. Does the committee seriously think a graduate student doesn’t have a very strong incentive to write a partial letter? When will the cult of the letter end…
I wrote one for my former supervisor immediately after I graduated, but hopefully things will be sufficiently similar. I talked about how I believe my supervisor was very supportive and helpful for my research with very concrete examples, including how he encouraged me to pursue projects that all turned out to be fruitful. I honestly don’t know whether this made any difference for his success in applying for promotion though.
None of the universities whose tenure and promotion standards I am familiar with specifically include recommendation letters from grad students (or letters of recommendation from anyone, actually, unless you count external evaluators). But there are a lot of universities out there and they all do things a bit differently.
Generally, judgements about teaching quality are made based on student evaluations, classroom visits from other faculty, teaching materials, and things like that. So I’m guessing in this case the university is looking for something specific about graduate instruction and mentoring, rather than about teaching in general. The ways the professor contributes to student learning, success in the program, and professionalization–or something along those lines.
I’d suggest asking the department chair what the expectations are. I’d also tell OP not to sweat it too much: This will be such a small part of the overall promotion case that it can’t possibly make OR break the outcome.
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