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Letter of Recommendation

Requesting a Letter of Recommendation

I take the writing of letters of recommendation very seriously.  It is a service that I provide to help the recipient receive recognition for their unique strengths.  As such, the writing of a good letter consumes a lot of time and requires that I have good information from which to work.  In order for me to write the best letter possible, please respond to the following questions.  Remember, the more time and information you can give me, the better a letter I can potentially give to you.

(1.) Background Information
- Please give your full name including any titles (Dr.)
- The purpose of the letter (tenure, post-tenure, job opportunity …).
- The exact name to whom I should address the letter including format (paper or electronic)
- If the recipient(s) are off campus, please include the address of the person to whom it is addressed.
- The exact date the letter must be submitted (please allow at least two weeks).   (new) If there is an earlier date that you would like (for example, the date of committee meeting), please indicate this separately and I will try to accomodate.

(2.) Work you have done to represent the Division and the College

• Teaching
  - If you would like me to comment on your teaching, please send me an Outlook calendar invite me to observe one of your classes (or labs) so I may provide a firsthand account.

• Leadership and Service
  - Fulfilling general expectations: office hours, Division meetings, faculty meetings, Commencement, Professional Development Day, Opening Week activities
  - (new) Advising (# of individual appointments, classroom advising sessions, pathway advising sessions, ...)
  - (new) Assessment: Which quarters did you submit the expected (of fulltime faculty) assessment reports in the online tool.
  - Campus community participation: Attending events (Science Seminar, History Seminar, MaST Talks, Unity Week, MLK, sporting events), award ceremonies, PAS community events, etc.
  - Committee work: This includes both elected and non-elected committees.
  - Leadership work (on campus, off campus, and/or through professional organizations)
  - Working with students: Outreach, advising, student support (MESA, Testing, TRiO, Pathway, Umoja, Puente, …)
  - Community service (both with and without a direct campus connection)

• Professional Development
  - Professional Development: Conferences and workshops attended, presentations given, publications …
  - Cool stuff: awards won, talks given, degrees earned, grants received, …

(3.) Area for growth.  (new) This section is optional for those going through tenure or post-tenure.
- In most letters I include a short section on areas for growth. Please let me know if there are areas in which you are working that you would like me to highlight.  (Note: Sometimes it can be challenging to write about growth areas.  Should you prefer, I'd be happy to buy you a cup of coffee and have a conversation.)

(4.) (new) Have I written previous letters for you?
- If I have written previous letters for you, then there were likely items that I wrote about as possible areas of growth.  Could you please address these so I can talk about how I've seen you grow/advance as a professional?  

(5.) Addition information
- If you feel comfortable sharing, I often find a personal biography helpful in writing a letter. Additionally, the biographies are very interesting to me - it is fun to get to know who you "really are."
- A professional biography or cv/resume (for off-campus audiences)
- Please describe your professional goals
- Other info you believe would help me write the best letter possible.

  last modified October 30, 2020