Hi David and all,
When I write such letters, I pay close attention to what our faculty
handbook says are the criteria for promotion and tenure, which are teaching
expertise and accomplishments, professional (scholarly work), and service to
the College and Community. It seems to me that the personal experiences of
person B may well illustrate the value of person A on one or more of those
dimensions, and would be good information to include. The approach I take
would preclude those experiences from being the center of the
recommendation, however; I think that if I saw a letter that was based
primarily on personal experience I wouldn't consider it a strong
recommendation for the person in question.
Joe Hatcher
Psychology
Ripon College
Ripon, WI 4971
USA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ----------
> From: David
> Sent: Friday, October 20, 2000 2:01 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: what belongs in a tenure-recommendation letter?
>
> Person A is up for tenure as an Associate Professor.
>
> Person B is a colleague of mine who's been asked to write a peer
> letter of recommendation for person A.
>
> Person B considers Person A a pretty good friend as well as a
> respected colleague. Person B's letter _could_ include some
> reminiscence about the intellectual pleasures of having kicked around
> ideas with Person A, ideas that turned out to be academically
> productive. Would this be considered too informal or personal for a
> tenure letter? If not, would it be considered too anecdotal to
> constitute the _focus_ of the letter?
>
> In other words, what ingredients should go into this kind of letter,
> and in what proportions? What should be the overall tone?
>
> --David Epstein
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
