On Sat, 11 Aug 2012 00:35:27 -0400, Christopher Green wrote: > Fortunately, I rarely comment on my students' potential for >becoming mass murderers (or serial killers, for that matter) in >my letter of reference.
An excellent policy though I have to admit that I have had a couple of students who, if they had asked me to write a letter of recommendation, I might have had expressed concerns about possibility of their having rage outbursts and/or intimidating other students/faculty along with other criminal behavior. But a sin of omission (i.e., you had reason to believe that the person you are recommending might go "nonlinear" or have a hobby of hunting humans but did not express it), might come back to haunt when the media camps out on your doorstep asking "did you see signs...." or "how did you, a psychologist, not have the insight to see such darkness in a person" (I guess one can always answer "Yeah, I'm a psychologist but I'm not a "people person" -- I've know a number of faculty like that). But it is sins of commission that I was referring to below. Overconfidence in judgments about our descriptions and knowledge of others will lead us to make errors because of our use of heuristics and biases in assessing others (e.g., see: http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1987-21923-001 ) Professors or research/teaching supervisors see a student in only a limited number of situations and though they can write on what they see in these situations, the places getting the letters of recommendation may want more general assessments of emotional, social, and intellectual maturity as well as interpersonal skills. One may think that they will know how their charges will behave in situations outside of the one they have been observed in but this will often be an illusion. Few professors, I think, can accurately predict which of their students might commit plagiarism or research fraud or spousal abuse or criminal behavior of some form of such as mass murder or serial killing though they may feel quite confident in their assessments of such people (e.g., the prof who wrote that the Colorado shooter was "intellectually and emotionally mature" -- was he truly so but experienced something really terrible while in graduate school or was this an incorrect assessment that overemphasized certain positive characteristics and underemphasized negative characteristics, failing to properly inform the graduate admissions committee?). But why should we be concerned about such issues, right? These events (i.e., mass murders by graduate students) are rare events, so we can treat the probability of any our students potentially being a criminal or a mass murders as essentially zero, right? But, as in the case of black swans, expected to be annoyed if the media show up on your doorstep wanting to ask about why you wrote certain things in a letter of recommendation for a person who just killed a number of people. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] > On 2012-08-10, at 11:27 PM, Michael Palij <[email protected]> wrote: > >> A new twist in the Colorado shooter case is the release of information >> about his application to the graduate program in neuroscience at the >> University of Illinois (I believe at Urbana-Champaign). The Associated >> Press got a copy of his application file which includes letters of >> recommendation from professors. There are a couple of articles on >> this and here is one: >> http://www.pjstar.com/free/x2095092294/Movie-theater-shooting-suspect-impressed-U-of-I-neuroscience-program >> and here is another: >> http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/colo-suspect-impressed-ill-1496680.html >> NOTE: The Colorado judge's gag rule does not apply to other states. >> >> He was highly praised in his letters especially for his "intellectual and >> emotional maturity". Fortunately for the professors who wrote the letters, >> their names are redacted in the copies. Otherwise, I have a feeling >> some UC-Riverside faculty would have a gaggle of journalists knocking >> on their doors asking about the shooter and how they might have >> missed a future mass murderer. >> >> This reminds me of a similar situation involving Ted Bundy who had >> been a psychology major at the University of Washington. In one >> of the biographies I read about him back in the 1990s, I was amused >> by the contents of one of the letters of recommendation written by >> a U of W psychology professor in which Bundy was described in >> glowing terms and was highly recommended. I have wondered what >> those professors thought and felt when they found out what Bundy >> really was like. Some professors pride themselves in thinking that >> they know some of their students really well, which is why they >> write letters of recommendation for them. But professors often forget >> what a thin slice of a person's life they are exposed to as well as >> forgetting that not everything students tell them is truthful. >> >> I wonder, how many professor actually think about whether their >> letters of recommendation will come back to haunt them (or have >> the media ask questions about them) if the person being recommended >> turn out to a Bundy or someone like the Colorado shooter? --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=19650 or send a blank email to leave-19650-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
