My policy was to always give the student a copy of the letter that I was going to send. I have always felt that if you aren't willing to say something to a person's face then you shouldn't say it behind their back. In fact, I followed this same policy when I was a prison psychologist. I would always show the inmate the letter that I would be sending to the parole board. They often didn't like what was in the letter, but they respected my honesty.
-Don. ----- Original Message ----- From: Christopher Green <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, August 11, 2012 8:49 am Subject: Re: [tips] Ever Worry About Your Letters of Recommendation? To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <[email protected]> > On 2012-08-11, at 10:44 AM, Paul Brandon wrote: > > > I did once have a very mediocre student ask me for a letter of > recommendation.> I told him that it would be an accurate > description of his performance; he threatened to sue me if I > sent it. > > I did, and he didn't. > > I tell students flat out whether the letter I write will be one > that is likely to help their application or not. The issue is > not usually that their performance has been poor. It is usually > that I do not know the student well enough to write anything > that would not already be in the application (grades, CV > entries, etc.). This is a major issue for students at large > schools like York (55,000) because many students never get to > know ANY teacher well. > > Chris > --- > Christopher D. Green > Department of Psychology > York University > Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 > Canada > > [email protected] > http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ > ========================== > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13157.966b795bc7f3ccb35e3da08aebe98f18&n=T&l=tips&o=19660or > send a blank email to > leave-19660-13157.966b795bc7f3ccb35e3da08aebe98...@fsulist.frostburg.edu Don Allen Retired professor Langara College --- 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=19661 or send a blank email to leave-19661-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
