<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I know this is not exactly grad school talk, but I don't know where else to ask and figured some of you might have come up on the same situation before.</p>
<p>One of my former professors is up for academic promotion and must have listed me for a reference from whom to request an evaluation letter regarding his teaching ability.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any tips on how to write this? I'm not sure what the scope of the letter should be, where/how to even start, and how to omit any information betraying my identity. I have never done this before.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Are you sure that the professor listed you specifically? I know that when my advisor was up for tenure, every one of us that had taken a class with her was sent a similar request, to evaluate her teaching ability. You should ask whomever sent you the evaluation request if it is specific to you, or a general one sent to all former students.</p>
<p>I had to write a letter like this for my faculty mentor. I still to this day don’t know if I did it right. I wonder if he read it?</p>
<p>I just googled letters of recommendation and followed that format. I talked about my experience with him, what I learned/gained, and how I felt about working with him.</p>
<p>Hmm… I doubt I was the only former student that was contacted, now that I we have all graduated from undergrad though, I don’t see these former classmates anymore. Thanks for the advice though, hopefully it gets the message across.</p>
<p>EDIT >>> Man, I really don’t know how to write this.</p>
<p>Chibichan, what the tenure committee will want to see is this:</p>
<p>Did the professor challenge you academically?
Were class objectives clear?
Was grading clear and fair?
Were class readings well-chosen?
How has the stuff you learned with him served you since graduation?
How did he compare to other professors you had? (one of the worst, one of the best, etc.)</p>
<p>You should not have to attempt to maintain anonymity, since your professor will likely never see the letters. However, if tenure files are open (accessible to the professor) in this college’s system, you should not write if you are embarrassed for your professor to see what you would write. If that is the case, and you would be strongly criticizing the professor, you might wish to decline to write. </p>
<p>Please feel free to PM me if you have other questions about this.</p>
<p>Thank you very much for the thorough advice, Professor X.</p>
<p>I wrote a short and positive letter along those lines. I don’t particularly mind if my prof reads it, but it always makes me feel weird to have someone read my evaluation of them… but I guess it’s just a personal thing I’ll have to get used to.</p>