Letter of support for promotion to full professor from an "unusual" student

That told, I am wondering whether I should be really writing this letter, and, in the positive case, what kind of shape I should give to my message.

@xLeitix, In principle I agree with you: I was thinking of the possible ethical implications of this specific case, and in general I would not like to contribute in something potentially harmful for the promotion. Not being myself in academia I have little experience in these kinds of referral processes and I just wanted to have a more informed opinion

In the message asking you for a letter, were there no guidelines about what they were looking for? If not, they will perhaps be provided to you after you accept or you can ask.

The message was quite short and open, it does not really provide a guidance in the kind of information requested. I will definitely ask more info, but my point is more on the issue of referring the teaching activities of someone to whom I have not been student. That's my main concern.

It's worth considering that declining to offer a reference may be seen as not supporting the professor/having nothing good to say about them, even if the real reason is just that you don't feel that you have standing. Better to offer a letter that speaks to what you know about this person (however limited) than to decline to be a reference, if you believe they deserve the promotion.

6 Answers 6

There's a good chance that this professor's department's or university's policy is to send requests for letters to every recent student of a faculty member who's up for a promotion. Look for an official document called something like "appointment and tenure policy" on the department's website; if you can't find anything relevant there, go up to the university level or the "school" level and look some more. To give you an idea of what they're like, here's the appointment and tenure policy document for my university.

Don't second-guess whether you were enough this person's student for your opinion to be helpful. The promotion committee thinks so; that's what matters. (Was this person an official member of your thesis committee? If so that's plenty good enough for most departments.)

Do be honest about the depth and breadth of your interaction with them. For instance, you could lead off with "I have known Dr. Lastname for 3 years. I was never enrolled in any of their classes nor did I have very much interaction with their research group at $UNIVERSITY, but we regularly met over that time to discuss the research leading to my dissertation on $TOPIC." And then go on to talk about how they helped you with your dissertation.