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A colleague of mine in a US institution included letters from some of his (undergraduate) research assistants in his tenure package / dossier. I was wondering

  • If such practice was common,
  • What should the letter contains,
  • When was the optimal time to ask for it (e.g., as soon as the collaboration terminates, as close to the submission of said packet as possible).

This site has numerous (good) questions about student asking professor, but I couldn't find any about professor asking student.

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    It is not common, and you should not do this unless your institution explicitly allows you to solicit such letters (even then I am not sure it’s advisable). In general, the tenure candidate does not solicit any letters themselves, the letters are solicited by the department.
    – Dan Romik
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 16:56
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    @DanRomik The institution accepts such solicitations for graduate-level classes, and seem to tolerate the prof. asking themselves. They want the applicant to include "Course evaluations of all classes and other teaching forums from the past 5 years. If only advising graduate student projects or residents, the candidate should include letters from 5 residents, graduate students, advisees, etc."
    – Clément
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 17:02
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    Okay. Doesn’t sound like best practices to me (the fact that tenure candidates need to go online and ask for advice on what such a letter contains is a hint of some of the reasons why the policy is misguided). Anyway, if this is part of the standard tenure process, then follow that process.
    – Dan Romik
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 17:06
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    I was recently told that these letters were looked upon very favorably at my SLAC and I agree that the process of asking for such letters seems odd and tricky to me.
    – Dawn
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 17:50
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    See also academia.stackexchange.com/questions/133506 (though it's about graduate students).
    – Andreas Blass
    Commented Apr 19, 2021 at 23:23

2 Answers 2

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If a university highly values teaching then such letters can be helpful and can be solicited ethically as long as there are certain considerations met.

A former student, with whom you no longer have any supervisory (or grading) relationship is fine. Such letters should be sent independently and their sender's identity and content not revealed to you. Both conditions should be met.

Alternatively, simply announcing that you are up for tenure and any student who wants to comment can send a letter to the committee is welcome to would be fine, as long as student anonymity is maintained.

A student who has graduated and with whom you will no longer have any possibility of a supervisory relationship is fine, even if not anonymous.

But everyone needs to be assured that there was (and can be) no pressure applied, nor any bribery possible.

And, yes, I think it is common enough in teaching colleges and some others. Probably more common is for a candidate to supply a list of names of students that the committee can contact independently.

However, if you contemplate doing this, I suggest that you discuss it with the department head and/or the dean before you act to assure that it is acceptable at your place as well as any additional restrictions. In particular, including letters that you have actually seen might not be allowed, or even proper.

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  • If such practice was common,

I don't know that it is common, but I would say that it is not rare for any kind of academic promotion in the US.

  • What should the letter contains,

The student gets to decide. It should comment on your teaching.

  • When was the optimal time to ask for it (e.g., as soon as the collaboration terminates, as close to the submission of said packet as possible).

In my experience, you do not. The dean's office requests it for you, at some time before the evaluation of the promotion portfolio.

Avoiding conflicts of interest is not relevant to you; the letter will be read with the assumption that the student selected is one who thinks highly of you and will probably ask you for a letter of recommendation. In other words, the conflict is inevitable. The dean's office should keep the letter confidential.

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    "The student gets to decide. It should comment on your teaching.": well, for some student, the concept of tenure is a bit strange, and they may feel comfortable having some form of template, as they are not familiar with the whole process. Hence my question, that I could have rephrased as "How to ask the student", I guess. But the answer seems to point out that it is not me who will be asking, so it's not my problem, I guess.
    – Clément
    Commented Apr 20, 2021 at 18:04

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