Stay in touch.

This is especially important if you won’t need the letter right away. Pop by office hours every couple of months. If we’re comfortable with it, friend us on social media. Send us that email when you see a meme that perfectly captures one of the lessons from the class.

Give us all the info we need.

Can we use the same letter for each program? Do we upload to interfolio, or do we have to send them separately?

Offer your resume, your letter, and whatever else we might need to write about you.

Make it easy.

Give us clear instructions about due dates.

If the place is old-fashioned and wants a paper letter, give us addressed envelopes with stamps.

Teachers procrastinate too. Do you really want your letter to be late because your professor hadn’t been to the post office for a while?

Check in.

I’m anal, and I’m a planner. When I agree to write a letter for a student, I put it on my calendar. In fact, I mark it on my calendar as something to be done a full week before it’s actually due.

Why?

Life.

I have migraines some days; I’m exhausted some days. Car accidents and happy accidents and all the rest often mean that not everything on a to-do list gets done.

Thus, I stay ahead on my homework, just like I did as an undergrad.

I am unique.

Some of your professors don’t keep a calendar, or they don’t update it. Or they count on their memory. Or they don’t plan ahead for potential problems. Or they procrastinate.

So check in with them, about a week before the letter is due.

Try: “Hi, as you know, the letter for Georgetown is due in a week. I’m just checking in to see if you need any additional information.”

Tell us what happens.

Please don’t disappear. Tell us what happened. Are you going to your dream school? Settling for the one closer to home? Trying again next year? We want to know.

If you will be trying again, ask us to update the letter. Sometimes we just have to change the date, but it will still help. A letter with an older date on it doesn’t mean as much to the admissions committee.

Say thanks.

An email is usually enough for this favor, but if someone went out of their way for you, a small token is nice.

Did someone write you a letter at the last minute because someone else flaked?

Maybe they need a nice bar of chocolate (unless they’re a caramel person, like me).

Did someone work with you tirelessly on your letter?

Maybe they need a Peets gift card.

Pay it forward.

You’ll be in a position to write letters for people some day. Evaluate them fairly and well.

Another way of paying it forward is to pass all of this advice along. We faculty don’t mean for any of it to be a secret. Sometimes we don’t think we have the time to tell you. Other times, we think we don’t need to tell you–because no one ever told us; we had to figure it out.

But we’ll all do better if things like this are transparent.

Go forth and find your mentors!

(Past entries discussed the basics, how to get mentors, mistakes to avoid, how our letters can address problems, and tips for asking.)

Ask after being an engaged student.

If you weren’t a good student, or if you were, but you didn’t get to know the instructor, you’re not going to get a good letter at the last minute. In other words, the first time you really have a conversation with us shouldn’t be the “may I have a letter of recommendation” conversation.

Think about balance in your letters.

If you work in a lab, don’t get both of your letters from your lab supervisors. Get one from someone who can talk about your work and another who can talk about you as a student, or some combination like that.

Ask carefully and politely.

Ask in person, if possible. If it’s not possible, apologize. I recommend a sentence with the words “comfortable” and “strong,” as in “Would you be comfortable writing me a strong letter?”

By saying “strong,” you’re asking for something beyond the form letter–and they’ll now know you know the difference.

If there is even a bit of hesitation, BACK OFF!

If they say they don’t have time, don’t argue or come up with time-management tips. If they say they don’t know you well enough, they aren’t asking to get to know you. If they say they can’t write you a strong letter, go ask someone else.

Definitely don’t show up at their house with your mom on a Saturday, demanding a letter, causing them to have to threaten to call the police since you won’t stop screaming about how they HAVE to write one.

(This happened to a colleague.)

Know when to ask.

We expect at least a month’s head-up for graduate school–those deadlines don’t sneak up on people. We’re more flexible with jobs and scholarships.

Get the words out.

I often have students in my office for a whole office hour, trying to build up the courage to ask me.

It’s so obvious.

But I pretend to be oblivious, as they ask about my cats and where I got that picture of Weird Al and how my Simpsons collection started.

When I say, “it’s been great, but I have to get to class,” they finally ask.

Why don’t I spare them asking? Because asking for help is important. I had to learn to do it–it was the hardest lesson. But every person you might ask for a letter had to ask for letters. It’s just part of the process.

Pro-tip: If you want to say something nice while you’re asking, ask first, then flatter.

When a student says, “Your class was my favorite. Can I have a letter?” I’m never sure whether the first sentence is true.

Take, for example, a card I got my from my son for mother’s day when he was about 7:

“You are lovely. Your hair is lovely. I’m sorry I set the carpet on fire.”

Those first two lines sort of get cancelled out because of the placement of the third.

It’s so much more convincing if you just flip the sentences: “May I have a letter of recommendation? I’m asking you because your class was my favorite.”

The next entry will be about what to do when we say yes.

Previous entries went over the basics, how to get mentors, things to avoid, and why our letters should address your problems.

FAQs

What if I don’t need the letter for a while?

Bring it up before you lose touch with them: “after taking a couple of years off to work, I’ll be applying to vet school. I might be back to ask you for a letter of recommendation then.”

What if the professor asks me to write the letter?

I know that some professors do this, but it’s insane. These letters are a genre. How are you supposed to know how the genre works? How are you supposed to know, from one school’s pov to another, what to say?

Some professors don’t use the letter they make you write. They say things like, “oh, I just wanted to know what you thought of yourself.”

Whether it’s laziness or mind games, I wouldn’t deal with those people.

What if the people who could write the best letter aren’t professors?

One of my students was recently told that all of his letters should come from tenure-track research professors.

But that wasn’t possible. Those professors only taught the big classes, and they didn’t allow undergraduates near enough to get to know them.

So one of his letters came from me, a lowly lecturer. We got him into one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

If you’re choosing between a form letter from a professor or a great letter from someone who’s not, don’t you want the great one?

So far, we’ve gone over the basics, how to get mentors, and the mistakes to avoid.

Today, let’s talk about the Letter of Rec superpower: addressing problems.

Few of us are perfect candidates–there was one class we bombed, one bad habit we haven’t conquered.

If a problem is so big that it will be visible to the job or the school you want, you have to address it.

How are you going to explain that terrible second year?

Or why you had to drop out and come back?

Or why you changed majors six times?

It’s actually best if we address it.

There was a term in college when I had pneumonia during the last weeks. If I’d had insurance, I would have been in the hospital. I don’t remember my mother having my brother say a final goodbye to me over the phone, but it apparently happened.

I do remember throwing up during one final and hallucinating in another.

I didn’t get straight “A”s that term, and I was worried about it.

John Degen was one of my letter writers–I’d taken three of his classes. He was the only teacher in the theatre department I had to study for–and I loved him for it.

He had me read the letter he wrote; he said he wanted me to proofread it.

That was bullshit–I realize now that he was finding an excuse to show me the letter so I would calm down.

In the letter, he talked about my illness. He mentioned how, despite my vomiting in the final, I did better than 92% of the class. I hadn’t know that.

I also didn’t know that my name had come up in a faculty meeting. The professors discussed who among them would go to my hometown for my funeral.

Because I was so clearly going to die.

“John,” I said. “Why did you all make me take my finals?”

“We thought you wanted to finish before you died.”

I was out of my mind with illness; they should have told me to go home.

Nevertheless, I knew I wasn’t going to have to mention my illness in my letters for grad school at all.

And that was a good thing. It would have sounded like an excuse if I mentioned it.

John made me sound heroic.

And that’s why you want mentors to write great letters for you. If we don’t know you, we can’t do this part of the letter.

Let me give two more examples, from letters I wrote.

I had a student who wanted to get a Masters in Public Health. She didn’t have the requisite GPA. But I knew her very well, and I went to bat for her. My only mention of what sank her GPA was in this paragraph (I’ve changed her name):

In our time together, I have gotten to know Jane very well. I know about the hardships she’s faced, including physical and mental abuse at home. I know how strong she’s been to overcome those hardships. Jane’s transcript will likely not be the strongest you’ll receive; however, I recommend Jane over anyone else I can think of for this program—she is dedicated to improving the health of those in at-risk populations. She understands the challenges they face in receiving care, in bridging the cultural and languages gaps between patients and doctors, and in making sustainable, long-term changes in lifestyle. Jane may have fumbled a bit in her undergraduate career, but I have every confidence that she will excel in this Master’s Program.

The program filed an appeal, asking for the university to waive the GPA requirement for her. And she has that Masters degree now.

Another student wanted to go med school. We had known each other for four years; he’d taken three classes from me. He was special. My favorite thing about him? When I would mark a mistake on his paper, he would not make the exact same mistake on the next paper. He would learn.

I was pleased when he asked me for a letter. I was less pleased when he came back a week later to tell me never mind, that he wasn’t going to med school, that he wasn’t good enough.

If I hadn’t really known him, I would have taken him at his word. I wouldn’t have known how wrong he was. And it would have been one more thing to cross off my long to-do list.

But he was wrong. So I yelled at him. And I ordered him to apply.

Later, he told me he was only in med school because I yelled at him.

If you don’t have mentors, who is going to give you a kick in the ass when you need it most?

I wrote him a great letter. In fact, I was worried the committee would see it as hyperbolic. And I was worried that he wouldn’t really explain in his own letter how amazing he was.

So I ended mine this way (name changed):

If this letter seems unduly glowing, it is because I hope to make up for John’s humility, which might prevent him from “selling” himself in his application. It is vital that this humility be respected, as it is another quality that makes both for an uncommonly good doctor and an uncommonly good person.

I give him my highest possible recommendation. 

He’s a doctor now. And sometimes he sends me facebook messages to check in with me and to ask if my doctors are treating me well.

I think he’s waiting for a moment when I’m letting a doctor not do his or her best, so he can give me a much needed kick in the ass to demand better.

To celebrate International Museum Day, take a look at some of the amazing museums you can virtually explore.

We assume you know about The British Museum, the Guggenheim, the Louvre, The Smithsonian, The Met, and other famous ones, but check out these lesser known ones:

The Jim Crow Museum

The Museum of Broken Relationships

The Picasso Museum

The Dali Theatre-Museum

The National Women’s History Museum

The Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities

The International Museum of Toilets

The Museum of Bad Art

The Icelandic Phallological Museum

Google has an extensive list of virtual tours.

Museums around the world have been competing about who has the creepiest objects on Twitter (#CreepiestObject). You can read about it here.

Some museums are letting penguins in, so you can see art AND PENGUINS!

You can also watch gerbils behaving badly in their personalized museum.

Happy International Museum Day!

No one wants the economy to fail. No one wants to stay under lockdown forever.

I really hate strawman fallacies, especially when it’s my point of view being painted as anti-American.

That’s why I try to empathize with those on the other side. Those who want to reopen everything are varied. Some think the disease is a hoax. Some equate following safety protocols with being a democrat–and they hate democrats. Some believe that this is a massive government power grab. Some go further, believing this is a demonic conspiracy to force a one-world government. Some believe the government can’t ever tell them what to do. Some think we need to establish herd immunity by getting infected (in this plan, the “weak” are sacrificed for the strong). Some are just focused on the economy–at micro and macro levels.

Those of us who want to follow the science on when to reopen aren’t ignoring the economy. We’re angry about how the stimulus money was used, with almost all of the benefits going to the rich. But reopening now won’t fix the economy; it will further hurt the middle and lower class. If your restaurant is open but not enough people are coming, you have no access to emergency help. Your immuno-compromised staff members have to come to work or starve; no unemployment help will be given.

The current administration’s plan is to suspend aid to us and to take away the ACA. There’s no future where we won’t have a recession, but there are ways to mitigate it.

Rich people and corporations pay lower tax rates than I do. How about evening that out? How about not allowing stimulus money to go to corporations and businesses that don’t pay American taxes? How about making sure everyone has access to healthcare? How about a work program? How about making sure whatever stimulus packages we pass actually go to the people who need it? We’re the richest and most powerful nation in the world. Our citizens should not be starving or dying because of our backward belief that the poor and unemployed just made bad choices but that Fortune 500 companies deserve our tax dollars.

We all want to reopen as soon as it’s safe. Fellow citizens, your actions make it harder to believe we’ll be safe. Stop marching with guns. Stop threatening to kill the rest of us. Stop attacking health care workers and store employees. Don’t spit on people or yell at people wearing masks.

If you would put your damn mask on to go shopping, maybe we would agree with you that people should be able to “make a choice” about what stores to go to.

Your choices affect all of us. Show us you could make the right ones.

The reason the current administration doesn’t wear masks is because they and their staff are tested every day. Demand testing.

Fox News says we should return to normal, but it’s ordering its staff to follow social distancing guidelines.

Don’t we all deserve to be just as safe as someone who works at Fox?

Support more testing, support tracking, support aid to workers and families, support PPE, support social distancing.

Maybe some of you do, but that’s not what I’m seeing at your rallies or in your posts.

I’m seeing a false choice–that either we stay inside forever or we all do whatever the fuck we want cause you have guns and some flags, many of which aren’t even American flags.

The middle ground is that we invest a lot in safety, and then we go outside. Can we do that?

I have family members who think the government is overreaching. The government overreaches a lot, but I’m not worried about these lockdown orders or about the hidden conspiracies.

I’m worried about the right-out-there-in-the-open conspiracies.

Like when Trump asks why blue states should get aid.

Or when he touts a dangerous drug because it’s personally profitable for him and his friends.

Or when he says people should stay at home, unless the governor is a democrat, and then he supports armed insurrection.

Or when he says we don’t need testing or tracking.

Or when he says we shouldn’t vote online.

Or when his son-in-law says the election might not happen in November.

Just like you, I really wish my greatest fear was the virus right now.

Now that we’ve discussed the basics and how to get mentors, let’s talk about the mistakes students make:

Thinking that getting a good grade is enough.

Just because you got a good grade in my class doesn’t mean I like you. Assholes can do well on tests and essays. I’m not going to recommend that asshole, dooming the next person to being stuck with them for a while.

Conversely, I’ve had some students who didn’t get the highest grades get great letters–because I saw how much they worked, because we got to know each other.

Remember, too, that I’m not supposed to tell anyone your grade in the letter, so if I all know about you is that you got an A, but I have no further information to give, your letter will be a form letter.

Asking someone who can’t recommend you.

My friend Vanessa had a student ask her for a letter of recommendation after she caught him plagiarizing. He thought that because she hadn’t been mean to him in class–because she was a professional–that his transgression had been completely forgiven and forgotten (besides being sent to SJA).

Vanessa’s thought: but why in hell would I recommend a cheater?

I had a student ask me for a letter after failing my class. The student and I were friendly enough–she was failing because she wasn’t actually ready to be writing at the upper division writing level yet.

I was surprised when she asked me for a letter–while I could write about how generally cheerful she was, I didn’t have anything nice to say about her academic potential.

(I declined.)

The silliest example, though, comes from a total fuck up in my class. He was failing–his papers were awful, when he got around to turning them in, he failed all the reading quizzes, didn’t do the homework, and on the day he came to my office for a letter, he hadn’t been prepared for his class presentation.

He was floored when I said I couldn’t recommend him for our Washington program.

“I can’t recommend you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, based on my experience, you’re a terrible student. So I can’t tell other people that you’re a good one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If every time I ate at a restaurant, I got food poisoning, I would not recommend the restaurant to others. I can’t tell people that they want to work with you, based on my experience with you. Don’t you have a class in which you’re doing better? A teacher you have a better relationship with?”

“No.”

“Why did you ask me?”

“My roommate said to ask my English teacher because they write good.”

I didn’t correct his misapprehension that I was his “English” teacher, but I did get really snotty.

“I could write poetry about how you don’t do your work in my class. It would be beautiful. Is that what you want?”

Asking impolitely.

Don’t assume we owe you one. You are asking us for a favor.

Don’t ask over email, unless there’s no other way. For example, during this shut-down, I’ve had some email requests come in, but the students have been smart enough to apologize for having to ask me this way. Even then, it’s not enough to send a one-sentence email. You need to explain why, when, where, etc.

Don’t ask at the last minute. We expect at least a month’s notice.

There are exceptions, of course. Maybe you just discovered a scholarship or your other recommender died (I had to step in in a case like that.)

But you should know when your grad school application is due. Not asking for the letters until the week they’re due illustrates that you are not good at planning or time management and that you don’t respect our time. You’re not the only person wanting a letter–and they all tend to be due around the same time. If I know I have several due in the same week, I can make plans to get them done, but I don’t have the time or the will to add yours to the big pile if you ask late.

Being an annoying person.

This is different from being an asshole. And there are many ways to be annoying. Were you the student who, after your teacher said to the whole class that he couldn’t talk after class because he had to get across campus for another class, came up to him after every single class and said, “I know you gotta go, but . . .?”

Are you the student who argued about every little grade?

Are you the student who couldn’t seem to do any assignment on her own or who never read the syllabus before asking a question?

Are you the student who was always on his phone?

Are you the student who won’t take “no” for an answer about a letter?

Last year, a student emailed me for a letter request a week before the letter was due. We had never spoken. I told her I couldn’t write the letter, because I didn’t know her.

“Well, could we spend a few hours together this week then?”

Ummm . . . FUCK NO!

Not signing the privacy waiver.

Schools and programs ask you to sign a privacy waiver, meaning you won’t read the letter we write. The schools and jobs and programs want us to be honest.

If you don’t sign the privacy waiver, it’s a red flag.

Are you saying you don’t trust your letter writers? Your mentors? Why? What do they know about you?

Are you paranoid?

Are your letter writers afraid of you? Are they tired of you bugging them and so they’re just writing something to make you go away?

This week, my Simpsons class and I are doing our unit on sex and sexuality, using my chapter in my and Du’s new book, The Simpsons’ Beloved Springfield.

One of the episodes I like to use is 2005’s “There’s Something About Marrying.”

The same-sex marriage debate comes to Springfield, dividing, briefly the Simpsons’ household, as Marge lobbies Reverend Lovejoy to be more accepting, and Homer protests legalization. (When Homer realizes he can profit from officiating gay weddings, he changes his position.)

Patty soon announces she’s marrying a professional female golfer. Marge has been in denial about her sister’s sexuality, which is moderately understandable, since Patty almost married Seymour Skinner once. Marge’s liberal positions don’t hold true when she’s asked to accept her sister.

Marge comes around, of course–she does love her sister.

But Patty doesn’t get married. Marge has discovered that the other bride-to-be is actually a groom. He is posing as a female not because it aligns with his gender, but to be a female golfer. He and Patty hadn’t yet had sex, and he wasn’t going to tell Patty until after the wedding.

When he asks Patty to accept him as a man, she declines: “Hell, no! I like girls!”

The last time I taught this episode, two years ago, some of the students’ responses surprised me.

Many of them conflated the golfer’s fraud with being transgender, even though the show clearly indicates that’s not the case. And some argued that Patty should have married him, that if she loved the person, she shouldn’t care what kind of body he was in.

While I could understand this came from a good place, a place of more fluid gender boundaries, I had to push back.

He lied to her, after all. And he planned to lie to her until after they were legally bound together. “What was going to happen,” I asked, “on their wedding night when she learned she’d been deceived in such a way?”

Lying aside, I also tried to explain that Patty might just not be sexually attracted to men. And that we shouldn’t judge her for not also liking men.

In twenty years of teaching this show, I’ve gone from pushing against students’ homophobia against John in “Homer’s Phobia” to insisting that Patty’s lesbianism doesn’t have to turn into full-on pansexuality.

Who would have thought, all those years ago, that a lesbian character would come off as too sexually conservative? And what will push my students’ children’s buttons in the years to come?

This week, my Simpsons class is tackling politics. Last night, the boy and I sat down to rewatch “Much Apu About Nothing.” While other political episodes rotate on and off the syllabus, “Much Apu” is always there, for the way it captures corruption, mob mentality, red herring issues, and more.

Since the episode starts with a bear, the boy said it was perfect for this week (there’s a lost baby bear in Davis, causing a stir).

But the more we kept watching, the more we realized this episode fits amazingly well with the current covid zeitgeist.

Right after being advised to stay in his home, Homer breaks quarantine.

The next thing you know, there’s an angry mob marching to their city hall in protest.

When confronted with a problem, the town turns immediately to xenophobia.

Rather than follow any logical advice, the townspeople rely on weird fixes for their problems, using specious reasoning.

At least they’re not injecting themselves with bleach.

Yesterday, I added my story to our online picket page.

The University of California said, when this crisis started, that our jobs were safe until 6/30.

That’s when our yearly contracts are up.

We’re worried they’ll use this crisis to get rid of people with experience and replace them with brand new teachers who cost less.

And so we’re standing together today (and every day) to explain what a 6/30 layoff would mean.

For those of you outside of academia, know that someone who is laid off in the Summer will NOT be able to get hired to teach somewhere else in Fall. Our job searches take months–almost a year for the good ones. A tenure-track job starting in Fall 2020 had its call go out in October of 2019. The positions are filled.

And yes, we’re still working out of contract.

One of the biggest frustrations for me is how the university’s understanding of my job is so different from reality.

The university says I’m not teaching online, that I’m doing remote instruction (meaning fully synchronous courses).

My students would be surprised by that, since we’re asynchronous.

(We’re supposed to get paid more if we’re teaching online, which is why this semantic argument matters.)

The university says we don’t write letters of recommendation.

Just this week, I’ve been asked for four more.

The university says we don’t mentor.

Just this week, I’ve gotten eight emails thanking me for checking in on students. They say their professors are “less personal” with learning.

Just this week, I’ve gotten three emails from students of years past, telling me they’re thinking of me, that they’re grateful for me, that they’re wishing me health in this uncertain time.

Just this week, I’ve gotten four emails letting me know about the final graduate school choice I helped my mentees make.

Just this week, I’ve gotten confirmation that I’ve helped a student whose dissertation committee I was on get a tenure-track job.

Just this week, I’ve been asked to be the opener for the stand-up club’s Zoom show they’ve organized.

I’m used to the university insisting that my research doesn’t count, since I’m teaching faculty.

But damn if I don’t want them to fucking recognize the great teaching we do.