Writing Letter of Support for Tenure & Promotion?

[seeking advice]

I have been asked to write a T&P letter of support for a colleague who is an associate prof at a liberal arts college. Does anyone have a good resource for the structure of the letter or tips for framing the case (i.e. content and tone)? This is not expected to be a contentious process but I do want to make sure that I adequately fill in some of gaps that others submitting letters may not be able to (esp. in a specialized area of scholarship, and mentorship).

Thanks for any insights!

[be a bit personal]

To write solicited LORs for peers, I generally adopt the same approach I use when I write letters for my students. Identify three or four positive qualities about the individual, and provide some small anecdotes about each one based on personal experiences/interactions. "Show, don't tell." I'm basically telling the committee something like this:

"I know what this person's file will look like to you, but here's a few things that you wouldn't know just by reviewing the transcript (or cv or publications)."

So include praise, but back up those superlatives with illustrations. This serves to both personalize the recommendee and establish your credibility as somebody qualified to make the comments. (That's why it is so hard for me to write letters for students I don't know very well -- they always sound pretty bland and generic to me. The worst cases are the ones where I tell the student that my letter won't be very specific or strong, but it turns out that I'm the best option they have.)

When writing for peers, you want to tell the reviewing committee things that point to a colleague's contributions beyond their publications. Unless you have been specifically asked to review their scholarship, the presumption of objectivity is lost, and unless you have a very high standing a priori in a particular field, your evaluation won't carry much weight. You'll have to spend too much time establishing yourself as an authority, and that's going to sound self-serving, presumptuous, and it will be off-putting because you have to talk more about yourself than the person you're recommending.

Instead, you should focus on how Candidate X interacts with colleagues, peers, scholars, and students. Be specific about the context in which you have observed them providing mentorship, being generous with their time or feedback, going out of their way to help others, not settling for satisfying minimum expectations on a task. The "gaps" you're filling in are those aspects of a scholar's life that don't lend themselves to a line on a cv. The credibility you establish is based on your role as an observer in those situations. ("While we work putting together a conference session, I was struck by Candidate X's attention to detail and desire to include more voices.")

Bonus points: you can cleverly extoll their scholarship but bypass the "I'm an authority whose opinion is worthy" thing through redirection.

"You know that Candidate X is an excellent scholar of Y. The recent article Z blah blah blah. But what I find even more impressive was how Candidate X involved his/her students in a research activity blah blah blah."

Hope that helps.

[advice seeker]

This is fantastic information. Thank you so much for your generosity! I think that on my first pass of the letter it was starting to sound self-serving or too focused on my experiences (not intentionally, but it was happening). Your advice helps in thinking through how to place the person more centrally in the letter while still providing rich details and examples of my observations related to how this person is a great mentor and scholar. Thanks again!