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APPENDIX 2 : LETTERS AND E-MAILS FROM STUDENTS
STUDENT LETTERS
The letter that follows was given to me by a student on graduation weekend. When I applied for a National Endowment for the Humanities &endash; Distinguished Teaching Professorship, I needed to include recommendations from students and the student who supplied this letter was one of the ones whom I approached. After she had submitted the letter, she offered to give me a copy. I thanked her, but told her the letter should remain confidential and declined to accept her offer. After her graduation, the student came to my home and said the following: "I know you declined to see the recommendation I wrote, but I wanted you to read it anyway." With that she handed me a sealed envelope containing the letter below.
STUDENT COMMENTS SENT BY E-MAIL
Student 1
Thank you so much for your help this semester. It was a very rewarding experience for me as I feel that I've explored a lot of technologies I didn't know much about and was guided into thinking about the theory behind the technologies and the uses of them. I hope that you found the independent study to be rewarding as well as I think some of our discussions helped both of us to look at the material in a different manner than we're used to.
Have a wonderful summer and I look forward to working with you when I return in the Fall! I am sure we will be in contact over the summer as I will most likely be working on a distance-learning course at some point and will be preparing a report on my findings with that experience.
Student 2
Also, Thankyou so much for everything this semester. Your teaching and your kindness pulled me through a particularly rough time. Expansion in this is pointless on my part, but I just wanted to let you know how much you influence others -- and that you do what you said you aspire to .... You are innately a 'teacher,' and you are able to reach many different kinds of people.
Student 3 who is an engineer and had difficulty handling large volumes of reading
Yes this is very helpful. I think that I am starting to get the idea, but I'm guessing the only way to become really efficient is to just keep practicing. or at least that's how it is in the sciences. I have never read like this before, it was different, but in a good way. I did catch myself reading paragraphs in a few instances. I guess I learned how to pick main points out of reading humanities, that's basically reading the first and last sentences in a paragraph and the intro's. But is there a specific way to pick the main points out of those main points?? Or is it just something that I will learn along the way. I still have a tendency to always ask myself what I have just read, or what did I learn. Is that right, or should I just read it then when discussing it, it will come back to me? Reading is definitely a lot more interesting this way.
Student 4
I am going to receive intermediate honors on Friday and I received a letter from Vice President Harmon encouraging recipients to invite a professor "who has contributed significantly to my university life during my first two years of study to march in the academic procession." You really helped me to choose the direction of study that I have now (a Spanish and Mathematics double major) and you encouraged me to take classes in Linguistics which I found really interesting. Your efforts encouraged me to branch out and take other things that I would not have thought to take.
I ask that if you can, please march in the academic procession with me on Friday at 2:00 p.m. If you cannot I will completely understand. I know that this is absolute last minute notice but I just really could not let this opportunity pass even though I have been extremely busy and overwhelmed with my course load this semester.
Thank you Ms. Kononenko.
Student 5
This is a long overdue thank you for the support you gave me in finishing my Ph.D. I cannot overemphasize how valuable it was to have you there ...