recommendation letter--sample 2

Nicole Gilding

Post Graduate Office

University of Sussex

Dear Ms. Gilding: 

I am writing in support of T.H.'s application for a second year scholarship toward his doctoral degree. 

I have known T.H. for almost six years now.  I first got to know him when he came from a neighboring university, riding the bus for about an hour every week, to audit my course on the History of Western Literary Criticism in fall of 1993.  He then formally registered for my course in Literary Theory in the next semester, and after he entered graduate school in 1994 came for my graduate course in the Study of the Literary Institution.  Compared with the students at my own university, T.H. demonstrated an outstanding quality of work (top 1% of the latter two formally registered courses).  Not only was he able to deal with the reading materials critically, he had the additional merit of being able to, because of his involvement in the progressive social movements in Taiwan at the time, bring in relevant political issues in the local context to further complicate or challenge the texts.  The two term papers he wrote dealt with the question of identity politics of homosexuals which reflected his growing familiarity with available theoretical resources as well as his awareness of their relevance for local identity politics. 

In the following years, I have worked with him mostly in non-academic contexts as Taiwan's new social movements develop.  We have had quite a few long conversations on sexual identities and I have helped him in clearing up goals for his academic career.  Since his stay with Sussex, we have kept up correspondence through E-mail and on his occasional visit home.  In 1996 when our Center first began our annual conference on Sex Education, Sexology, (Trans)Gender studies, and LesBiGay Studies, T.H. was one of the first graduate students we put on our agenda for panel discussions on the politics of homosexuality.  His presentation won him instant fame and we all have great hopes for him.  And not disappointingly, he submitted his first full-length paper for our Third conference this year and the reviewing committee very quickly accepted his proposal for his work shows great strength and insight into the historical construction of the homosexual subject in Taiwan.  Because of the quality of his work, we are able to offer him a travel grant to attend our conference to be held on April 24-26, this coming week in fact.  I have had the honor of reading this paper a few days ago, and I am very impressed with the careful work he has done.  I am sure this paper will arouse a great deal of discussion in the local context. 

I am hoping that his studies in your distinguished and challenging institution could further bring out the greatest potential in him.  And I truly hope you could give him the financial support that he so desperately needs to finish his research project.  Should you have further questions, please do not hesitate to check with me.  Thank you.

Sincerely,