When applying for academic jobs in the US, one is often asked for a recommendation letter from someone who can attest to your teaching abilities. Suppose someone has been involved in various workshops, programs, discussion groups, etc. about pedagogy through a Center for Teaching Excellence (or a comparable office) as a graduate student or postdoc; is it acceptable for a non-teaching staff member from this center, who has facilitated such activities, to write a teaching recommendation letter for academic jobs? In particular, how are such letters perceived by hiring committees?
Edited to clarify: I was envisioning that such a letter would be in addition to a teaching letter written by a faculty member in one's department.
Answer
I would view the letter favorably if the letter writer made it clear that they had observed the candidate's teaching.
I've seen some TA training programs where the TA's are observed in the classroom and get formal evaluations by someone involved in the training program. A letter of recommendation from such a person would be quite valuable from my point of view (and assuming that the letter was positive this would be helpful to the candidate.)
On the other hand, if the person that you're considering is just a faculty development specialist who runs workshops that you've attended and hasn't directly observed your teaching, then such a letter would be much less useful (read useless) to me.
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