Downtown Campus Denver, Colorado

Anschutz Medical Campus Aurora, Colorado

Stephen J. Hartnett, Ph.D. Chair Department of Communication University of Colorado Denver Denver, CO 80217 Dear Stephen: I am pleased to submit this letter of recommendation for Kathy Pounders to be promoted to Senior Instructor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Denver. I met Kathy when I joined the department several years ago, and I have always been impressed with her commitment to teaching, students, and her own professional development. Based on my experiences with her, I believe that she is extremely deserving of the promotion, and I would be pleased to see the Department recognize her stellar contributions. Kathy has an exemplary work ethic. She consistently strives to improve her teaching, the curriculum, and the department. Kathy has consistently gone beyond what is expected. Just “meeting requirements” is not in her vocabulary. Examples of this work ethic can be seen in how she developed syllabi and new courses, and how she works with graduate teaching assistants. When I first arrived in the department, Kathy’s syllabi stood out from the rest because they contained specific statements about her pedagogical philosophy, her expectations, explanations of assignments, a semester schedule, and grading policies. When I complimented her on this, she revealed that she had researched the development of syllabi because she wanted to give students all relevant information on the first day of class. She felt responsible for providing comprehensive information as a type of contract with students. During a department orientation, we used Kathy’s syllabi as the standard for all faculty. We also used her syllabus for the Business and Professional Speaking Course as the official Department syllabus for that course. Kathy is a creative Instructor who is always thinking of ways to generate new courses or improve existing ones. When I was Chair of the department, she offered innovative ideas for improving our Group Dynamics course. When she became responsible for the course, Kathy moved the curriculum into a new realm. She incorporated service learning as the focus of the major group project of the semester. Her students moved out into the community and worked on various projects all semester, while observing and reporting on the internal workings of their small groups. Kathy also developed self assessments for students and spent hours well beyond expectations evaluating those assignments and giving students feedback. Students in that class left with information on group communication theory and experience in extended group work, as well as a rich community experience, and information based on the additional self assessments. This is just one example of how Kathy has gone beyond what was expected of an instructor to provide students with a rich, impactful experience.

1200 Larimer Street, Suite 5014 Campus Box 144 P.O. Box # 173364 Denver, CO 80217-3364 Office: 303-556-6713 Office Fax: 303-556-4861

Kathy also approached me about improving our only existing online course, Fundamentals of Communication. We had stopped offering the course as it was not getting favorable reviews from students. Kathy asked to revamp the course. She spent many hours outside of her regular schedule to attend online seminars and courses, and to redevelop the pedagogy and course design. Her version of the course was a great success. She continued to learn and grow as an online Instructor, obtaining certification in pedagogy and design. Kathy encouraged other Instructors to develop quality online courses, citing research that online instruction is in more demand as the demographics of the student population changes. Kathy’s reputation grew within the UCD online community. She is now a member of the UCD Online Faculty Advisory Committee, at the request of Vice Chancellor Bob Tolsma. She was asked to write an article for the UCD Online Handbook about the standards that she created for online courses in the Department of Communication. She also was invited to present at the May 2011 Online Spring Symposium. Kathy proposed to Assistant Vice Chancellor John Lanning that she teach a hybrid First Year Seminar course, and this Fall, she will be UCD’s first Instructor to teach a First Year Seminar course online. From Kathy’s original vision of improving a single online course, the Department of Communication now offers 8 courses online and Kathy is the Department Online Pedagogy Coordinator responsible for helping the other Instructors to implement exemplary instruction online. Kathy has consistently devoted service to the betterment of the Department of Communication. One example of this service is her work with the Graduate Teaching Assistants. We asked a few Instructors to let graduate students sit in on their Presentational Speaking classes to gain knowledge to help them teach that course. Kathy became a wonderful mentor to those prospective teachers. She met with them before and after the class to discuss and explain teaching philosophy, grading criteria, and the art of providing feedback. She encouraged them to develop and teach lessons to the class, providing constructive feedback on their efforts. She encouraged them to grade speeches, and discussed with them their reasoning for the feedback and grades they assigned. She spent many hours of her own time helping to prepare the Graduate Teaching Assistants for success. It is in no small testament to her efforts and caring that the Graduate Teaching Assistants she mentored received the highest student evaluations of all the teaching assistants the first semester they taught the course solo. I could provide more examples in support of Kathy’s promotion, but I trust that these will suffice. I give her my highest recommendation, with no reservations whatsoever. Please contact me if you’d like additional information. Sincerely, Brenda J. Allen Brenda J. Allen, Ph.D. Professor and Associate Dean