April 29, 2011

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is David Strousberg, and I graduated from University of Colorado Denver with

an MA in Communication in the spring of 2009. During my first semester of graduate

school, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to shadow a Presentational

Speaking instructor, with the goal that one day I could teach a similar class of my own. I

was even more fortunate, however, that the instructor that allowed me to shadow her was

Kathleen Pounders.

Shadowing – as the instructor/student relationship was defined – does not even begin to

describe the amount of patience, insight, and commitment that Ms. Pounders exhibited

toward me. She taught me not only about the importance of classroom management and

how to properly organize lesson plans, but how to teach in a way that connects and

encourages students to want to succeed.

In additional to my own shadowing, I was able to observe just how much Ms. Pounders’

students admire and respected her as their instructor. Each of her theoretical lessons was

followed by a discussion of practical application of the topics – a model that I knew I

would want to follow with classes of my own.

Since that time, I have gone on to teach Presentational Speaking classes of my own at

both the University of Colorado Denver, the Metropolitan State College of Denver, and

have been offered teaching positions at the University of Colorado Boulder. I am

completely confident that these opportunities have come my way because of the

confidence that Ms. Pounders bestowed upon me. She was an incredible teacher for her

students, and I can genuinely say that she was, and still is, a wonderful teacher to me.

With kind regards,

Dave Strousberg