Dear Prof. Mitropoulos:

The Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering Department Personnel Committe has evaluated the materials that you have submitted in application for advancement to tenure status. I am sorry to inform you that the Committee does not concur. Instead, we are recommending that you be reappointed for a third probationary year.

The Committee considers your teaching effectiveness to be fair to good. Your teaching evaluations are not consistently at the same level. While your evaluations are both above and below the departmental average, there is one evaluation below 3.0 that concerns the Committee somewhat, though the Committee realizes that it was during your first semester at SDSU. The Committee wishes to make it clear that excellence in teaching is a requirement for advancement to tenure and for promotion. The Committee encourages you to improve your teaching, and to pay particular attention to your rapport with the students to minimize the occurrence of negative comments in student evaluations in the future.

The Committee considers your professional growth to be good. Your research in relation to the NSF CAREER Award is commendable. In addition, you have published two papers in a well recognized and reputable journal (ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management) and are in line to publish two other papers in the same journal. The Committee considers your research productivity good and commends you for it. However, the Committee considers scholarship to go hand-in-hand with a meaningful research program that generates extramurally funded research and graduate student activity, a requirement for advancement to tenure. The Committee recommends that you direct your efforts to these areas in the future.

The Committee considers your service to be good. The Committee notes that you are serving in a University Committee, and commends you for it. Other activities listed are also commendable.

In summary, the Committee finds your teaching effectiveness to be fair to good, your professional growth to be good, and your service to be good. The Committee urges you to seek improvement, and looks forward to your progress in all three areas of the evaluation.

You have the right to submit a response or rebuttal in writing to this letter of recommendation. If you choose to submit a written response, it must be delivered to the departmental office by October XX, 2011 using the response/rebuttal form available from the Faculty Affairs website (http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~facaff/newrtp.html)

Sincerely yours,

Victor M. Ponce

Chair, Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering Department Personnel Committee

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