LOR professor fired Forum

[oshberg28]

I graduated college in 2007. I have one professor in mind who knows me very well, we went on foreign class trips together, I performed excellent in his class, etc - he would be the perfect LOR writer. Here's the problem - he was recently fired as a tenured professor. I won't go into the specifics regarding why he was fired, but he's not being charged with a crime.

In my opinion, this won't matter to schools because they would have to research his name to find out that he was fired, and I really really doubt they research LOR writers (and even if they did find out, would they even care? I still kind of doubt it). Just want to get others' opinions though. Get him to write a LOR, or use some crappy academic LOR from a professor who would barely remember me?

Edit: Reason for his firing does not involve ethical concerns either.

[dnptan]

I would ask him to write an LoR either way, and then decide later on whether or not to use it. This is good because A) you have options and B) it would probably make him/her feel better.

B is more important for me. It sucks getting fired and knowing you mattered to someone despite this is a great feeling. Just my 2 cents though.

[worldtraveler]

One potential problem is that LORs are almost always written on university letterhead. If he has a new position and can do that, not a problem. But if he's just bumming now and can't use letterhead, has no title now, that might not be the best idea.

[Nonconsecutive]

One potential problem is that LORs are almost always written on university letterhead. If he has a new position and can do that, not a problem. But if he's just bumming now and can't use letterhead, has no title now, that might not be the best idea.

Yeah the letterhead would be only real concern here, outside of that, it would be fine.

[cron1834]

What comes up when you do a cursory Google search for this person's name/school? When I was a PhD student our dept forced out a couple of professors because of tenure review issues (ie, not for any sort of malfeasance). A full year or two later you would have thought they were still faculty members based on Google results/LinkedIn/etc.

I can't imagine that recommenders are really backgrounded any more thoroughly than a quick check to see if they're real people (our dept admissions team did that for some oddball LORs).

[oshberg28]

What comes up when you do a cursory Google search for this person's name/school? When I was a PhD student our dept forced out a couple of professors because of tenure review issues (ie, not for any sort of malfeasance). A full year or two later you would have thought they were still faculty members based on Google results/LinkedIn/etc.

I can't imagine that recommenders are really backgrounded any more thoroughly than a quick check to see if they're real people (our dept admissions team did that for some oddball LORs).

Ah, this is a good point. There was an article about his firing in a local newspaper (the school in question is not a university). But all other results appear as if he's still employed. Given that this just occurred, I'll wait a while to see if the results are different in a few months.

As for the letterhead, I hadn't thought of that but honestly don't view that as an issue. He was my teacher in 2004-2005. It's entirely plausible that he simply doesn't work for that college any longer, for any reason.

Given that I'll be nearly 8 years out of college when I apply next cycle, I will only have one academic letter of recommendation anyway. It will either be from this professor, and if he does write the LOR, it will be excellent...or it will be from someone who barely knows me, it will be generic, etc. I'll have 1-2 recommendations from my employer.