FROM TIME TO TIME, I (like most academics) get asked to review the scholarship of someone who is up for tenure or promotion at another University. You read the articles or books, write a letter saying whether you think they’re good enough or not, and send it off. Sometimes they pay you a token honorarium (say, $100), sometimes (most times) they don’t.

Today I got a letter thanking me for one of those reviews, and saying that my letter was very helpful. That’s nice, since usually once you send the comments off you never hear any more. But the letter didn’t say how it turned out. Why not?

You get something similar with letters of recommendation for students — people hardly ever respond once you send them. However, a few years ago I wrote a letter recommending a student who had been on the Frederick Douglass Moot Court Team that I coached. He got the job, but what was really nice was that about a year later I got a letter from the law firm that had hired him, saying that he had turned out so well that I should please let them know if I had any other students as good as him.

That was a terrific thing to do, and I think that more places should do something like that. Of course, I say this as someone who’s slowly losing the battle to keep up with his email. . . .