SIERRA NEVADA Tanoe® | COLLEGE 1999 Tahoe Bi Incline Vilage, NV 89451 Tse3134 SertdNevedaeds 999 Tahoe Blvd. Incline Village, NV 89452, February 27, 2015 RE: Letter of Recommendation for Samantha Bankston Dear SNC Faculty: It is my sincere pleasure to recommend Samantha Bankston for the rank of Associate Professor. In the five years that | have had the pleasure to work with Samantha, she has shown herself to be a committed teacher, a prolific scholar and a mentor to students interested in gender and philosophy, a topic which is not covered extensively elsewhere in the curriculum. | am very impressed by her intellect, her ‘commitment to the importance of gender as an explanatory category and her enthusiasm for the intellectual intersections between philosophy and literature. Samantha has produced an impressive body of scholarly accomplishments since arriving at Sierra Nevada College. These accomplishments include original scholarship and translations in both book and article form. Particularly impressive are the two books on Deleuze that are pending publication with Bloomsbury and Palgrave Macmillan over the next two years. Samantha's accomplishments are diverse, including conference presentations, both international and domestic, prestigious guest lectures and research fellowships. Although Samantha is an expert on Deleuze, she has also done significant work on other interesting figures including Zizek, Simone de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath and others. Samantha is an intellectually curious and wide-ranging scholar who brings her own passions into the classroom where she inspires her students with cutting edge philosophy and thought. Perhaps of equal importance, however, are the dedication, commitment and interdisciplinary insights that Samantha brings not only to her work but also to any community of scholars. The Simone de Beauvoir Society Conference is just one example of an interdisciplinary environment where Samantha was able to demonstrate the power of her own integrative thinking and to engage other intellectuals in higher levels of discourse as a result, Samantha is very comfortable working across disciplines with other scholars from philosophy, women's studies, political science and the humanities. | know from experience that she deepens the academic conversations in which she takes part. Samantha is a creative, innovative thinker ‘who has the potential to bring new ideas to us al. Administratively, Samantha has demonstrated her commitment to fostering academic excellence and cultural activities on campus. For three years, Samantha has been the co-chair of the French Film Festival, which brought new French cinema to campus through the use of grant funds. This was a well-attended event that brought new community members to campus and introduced them to the college. Samantha is also the co-director of the Honors Program. As the co-director she has been responsible for completely revamping the curriculum, enrolling record numbers of students compared to prior years and introducing aSIERRA NEVADA Taxoe” | COLLEGE 999 Tahoe Bh Incline Vilage, NV 89451 TiS8a11318 SiereNeredaeds competitive opportunity for Honors students to present undergraduate research at a national conference. ‘Samantha has also written internal grants to secure additional funding for Honors student travel and has acted as the chaperone on these trips. loffer this letter of recommendation in the role of a colleague and an admirer of Samantha's accomplishments. | believe Samantha is deserving of advancement to the rank of Associate Professor and | think that she will continue to make a valuable academic, professional, administrative and social contribution to SNC for many years to come. As always, itis Purely the decision of the faculty to grant all advancements in rank. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you would like any further information about this recommendation. | can be reached at sbeets@sierranevada.edu or (775) 831-1314 ext. 7444. Sincerely, St Set Shannon Beets Interim President and Provost Sierra Nevada College