March 6, 2023

Daniel Nash
SDA Graduate Student Intern
Seattle University

Dear Daniel:

With your completion of the required internship hours, I am delighted to provide

this written evaluation of your internship experience within the University of
Washington Tacoma’s Division of Student Affairs. Your internship experience has
been an outstanding opportunity for both of us, and I am pleased with the outcome
of your work. The remainder of this letter will document the highlights of your
internship as they pertain to the SDA learning outcomes.

When we first met last year, you provided a thorough overview of the learning
outcomes of your program. Those early meetings resulted in us designing an
internship in which you would gain comprehensive strategic planning experience
through supporting me in my role of chairing the Division of Student Affairs
strategic planning steering committee, which was charged with developing the
inaugural five-year strategic plan for 2022-27. Over a six-month period, through
numerous individual meetings with me as well as active engagement with the
consultant and the steering committee, you provided thoughtful insights into the
topics of discussion and reflected on what you were learning from each interaction.
You supplemented your work through reading several articles and books related to
developing, implementing, and assessing strategic plans, which then led to fruitful
conversations during our weekly meetings.

In all of your experiences you exceeded my expectations and demonstrated your

potential to grasp abstract concepts and shape them into tangible, concrete actions.
You particularly excelled in functioning as my assistant and thought partner
throughout the entirety of the strategic planning process. Your organizational skills
and coordinating abilities truly allowed me to maximize my effectiveness in leading
the committee. More specifically, you aided me in setting committee meeting dates
and other meeting logistics; authored and disseminated all meeting agendas,
prepared PowerPoints and other visual aids for the committee; took detailed
meeting minutes; assisted with meeting facilitation; and coordinated follow-up
communications with the committee and consultant. Your internship work
Box 358407 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402-3100
253.692.4901 fax 253.692.4840 uwtse@uw.edu tacoma.uw.edu/life
culminated in the committee’s development of the 2022-27 strategic plan for the
Division of Student Affairs.

Completing a project of this scope and magnitude requires unwavering focus,

exceptional leadership skills, and the ability to work through ambiguity, all of
which you so adeptly demonstrated. As a senior leader in student affairs, I have
learned over the years how to identify and cultivate talent. I believe you are a rising
star with talents that will take you as far as you wish to go in our profession. While
you have amassed some tremendous experiences thus far, I encourage you to seek
opportunities that will broaden your scope of experiences, especially if you
eventually aspire to a role such as mine. I understand that you have engaged in
informational interviews with several colleagues in different functional areas of
student affairs, and I applaud your initiative in that regard. Student Affairs is a vast
profession with numerous functional areas, and informational interviewing is one
method of gathering data and making decisions about roles and areas of
responsibility you may wish to pursue in the future.

Whatever path unfolds for you, I am confident that you have a successful career
ahead of you. If an opportunity were to arise in alignment with your goals and
aspirations, I surely would hire you without reservation to be part of my leadership
team. I have truly enjoyed this internship experience with you and look forward to
future opportunities together.

Best regards,

Bernard E. Anderson, Ph.D.

Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Life

cc: Erin Swezey