January 24th, 2016

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing in the strongest way possible in support of Sarah Snchez Armstrongs application.
She is among the top 1% of the most exceptional students I have had the pleasure of teaching at
both the University of California, San Diego and Fort Lewis College for the past decade. She is
incredibly driven, mature, highly intelligent, works extremely well with others and is a very
talented student and overall human being. I assure any teaching institution that Sarah would be
an amazing instructor, mentor and colleague.
I have known Sarah for the past two and half years and she has been my student in four
demanding literature courses in the Spanish program at Fort Lewis College. She recently
completed ML 345 (Survey of Latin American Literature), ML 346 (Caribbean Literature), ML
320 (Advanced Spanish Composition) and ML 337 (Andean Literature) with me and consistently
received the highest grade possible in each of the four courses. These were upper division
courses where students had to spend considerable time reading, writing and critically thinking in
Spanish. Its general objectives included developing language and analytical skills to the point
that students were be able to produce, in Spanish, detailed oral presentations and essays. The
courses demanded considerable skill in abstract thinking, the analysis of complex literary and
historical texts, and the ability to intelligently communicate those ideas orally as well as in
writing. Sarah impressed consistently in these courses, and was a leader in the classroom,
completing every assignment admirably. Indeed, having Sarah in each of these courses was a
relief since I could always count on her to bring the level of the course content up to more
demanding expectations.
She is without a doubt one of the most intelligent, mature and collegial students out of all of the
classes that I have taught at UC-San Diego and at Fort Lewis College for the past 10 years. She
consistently went above and beyond the requirements of the classes and performed admirably on
a daily basis throughout the semester. Sarah always excelled, demonstrating excellent time
management skills, sharing apt comments in class discussion, and writing truly superb essays.
When it came time for reading and grading all of the essays that my students would turn into me,
I would be especially excited to read Sarahs work since I knew she would produce something
relevant. She was always driven to succeed, setting her mind to the tasks at hand. For example,
whenever discussions would lag in our Andean Literature class, she would always share
intelligent comments with the group, guiding us to a more dynamic, critical conversation. In
addition, she has performed very well all throughout her time at Fort Lewis College, maintaining
a very high GPA (An impressive 3.96/4.0). She has fully engaged with her academic tracks Education and Spanish - and with the extra-curricular life at Fort Lewis.

I also had the opportunity to work with Sarah at Fort Lewis Colleges Language Lab, which I
direct. Sarah worked as a tutor and lab assistant for the lab, always showing the highest levels of
professionalism and empathy for her tutees and co-workers. It was calming to have such an
impressive and mature student as part of the departments language tutors
Please accept my very enthusiastic recommendation for Sarah. Do not hesitate to contact me if
any further information is required.
Cordially,
Diego Ubiera, PhD
Assistant Professor of Spanish
Fort Lewis College
diubiera@fortlewis.edu
970-247-7513 (Office)
786-797-3142 (Cell)