Contacting LOR writers

[gradanth]

I have run into a little problem with my LORs. One of my professors who promised me a LOR earlier this year actually retired, and have been trying to send her emails throughout the year without success. Which I assume is because she is retired and probably does not check her email anymore. I am friends with her on Facebook and was wondering if it was appropriate to message her on FB? 

Also just my luck, a professor that I had been taking courses with since freshmen year moved to the School of Advanced Research last year, so it has also been incredibly difficult to get into contact with him.

I do have high level supervisors at my current work that is incredibly relevant to my research interests that are more than willing to write me a LOR, but I was wondering if this is alright?

This would mean my LOR would come from one anthropologist, and two public health workers? 

Should I actively bother my retired professor or?

[hats]

My advice would be to contact the departmental administrator at, respectively, your institution and at SAR. "Do you know how best to get in touch with so-and-so?" you ask each of them. Do try to send this message to one of the more appropriate administrators—i.e., not the coordinator for undergraduate affairs or similar. If they don't know, that's when I'd start looking at backups like Facebook or less relevant letter-writers.

Side note: what kind of retirement did the one who promised you an LOR take? I might not ask her again if I knew she had retired for serious reasons. Otherwise, it should be fair to seek a yes or no on whether she can still commit to doing it. It does sound like email isn't the way to go, though, so good luck finding a different medium.

[rising_star]

It all depends on the kind of relationship you had with your letter writer beforehand. When I was having trouble getting one person on my doctoral committee to answer emails, I did contact her with a Facebook message. We'd previously interacted on FB so it wasn't totally out of the blue and I framed it as urgent because I needed an answer to a question over the weekend (yes, the timing was unfortunate but that part was out of my control). So, if I knew the person well, I wouldn't fret too much and just send them a short FB message asking if they were still interested in and available to write recommendation letters on your behalf.

As for the prof at SAR, have you emailed them at their new email address? It's entirely possible their email at your university was discontinued or that they're no longer actively checking it.

[Bschaefer]

I echo the facebook message depending on the relationship. I’m friends with my advisors/professors on FB. I will send an email in a professional manner but will send a PM if the matter is somewhat urgent or I haven’t heard from them in a little bit. I don’t think it would be out of the blue. 

I have been in a very similar situation as you though but for research data. There is a professor in Germany that published a paper and I needed to ask about his data and he is now Emeritus. His Uni page doesn’t list an email anymore but I called telephoned him a few times and then I had to ask the admin how best to reach him. All in all, I got in contact but the moral of my long anecdotal story is that so long as it is within reason, don’t be afraid to contact them.