1. International Student & Scholar Services
Office of International Affairs (OIA)
International Student Life Team
East Hall 122
T 503-725-8569 F 503-725-5320 http://www.pdx.edu/international-students/ intllife@pdx.edu
Revised: 30-Sep-16
September 2016
To whom it may concern,
I would like to highly recommend Bashar Al-Daomi. Bashar is an amazing growing student leader,
researcher, teacher, and mentor. I have been working with him for about 16 months and I have
witnessed tremendous growth and confidence in his leadership and mentoring skills and willingness
and ability to share his story. Bashar is from Iraq and before he came to the U.S. he had never left
Bagdad. He came into the Intensive English Language Program and improved his English so that he
could begin his doctoral work in Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Bashar excels as a doctoral student in his department while at the same time balances his rigorous
academic life with his mentoring and volunteer work. In this way he is able to share his gifts of building
community and welcoming new students as well as his cultural and personal insights as an
international student from Iraq.
Through his work as a peer mentor, Bashar connects weekly with up to eight mentees from different
countries. He demonstrates initiative by connecting with these students and addresses their questions
and concerns as they try to adjust to this culture and educational system. Bashar is outgoing and very
supportive and will go out of his way to new students feel at home. He shows strong initiative and is
very passionate about the mentoring program. He often shares creative ideas of how to grow and
market the program.
Bashar also works to deepen his self-knowledge and push himself to explore new areas of learning.
For example, Bashar volunteered to join a Bystander Intervention Training to be a peer advocate for
students experiencing interpersonal violence. He met with me after the training with some new
insights and ideas of how this training could also be adapted to address the IPV issues and situations
that international students may encounter.
This year he took on additional responsibilities as a Mentor Leader and helped facilitate the training for
a small group of new mentors and plan the International Student Orientations for undergraduate and
graduate students this Fall. Through it all, Bashar is always very positive, dedicated, and willing to go
the extra mile to support new international students at PSU. As is evident through his impressive
resume, Bashar would be a wonderful addition to any diverse team and would bring initiative,
dedication, leadership and creativity to every project.
I would highly recommend Bashar Al-Daomi. Please contact me if you have any questions or would like
to speak with me further about his leadership capabilities.
Jill Townley
Associate Director, International Student Life
East Hall 122, townlej@pdx.edu, 503-725-8563