A colleague in another department was recently talking about what they liked most about a sabbatical, other than the obvious things. In this case, a favorite sabbatical benefit was: not having to write letters of recommendation. I was surprised by that choice (and not just because there is no way that this is better than not attending faculty meetings), but the conversation moved on and I didn't get a chance to ask for clarification.
I hope what this colleague meant was that, as a result of being far far away for the year and not teaching, some of the students who need a letter of reference from a professor who taught one of their classes will ask someone else. I doubt that this person refuses to write letters for graduate students or undergrads with whom they have had close interaction (e.g., as research assistants or interns or as students in more than one class). Even while on sabbatical, we still have responsibility for our advisees and other students, past and present, and that includes writing letters when needed.
I can see, however, that it would be nice to have a break from the letters that are really hard to write because you don't know much more about the student than what grade they got in the class, and maybe where they sat -- the latter not typically being interesting or relevant information in a letter of reference, although I've seen desperate faculty get a lame paragraph out of the fact that a student always sat in the front row. Even so, a respite from this type of letter-writing isn't on my list of ancillary-but-great-things-about-sabbaticals.
So, other than not attending faculty meetings, what else is on my list?
There isn't much, actually. It is nice to have the time to recharge and so on and spend time in a different interesting place with different interesting people and get a lot of thinking and writing and new research done, but those are the usual things. In fact, I am not desperate to get away from students or interruptions or my office or other things like that (including writing letters, even though I write a lot of letters). [I should note here that I do not have a killer teaching load; in a typical year, I am able to devote time to teaching and research.]
OK, I just came up with something else for my ancillary-but-great-things list, which now has two items on it. So here is the list:
1. not attending faculty meetings (I may have mentioned that one);
2. exams and grading
I don't understand. You don't have to be on sabbatical to skip faculty meetings. Just skip. There might be consequences, but (for a tenured faculty member) are they really that severe? It seems like the most important consequence is you might miss a vote you care about, but that could happen while on sabbatical too.
ReplyDeleteI hate faculty meetings but I don't agree with the 'just don't go' comment. If you don't go, the cockroaches will take over. Also, if you care about your department, however excruciating faculty meetings are, you go.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that annoys me about faculty meetings in my department is that there is no mechanism for faculty who miss a meeting here and there during the academic year (such as at a conference or visiting another university) to easily find out what was discussed and have some input. The meeting minutes are distributed months later and seldom reflect the essential points of discussions. If I miss one meeting, I have no way to give my input into some important issues and then I have to live with the consequences of something I would have argued or voted against. I am working ways to fix this, by discussing it at a faculty meeting.
On my list: not having to be on committees. Committees can be important, they can be interesting, but it's nice to have a good excuse to say no for a year.
ReplyDeleteSo what are the obvious things? On the positive side I can think of: yummy food from other parts of the world, side travel to interesting places, immersion in new ideas, meeting new people, but I'm not sure if these are the obvious things or not? Having not been on sabbatical yet I haven't personally experienced these except in context of international meetings. But I sure would be motivated by the food...
ReplyDeleteI write almost as many letters of reference on sabbatical as off, so that's not the draw for me. Skipping faculty meetings is nice. Being off committees is better!
ReplyDeleteHaving just returned from sabbatical, I liked the same things I always liked, certainly including the food and other culturally interesting elements that NW mentioned.
ReplyDeleteBut for me the best is being away from all those meaningless time-sucks that seem to cause me to look at my watch on a lot of days and say, "It's 4 pm -- now, what, exactly, did I get done today?" On sabbatical, I actually do things I am interested in doing. I recognize my responsibilities while not on sabbatical, but it sure is great to be away from them for a while.
I'm about to go on my first sabbatical next year. I generally like teaching, but large undergrad classes take a lot of time and energy, especially office hours, anwering emails, and the most awful thing -- grading. So I look fwd to having a break from teaching, and from serving on committees. Due to family reasons, I will be mostly here (with perhaps short trips during the second half of the year), and I look fwd to immersing myself in research again and trying to learn some new techniques. Sometimes I feel a faculty's life is mostly about staying on top of things non-technical: ensuring enough money is coming in, grad students are making progress, undergrads are learning what they should, department is running... I am looking fwd to being a scientist again and actually learning something completely new myself.
ReplyDeleteSleep
ReplyDeletemany faculty at our institution refuse to write tenure or student recommendation letters when on sabbatical, I guess this is common in some disciplines because I just found out another institution across the border has the same practice
ReplyDeleteSome of my referents ask me to start writing my own letter of recommendation. They then improve (I hope) and personalize my version. This is not because they don't care or don't know anything about me. Only referents that know me more or less and are/seem supportive ask me this.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, I do not think this is a a burden, since "I am a very self-confident researcher that knows about her own strenghts and weaknesses!" (Yup, this is the kind of buzz-thing I have to write and substantiate about myself.)