Sabbatical

Sabbatical isn't all laying on beaches soaking up the sunshine. Indeed, it can be one of the busiest parts of an academic's career! There is still some time for R+R, however, such as at the famous Whitehaven beach, pictured above, on the Gold Coast of Australia near Airlie Beach.

I should warn you at the start: my colleagues tell me: "John, you're doing sabbatical wrong!" But what is a sabbatical anyways? Why do many (though not all) university professors get to take one? And what purpose, if any, does it serve? As I come to the end of my first sabbatical it seemed like a good time to reflect on what I felt I did right, what I would change for my next sabbatical and to take a few minutes to answer some basic questions.

Beginning with those basics, what is a sabbatical? Many, including some professors, wrongly (in my view) feel that sabbatical is a year-long vacation, a perk of serving at an institute of higher education. In that sense it is simply a version of the biblical work week writ large in years instead of days. The root of the word "sabbatical" even comes from "sabbath" so one could be forgiven to think that the intent was to rest in the 7th year of a career.

 The Pacific waypoint: Honolulu Hawai'i

Instead, in my opinion, the goal of the sabbatical is to refresh one or more of the elements of a university career: teaching, research and service. After all, having chosen a so-called "life of the mind" it's going to be difficult to turn that mind off for a whole year! Plus, most of us who are dedicated to our careers don't want a year off from our research or from transmitting our knowledge, mentoring our students or supporting the communities with which we interact. Thus, when freed of formal teaching and service commitments, most professors use that time to pursue the interests that led them to the academy in the first place.

A canoe full of planets? Glass Sculpture at the Chilhuly glass museum in Seattle, WA on the way back.

In many cases, this allows us to take on advanced tasks that might not compatible with regular university work in a single location. For instance, one might take a research position at a foreign university, generating new collaborations and sparking new ideas. Or one might design and teach a novel class in a novel setting or learn new pedagogical skills (Quest University in particular is well-equipped for this kind of visiting teaching term). Heck, one could even imagine using a sabbatical to prep for a space mission or by working closely with industry (Steve Squyres had a famous sabbatical with Ball Aerospace) or even a service role.

So what did I do for my sabbatical? First, I decided that a bit of distance would do me some good and arranged for a visit to the Australian National University (ANU) at the Research Schools of Earth Science and Astronomy + Astrophysics ("Mt Stromlo"). Canberra is not quite antipodal to Toronto (That would be Curtin University in Perth!) but still a goodly distance away. This gave me the chance to see how things are done at other universities and to experience a different culture. Some of those cultural differences were nice to experience and I hope to import them back in some way (there's just something about "morning tea") and while there were pressure points they weren't worse than what we experience in North America so much as simply different.

 The red centre of Australia near Uluru during the day...

 ... and at night approaching the "Fields of Light" art installation with the Southern Cross hanging in the sky.

I arrived back in Toronto on a snowy day in early May, having skipped (most of) the winter. Back in town, I next took up a visiting position with the University of Toronto which let me have a desk away from my own institution and to work with frequent collaborators on my atmospheric work. 

Why not stay away the whole year? First of all, for those of us who do experimental research, it can be counter-productive to travel away from our physical laboratory during the sabbatical. Instead, it's a great time to be able to focus your efforts in the lab, leading to frequent "staybatticals" among my more hands-on colleagues. 

 

The drama of Milford Sound on a side-trip to New Zealand. I'm partial to Western Brook Pond in NL, but I'm confident this is one of the most spectacular Fijords in the world.

It's also partly a financial constraint that keeps us close to home for at least part of the time. Sabbatical can be expensive and it is more expensive the longer it goes on. This cost can be defrayed by renting out your apartment or home (you can do this yourself or through a tool such as sabbaticalhomes which can match you with others going on sabbatical) or by winning a competitive grant from your sabbatical host institution or from organizations invested in international scholarly exchange, such as the Fullbright Foundation. 

That brings me to what I'd do differently next time. After 6 years of the Assistant Professor rat race I felt burnt out and just wanted to get away. I did have the foresight to arrange a position at the ANU with a collaborator, but not enough to plan out exactly what I would do. The consequence was that for the experimental component, we barely were set up before I had to leave. We still have managed to do very good work (my GRL paper this past summer was in large part the result of that investigation) and the visit was otherwise illuminating and productive. But next time around I would better plot out the exact details of what I wanted to accomplish while away. I was also aware of some of the granting programs well in advance of their deadlines and had big plans of applying for the 2nd half of the sabbatical. But I didn't end up having the mental capacity to put in an application. Hopefully I'll have better balance in my life the next time sabbatical comes up.

 

The City of Canberra and the ANU, my sabbatical home away from home, as seen from the top of Black Mountain's Telstra Tower.

Part of that lack of capacity comes from the idea that Sabbatical ain't what it used to be. I can imagine that 20 or more years ago, leaving to go to another institution for a year was a clean break. But these days, with email and Zoom teleconferences able to connect you back to your home institution no matter where you are, there is added pressure to continue engaging with your own institution. 

Certainly, you can say "no" to most administrative requests and you'd have good reason for doing so. But some commitments don't stop even if you get away. I have 10 graduate students and postdoctocs who don't stop needing forms signed and guidance just because I'm away. The same was true of my CREATE grant that I serve as director and for whom only I can sign financial paperwork. So in these cases, your "no" would hurt those whose careers you invested and about which you care deeply as an academic. Maybe at some institutions these responsibilities can be delegated in your absence, but not at all of them (and would you even want them all to be devolved?). This is why when Sabbatical comes around the corner, many professors reduce the number of supervisions and internal commitments they have.

Still, there is value in getting far away. U of T was close enough to York that I kept being drawn back in to other service work. You may think you're stronger-minded then I and wouldn't succumb, and maybe you are right about that. But I suspect that unless you're a complete jerk (and no dear readers of this space are that!) there are situations and circumstances under which you could be convinced to make a contribution.

One last comment and then I'll stop belaboring this post: sabbatical also helps you to step back from your daily routine and to better organize the trajectory of your overall career. That to me was the greatest value - to try and get some perspective and decide where to go from here. One of the nice things about tenure is that, in a way, it is your institution's way of showing faith in your judgement about how to spend your time during your career. 

Up until now, my research enterprise was about how many papers I could put out and how many students I could supervise. But from here on out, you're trusted to place bigger bets and to be a gambler. While universities need people who can pump out incremental papers, they also need those thunderbolts of innovation and discovery that take time and effort over years and may not have clear metric-enhancing outputs in the interim. Sabbatical is part of that equation of trying to incubate those sorts of innovations. 

Luckily for me, I come out with a few options for gambles to pursue. But more on that in a later post!