Back to life, back to reality

…and yes, that is a reference to the 1989 hit by Soul II Soul.

Classes started today, mine start tomorrow, and so this sabbatical is not only “officially” but really, actually, evidently and unavoidably over. And my God what a time it’s been.

“Sabbatical” has the same etymological origin as “sabbath” and refers to something that comes every seventh something. It originated in academia as an inducement for professors to work at universities in the UK (I think) with the promise that they’d get every seventh year off, with pay, to pursue their research and writing. Apparently academic staff were once upon a time hard to come by and were an elite and very well-paid group (the founding professors at the University of Chicago all had servants in their homes) so this gave those early adopters of the sabbatical model a leg up on the competition.

Now, sabbaticals are a pretty commonplace perk, but not every university administers them them the same way. Some only allow them if the professor secures external funding to pay for his or her teaching release (to pay for replacement lecturers, in other words). Some provide them but at really harsh rates of pay that deter many profs from taking them; I have a friend at a US school where sabbaticals entail a 50% pay cut. At the last place I worked in the US, we were on a quarter system (or really a trimester system since nobody was required to teach in the summer quarter), and sabbaticals could be one, two, or three quarters, but the financial hit was increasingly painful: After six years, you could take a one-quarter sabbatical for 100% pay, two quarters for 75% pay, or three at 50%. A “quarter” was only 10 weeks, so you can imagine what a rip-off this was. A spring “sabbatical”+summer was about the same amount of time I currently get just for “summer,” and this reflects the fact that being a professor in Canada is a much better deal than in the US, for many disciplines. Sociology? Most definitely.

Anyway, at the U of C we have a very nice sabbatical system whereby every professor, including those who are not yet tenured, qualifies for a semester sabbatical after three years (every seventh semester, in other words) OR a year sabbatical after six years, your choice. Pay is 80% of salary, but if you opt for a one-semester leave after six YEARS of service you can take it for 100% of pay, and some do choose this. We don’t take a huge salary hit and we can take a sabbatical every fourth year, basically. I’ve taken two, now.

And how was it? Superb, just superb. My first sabbatical entailed a lot, a LOT, of writing seeing as I was going up for tenure the following year. I took it the second semester of my fourth year at the U and tenure decisions are made the end of one’s fifth year; one is then accorded tenure at the end of year six. It’s done this way to allow somebody denied tenure to appeal it and/or find a new job in year six. We also took a life-changing month trip to Argentina.

This sabbatical I did not get as much writing done (though I did also write a book prospectus and a SSHRC grant application), got involved with a consulting project, travelled a whole lot, but also engaged in a lot of private discovery and really do feel like a different person now from how I felt in April of last year when my classes ended. I’ve gone pro and gone public with the coffee thing. I’ve become a fairly dedicated blogger. I’ve decided to do research that actually matters to me. I’ve discovered facebook and both a new network of friends as well as having used it to reconnect with many, many old ones. I’m sure other momentous things happened (or evolved) that I’m not thinking about now, but in general I feel… changed.

It’s going to be weird to get back to the old grind, especially when I’m not at all sure that it will be the same old grind anymore.

Anyway, I have my bus pass, so here goes.