This week begins my first and probably only sabbatical. I have been teaching at a community college for sixteen years. I have received a one-semester sabbatical to study multiple measures placement data/procedures/efficacy for writing placement. This semester coincides with my comprehensive exams for Old Dominion University, so I am splitting my attention between the research project and preparation for and then the writing of comps. This may sound a bit intense for a sabbatical, but…
- For the past three years, I have been doing similar research while also teaching. Most of the semesters, the course release I received was for one course, so this was done on a 4-4 load.
- This is the first and only time I have ever been a FT grad student. The concept is mind-blowing to me. I don’t even know what FT grad students do with their time because my PT self has always been juggling the student/professor/mom life. (I still have the mom life)
- When the sabbatical ends, I have to go to the mom/professor/dissertator state, so I have to make the most of the time I have been given.
- There is a great deal of overlap between the research project, comps, and the future dissertation.
My record-keeping will focus primarily on archiving academic pursuits, but mom life will intrude, as it always does and should in my life. I’m working on making sure #wifelife intrudes more, too.
This is Week One, a week that would ordinarily entail attending multiple meetings intermingled with syllabus prep once my course load was firmly in place. I am able to skip any and all meetings this week, but I will attend two. This week is also the week my three kids go back to school midweek.
Day One: I attended the dean’s meeting because there has been a change in leadership. I finished the draft of my IRB packet and sent it to my dissertation chair and a few people who will evaluate whether or not I have fulfilled the spirit of my sabbatical. I added to one of my reading lists for comps/dissertation.
Day Two: a break from academic life. I mommed it up, watching three extra kids for a fellow teacher friend who had meetings while her kids were not yet in school. Five kids in the house, couch blanket forts, and Jumanji! Monday and Tuesday were also full of back-to-school orientations for me and the kids and back-to-school haircuts for my husband and the boys.
Day Three: After all three kids left for their first or second days of school, I spent the day camped out in my bedroom, assembling one of my reading lists for comps and tried to ignore the dog as he whined to go outside to hunt the rabbit he spied under the deck. Then I mentally committed to my earlier plan to leave the house and go to a library or coffee house to escape the needy dog and the presence of household chores. So far, no guilt over the household chores I did not do.
Day Four: I went to St. Louis Bread Co to escape the dog to read a book and then returned home in time to join my husband for lunch– hooray for work/life balance! I attended an evening meeting to catch up with English colleagues and plead for teachers to recruit students for my sabbatical study. The pleading went well, so now I am crossing my fingers for the IRB timing to work out well.
Day Five: I worked from home on emails, comps questions, reading lists, reading some items from the reading list. After sitting all day, I now realize the dog was trying to do me a favor by requesting to go out throughout the day. New mental note: schedule in some physical activity. How do FT grad students maintain muscle tone?
**Future blogs will be much less about the dog, I hope. Next week: prepare the blackboard shell for use in the sabbatical study while continuing to read, research, and hone comps questions.
Nicole L. Hancock 