Sabbatical or not?

The street where we live in DC, 5th St. NE.

Why are we in DC anyway?

One of the perks of being an academic is that every five years, (at Coe at least), tenured faculty can apply for a sabbatical leave, a paid semester with no teaching, committee, or advising responsibilities. The ideas is that faculty use this time to do their own research and writing--and of course get a break from the high-burn-out work of intensive teaching. To apply, faculty need to submit a plan of what they'll work on during the leave, and they need to submit a report afterwards. Happily, most sabbatical leaves get approved at Coe.

Bruce was up for a sabbatical this year, and for many years we'd discussed going away for one of his sabbatical leaves. Washington DC seemed like a good possibility. Bruce is the advisor for Coe's DC Term called Capitol Hill Internship Program (CHIP), a program shared with 8 other colleges, and the director of CHIP offered Bruce the opportunity to teach one class during the term, which made it financially a bit easier to live in DC.

I'm not on a sabbatical. I'm just on unpaid leave.

As lovely as sabbaticals sound, the opportunity to apply for one is only offered to tenure-track faculty who've been awarded tenure after a grueling 7-year process of becoming a top-notch classroom teacher while also doing research, publishing, and serving the campus on committees, etc.--and undergoing yearly reviews.

Like about two-thirds of college faculty in the U.S., though, I don't hold a tenure-track position. I'm not going to get into the explanation about that now, but suffice it to say, I wasn't eligible for a sabbatical. The best I could manage was a semester leave without pay.

On the other hand, I didn't have to submit a plan for sabbatical, and I don't have to turn in a sabbatical report when I return. No one has any expectations about what I should be doing this term!

The idea of spending a semester in DC visiting museums and eating bonbons has its appeal . . .

Bruce at the National Gallery

. . . but I actually feel happier when engaged in some kind of meaningful, ongoing work, especially work that's collaborative, or at least in the company of others. Especially here, where I'm far from friends and my community, I was hoping to find satisfying work and a ready-made set of acquaintances.

I did have a lead on an opportunity to work very part-time as a writing center consultant at American University here in DC, but the day I went up to meet with the director there, she had just been told that her request to hire me was turned down. We're still planning to collaborate on a project, but I won't have paid writing center work in an actual writing center, in the company of colleagues.

Of course, there's plenty of non-paid, solitary work I'm already doing: scholarly reading (keeping up with scholarship in the world of writing centers and composition pedagogy), research (my ongoing project doing research on the Dieman-Bennett Dance Studio and, more generally, dance education in the mid-twentieth century) and writing (this blog, freelancing, etc.).

I'm also sizing up some volunteering options. I enjoyed doing volunteer transcription for the Smithsonian--but I did that here in the apartment. Maybe I could go somewhere to volunteer, too . . .  should I volunteer at the Folger Shakespeare Library?

the local public library? (I already have a library card and have been there twice.)

The National Botanic Garden?

All of those are within a short walk of our place. . . no pay except the chance to work with others and the opportunity to be part of something larger than myself.