It is almost time. My sabbatical year is practically finished. Soon I will resume my “normal” academic life. There will be classes, independent studies, new graduate students, meetings, and a diverse collection of research projects to attend to—plus the responsibilities, minutiae, frustrations, distractions, and pleasures (there are a few of those) associated with my duties […]

At most colleges and universities, as at Brockport, tenured faculty are eligible for a sabbatical every seven years. It’s a wonderful privilege, with few analogs for most working Americans.  For me, a sabbatical offers the time to put aside my normal duties—which run mostly to administration, teaching, service, and supervision of other people’s research—and immerse […]

I began my sabbatical year at 8:00 a.m. on September 9th, as I drove out of Brockport and pushed west toward a three-week stint as a writer-in-residence at Great Basin National Park. Fifty hours and 2,200 miles later, I arrived at the park—worn down by my insistent motion, but happy to be in the West. My […]

According to Wikipedia, a “sabbatical (from Latin: sabbaticus, from Greek : sabbatikos, from Hebrew: shabbat ​[i.e., Sabbath ], literally a “ceasing”) is a rest from work, or a break, often lasting from two months to a year.” However, College at Brockport policy states that the objective of a sabbatical leave is not to provide faculty with a “rest from work,” […]