Print This PostEarlier this year, I took a sabbatical, which is a type of paid leave given by universities to academics who are in permanent positions. I had been awarded my sabbatical 12 months earlier, meaning I should have had plenty of time to prepare for what I had planned to do during this time. However, by the time it came around, I wasn’t sure how to make the most of my sabbatical. In this blog, I share how I got on.
The term ‘sabbatical’ typically refers to a period of paid or unpaid leave, where an academic is relieved of their teaching and administrative duties, allowing them to spend time on other things. Sabbaticals are considered a privilege, not a right, and historically academics would only be able to apply to their university for a sabbatical every seventh year. In some places this is still the case. The term originates from the Latin ‘sabbaticus’, which refers to the sabbath. In Christianity, the sabbath relates to Sunday, the seventh day, as a day of rest, and in traditional agriculture, it’s the seventh year when land is left fallow in order to recover. The etymology of ‘sabbatical’ therefore reveals its original intent of being a period of rest in one year of every seven. However, in the last century or so, the sabbatical awarded to academics has gradually transformed from what was traditionally a period of rest in line with its original intent, to one of dedicated time to focus on research activities. This change reflects how the role of the academic has shifted, with increased teaching and administrative responsibilities, leaving little time to advance research. Rather than what was traditionally a whole year on half pay, or 6 months on full pay, it is now more common to take a period of leave for one term or semester, every three to four years.
To illustrate how academic roles have changed with a greater focus on teaching and administration, during the first semester of the academic year, I’ll be teaching two whole modules (topics) with each requiring 12 three-hour lectures, and one requiring four three-hour lab sessions. In total, that’s 28 three-hour classes over a 12-week period. For some of you, that may seem a lot, and for others it may not seem too much. But bear in mind I’m on a teaching and research contract, and on a research promotion pathway. When I’m not delivering face to face teaching, I’m supervising undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation projects, regularly meeting with my ~40 tutees to provide a range of pastoral support, having endless departmental- and school-level meetings, and filling in heaps of paperwork as the course I lead goes through reapproval and reaccreditation. This isn’t exceptional. This is standard.
The consequence of over-burdening academics with these responsibilities is there remains no time during the semester to do any research. Yet I’m still expected to generate the data I need to publish papers, papers I need to get grants, grants I need to generate more data. Most of my days are broken into slots of one-to-three-hour blocks consisting of meetings, teaching, keeping on top of emails, marking, and dealing with urgent queries.
There are simply no blocks of time large enough to provide the space to think about research, never mind actually get in the lab and run an experiment.
The recent swath of redundancies that continue across most parts of UK Higher Education has only served to burden the academics left behind with even higher workloads. It’s important to make the case why a sabbatical is now viewed as a life support for a research career amongst academics who are essentially doing multiple roles they’re not trained for, at the expense of the one role they are.
On reflection, given the financial constraints many UK universities are currently experiencing and the associated ‘efficiencies’ that have resulted in recruitment freezes, removal of academic promotions for all but associate professors and above (yes, really!), diminished internal funding for conferences and pilot research, as well as the severances and redundancies, it really is remarkable that a sabbatical scheme was even available to me. A sabbatical isn’t without financial cost to the university, as I was able to ask for a pot of money to support the activities I was proposing, but also the university needed to recruit an associate lecturer to cover my teaching, as existing staff simply did not have the hours in their workload to cover (and nor should they have to).
So what was I expected to do on my sabbatical and how did I get on? My university describes their sabbatical scheme as providing an opportunity to take a break from regular duties to focus on enhancing research and to engage with collaborators. As previously mentioned, I applied for, and was awarded, my sabbatical 12 months before it way due to start. I had proposed the work I planned to do, which included finishing some project and manuscripts, and generating some pilot data which would feed into a future grant application. I was going to use the time to ramp up my research productivity.
A year felt like a long time to prepare, but I was busy with my academic responsibilities, and my research priorities pivoted after being awarded a research grant. There was a lot to do in the weeks building up to my sabbatical as I handed over my day-to-day tasks to colleagues. I was keen to set boundaries, and enforce them, so I had an ‘out of office’ email reply that provided staff and students with extensive information signposting them to who they would need to contact in my absence for their specific queries.
Being unprepared, I spent the first few weeks assessing all the projects I had on the go and determining what would be the best use of my time, and lead to the most fruitful outcome. I felt it wouldn’t matter too much if I deviated from what I’d proposed to do, if what I did was something better. I decided to learn how to do cell culture. With my research broadly focusing on neuropathology and animal behaviour, cell culture was something I’d never done despite having a currently funded project which involved it (my project co-lead was the expert on that part). In learning how to do this myself, the project advanced quicker. The experiments required me to be in the lab daily which I wouldn’t have been able to do with my normal schedule. When not in the lab, I did a lot of writing. Numerous manuscripts were finally finished and submitted, and I was able to write and submit four grants. Having the flexibility to focus on all the various aspects of research, made me feel like a PhD student, or postdoc, again, both positively in the sense that I could enjoy the freedom to focus on my research, but also negatively in feeling that what I was doing was never enough despite accomplishing a lot. A study by Gardner (2022) reported that the feeling of not being productive enough is common amongst academics taking sabbaticals. I didn’t take any annual leave during mine, worried that it would be lost research time. I was at risk of burnout by the end, compounded with the anxiety of all the work I had waiting when my sabbatical was over.
Despite overworking, I was regularly asked if I was enjoying my sabbatical, as if I was on holiday. Was I doing this whole sabbatical thing wrong?! It’s clear that it’s still perceived with its original intent, a time for rest. But with the precarious nature of an academic career, it’s now seen as a way of resuscitating research productivity. But it’s important to remember that we have a responsibility to model positive work ethic behaviours for our junior colleagues, and not use a sabbatical to slip back into a mindset of overwork.
Dr Kamar Ameen-Ali
Author
Dr Kamar Ameen-Ali is a Lecturer in Biomedical Science at Teesside University & Affiliate Researcher at Glasgow University. In addition to teaching, Kamar is exploring how neuroinflammation following traumatic brain injury contributes to the progression of neurodegenerative diseases that lead to dementia. Having first pursued a career as an NHS Psychologist, Kamar went back to University in Durham to look at rodent behavioural tasks to completed her PhD, and then worked as a regional Programme Manager for NC3Rs.
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