Sabbatical numbers rise post-pandemic

Twelve faculty members are on sabbatical in the current academic year, nine more than in 2022-2023. As Augustana looks ahead to the next two school years, sabbatical numbers are set to hover around 10. 

According to Interim Provost Joel Johnson, the current increase in sabbatical leaves partially reflects a “backlog” of people who were initially eligible for a sabbatical during the height of the pandemic. Johnson said the number of full-year sabbaticals over the past 10 years has ranged from four to 10 per year. 

“In the pandemic, we had very low numbers of people on sabbatical, in part because how do you go do research in an archive, go to a different country to do the necessary research or go to a lab in some other location if everything’s kind of shut down?” Johnson said. 

Section four of the faculty handbook notes the annual target of tenured faculty on sabbatical as 10%. According to Natalie Hecht, a benefits and compensation specialist in the Office of Human Resources, Augustana has 68 tenured faculty this academic year — meaning 17.6% of tenured faculty are currently on sabbatical leave.

Johnson said the number of faculty hired each year impacts the target as well. If fewer people are hired in a given year, sabbatical numbers could be lower when those people become eligible to take one. 

“There’s the understanding that it’s going to be low in some years and a little higher in others but with the multiple competing priorities of maintaining fiscal responsibility, making sure that the projects are really high quality and advancing the scholarship objectives of the faculty, maintaining the student experience,” Johnson said. 

Traditionally, Johnson said, there has been some leeway in exceeding the 10% target, but doing so is ultimately dependent upon board approval. 

“Having the numbers we currently have on leave is really pushing up against that upper bound,” Johnson said. “But fortunately, our faculty are submitting strong proposals, so it becomes relatively straightforward to make the case, ‘OK, this is a year where we’re going to have a bit of a hill.’”

The meaning of sabbaticals

Education professor Sharon Andrews, chair of the Promotion, Tenure and Leave Committee, said the term “sabbatical” has a biblical connection to the word “sabbath,” which is known as the day of rest on the seventh day of the week. 

“[Sabbaticals] provide that opportunity for folks to have just that really sustained focused time where they're not distracted, and the idea is that the person comes back energized and brings something of value back,” Andrews said. 

Only faculty who have been granted tenure can take a sabbatical. Lynn White, nursing professor and member of the Promotion, Tenure and Leave Committee, said faculty typically go up for tenure in their sixth year at Augustana after having demonstrated excellence in teaching, service and scholarship. 

Tenured faculty are eligible for sabbatical leave every seven years. They can opt for a year-long sabbatical or a semester. Full-time faculty are also eligible for an interim sabbatical every three years. 

“Whatever they’re learning, studying, doing research about, they can take that information and bring it back to the classroom,” White said. “And it informs their teaching and then their teaching informs their scholarship and their research and their professional development.” 

Biology professor Jennifer Gubbels is currently in the midst of her sabbatical, where she has been studying neutrophils to better understand how labor begins. 

Gubbels said the mother’s neutrophils, an abundant white blood cell, migrate to the uterus to trigger labor. However, researchers are unsure of what calls the neutrophils there or when they decide to go to the uterus. 

Gubbels first developed an interest in her research when she heard alumnus David Olson speak about preterm labor in the spring before her first sabbatical. 

“I thought it was so fascinating that during my first sabbatical, I went to visit him and we kind of set up a collaboration,” Gubbels said. 

Over the past seven years, the pair has been working together on research related to pregnancy and labor, a switch from Gubbels’ previous sabbatical project on ovarian cancer. 

The application process

The process of deciding to take a sabbatical and apply for it was a years-long process for Gubbels, the same for other tenured faculty. 

“Even having the idea takes time to develop and to let it roll around in your head,” Gubbels said. “You need to be constantly thinking about it in order to make it grow some legs and get it to move forward because thinking of ideas and developing them doesn’t happen in a day. It takes time.” 

Gubbels said a year is a good amount of time to consider and think deeply about the project one wants to undertake on a sabbatical. Faculty then must submit  a letter of intent by September 15, two academic years before they hope to take the sabbatical leave. 

“We want to make sure that the student experience is upheld during the time that these faculty members are away,” Johnson said. “So departments have to think ahead and sometimes have to think ahead two, three, four years if there’s a sequence of faculty members who are going to be eligible for a sabbatical.” 

The letter of intent must be signed by the faculty member’s chair or dean and is sent to Academic Affairs to give the university an idea of how many professors will be applying for sabbatical leave in the future. 

The Promotion, Tenure and Leave Committee also recently developed a change in the timeline of the application process, which will go into effect this school year. The committee consists of the provost and six voting members, who represent the three affiliations, all of whom are tenured faculty. 

Sabbatical proposals have typically been due one year after the letter of intent is due. For example, an applicant could have submitted their letter of intent in September 2023. Their proposal would have been due in September 2024. Under the new policy, which goes into effect this academic year, the proposal would now be due in May 2024. 

Andrews said a lot of Augustana’s budget planning occurs during the summer, so the May due date will give the university more information about the number of faculty members who may be gone in future academic years. 

Now, Andrews said the Promotion, Tenure and Leave Committee can examine applications upon its first meeting of the new school year. 

Andrews said the committee considers four areas when deciding if an applicant should receive approval: outcomes, impacts, activities and outputs. 

“We’re looking at an application on its merits,” Andrews said. “What are your goals, your outcomes, your objectives? What are you trying to accomplish? And then…what are you going to bring back after your sabbatical to add value to your teaching, to the institution, to the profession at large?”

Johnson said the committee approaches the proposals with “care and openness.” 

“It’s also why we have a university-wide committee,” Johnson said. “We want to make sure across that committee that there are different perspectives represented so that we have some scientists in the room, we have some humanists in the room, some social scientists in the room.” 

White said the committee will sometimes consult the faculty member with clarifying questions prior to making a recommendation for approval. The committee-approved proposals then make their way to the provost and president for approval. However, the Board of Trustees will give the final vote of approval when it meets in December. 

Andrews, who has been on the Promotion, Tenure and Leave Committee for two years and at Augustana for 35, said she has, anecdotally, not heard about anyone’s proposal being denied since she has been on the committee. 

Andrews said applicants can come from every discipline, and there aren’t rules on how many people from each area can be approved. 

In the 2024-2025 academic year, 11 professors will be on sabbatical leave, working on projects from academic writing conventions to the hybridization of milkweed. 

History professor Margaret Preston said she will take on multiple projects on her third sabbatical, with the hopes of publishing her findings in journals. 

A British and Irish historian, Preston said her last sabbatical was partially spent in Ireland. Now she plans to use some of that research to approach her argument in a different way. 

“It has to do with, actually, a riot that occurred in Dublin in the middle of the 19th century,” Preston said. “And what my argument is now is that that riot relates to a series of events.” 

Preston said riots occurred in British colonies, Ireland and India in 1857. Preston also plans to conduct research on a woman who was involved with organizations who were related to or targeted by the Dublin riot. 

Looking ahead

Johnson said he expects to see numbers of people on sabbatical in the high single digits in the future, as faculty hired in the past 10-15 years tend to have active scholarly agendas. 

According to Johnson, the Board of Trustees asked the committees to look at the language of the faculty handbook to improve the process of applying for sabbaticals and consider what other institutions are doing in regards to how many faculty can take a sabbatical each year.

“We have not a very full policy built out,” Johnson said. “It has worked reasonably well for us, but I think as we grow as an institution, we become more complicated. It’s good for us to also have policy that matures.” 

Johnson said the new shared governance system has allowed more faculty to be involved in policy matters. 

Augustana used to have a personnel council, which Johnson said had six people serving on it. Now, that council has split into the Promotion, Tenure and Leave Committee and the Faculty Affairs Council, which focuses more on matters of faculty policy. 

Both groups will continue to evaluate questions related to how the university conducts sabbatical approvals and the sabbatical application process. 

White said the Promotion, Tenure and Leave Committee has been discussing what happens if it reaches a limit in sabbatical approvals, but the committee has not reached a conclusion. For example, if someone has a solid proposal but the university does not have the ability to approve another individual for that year, one potential solution could involve moving that professor to the top of the list for the next academic year. 

Johnson said the Faculty Affairs Council is also working on developing policy around the sabbatical timeline. Augustana’s current practice allows those eligible for sabbatical to defer or not take them as often as they can, whether it be for departmental reasons or personal planning reasons. 

“That plays into the mix as well, and it does complicate planning a bit,” Johnson said. “We have a chart that shows when people are eligible, so we kind of have that initial projection. It’s like, ‘OK, this list could submit their letter of intent.’ Not all do, and so their eligibility carries over into the next year, which then stacks onto whoever’s eligible in that year. So there are some challenges in projecting, and we’re trying to get a little bit of a better grasp of that through just some more formalized policy.” 

Johnson said he thinks finalizing new policies that address these issues could come as early as this spring. The Faculty Affairs Council will make its recommendations to the president, who could then provide her own recommendations. Once the president decides to approve the council’s proposed changes, they can be added to the faculty handbook. 

White, Gubbels, Andrews, Johnson and Preston said sabbaticals are valuable for faculty, students and the institution. 

“While you’re not really resting because you’re working on research and scholarship, it’s time away to reflect, which I think is really important for, really, all parts of our health,” White said. “Your mental health and how well rested and rejuvenated and excited about your profession [you are] really does play an important role in how you teach in the classroom.”