But academia needs to make them equitable
Sarah Demers anxiously awaited beam splashes as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) braced for its third run. Beam splashes occur when protons are steered to make impact near the detector Atlas and illuminate its sub-detectors. LHC operators conduct these trial runs to check if sub-detectors are running smoothly and aligned with the LHC clock.
Demers was among scientists monitoring these events on screens in the control room last year: ‘It was just terrifying, sitting and waiting for these beam splashes.’ And then, they appeared. ‘There was yelling and jumping and the typical relief and excitement,’ she recalls.
Such thrilling moments are hard to come by for busy academics like Demers, who juggle multiple responsibilities every day. But a year-long sabbatical at Cern provided the experimental physicist with a dream opportunity to immerse herself in cutting-edge research without the distractions of a full-time job. Sabbaticals play a crucial role in advancing scientists’ careers – if they are fortunate enough to be eligible for one.
Sabbaticals accelerate science
Starting with Harvard University, elite institutions in the US began offering sabbaticals to its faculty in the late 19th century to attract and retain bright minds. Sabbaticals are now a mainstay of academia worldwide.
Academic scientists’ responsibilities extend beyond bench science – and their research goals can sometimes take a back seat. Sabbaticals can help them refocus as they provide relief from their regular duties. ‘When you’re someone trying to be an engaging teacher and also helping with the governance of your institution, it’s a lifeline to have a period of time where you just can focus on your research,’ says Demers, who is a professor of physics at Yale University, US.
The opportunity to focus on one element of their careers can positively impact researchers’ well-being. A 2010 study across 10 universities in three countries found that stress levels of academics who took a sabbatical plummeted. Another study showed that faculty from a New Zealand university considered sabbaticals the second most critical ingredient for professional success (after winning grants).
Demers, for example, has limited opportunities to be onsite at Cern during a regular academic year. But two recent sabbaticals at the facility have been invaluable for her professional development. In 2015, she spent a semester there around the start of LHC’s second run, tasked with monitoring data generated by the Atlas detector. ‘In the process of that, you have to learn more deeply about this machine and that makes you a much more powerful physicist moving ahead,’ Demers says.
In August 2021, she landed in Cern again for a year-long stay. As a data preparation coordinator, Demers held a broader leadership role this time that involved interacting with people in different departments. ‘Those two experiences were absolutely career-changing,’ she says. ‘The ability for me to be fully immersed in the experiment has just shifted the trajectory of my career and also deeply impacted my ability to identify exciting, interesting analyses, and carry them out and build collaborations.’
Sabbaticals’ transformative power can extend beyond the career of an individual scientist. Shubha Tole, a neuroscientist and dean of graduate studies at Tata Institute at Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, spent a year-long sabbatical at Stanford University in 2008–09. During her time in the US, Tole delivered invited talks at various organisations. After hearing one of her talks, a colleague asked her to speak at the biennial meeting of the International Society of Development Science (ISDN) in Portugal in 2010. There, Tole and another colleague had the idea of bringing the prestigious conference to India and pitched Mumbai as a venue to the organisers for the next meeting.
Consequently, the city hosted India’s first ISDN meeting in 2012, attracting 200 participants and more than 40 speakers from around the globe. ‘It really stimulated Indian neuroscience,’ says Tole, who is ISDN’s current president. Many budding students from India found PhDs and postdoc positions through connections they made at the event. While the meeting wasn’t part of her research proposal for the leave, Tole capitalised on the networking opportunities the US provided, and things snowballed from there.
Reset and recharge
Many researchers choose to focus on upgrading their skills or exploring new research avenues during their sabbatical. Gautam Menon primarily developed mathematical models for superconductors and worked in statistical physics at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMsc), India. After a while, he started to gravitate toward biophysics. ‘I wanted to be in an environment that was much more biological in nature and transform the way I was thinking and working – in a way that was much more linked to experiments and understanding experimental data,’ says Menon. But IMsc didn’t have experimental biologists at the time. So, Menon hunkered down at the National University of Singapore for one year and eight months, spending time in labs that performed cutting-edge experiments at the frontiers of biology.
After returning to India, Menon, who is now a professor of physics and biology and the dean of research at Ashoka University, India, started to rigorously apply his modelling skills to biological problems – and continues to work in the area. ‘In that sense, the sabbatical was pivotal in changing my research direction,’ he says.
Scientists may also have to redirect their focus for reasons out of their control. ‘Many of us have gone through that kind of ebb and flow of a research area where it’s become hot, and then it’s not,’ says Debra Feakes, chemist and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University-San Antonio, US, adding that sabbaticals can provide a jumpstart to scientists looking to transition.
I was actually in my office every day, just with the door closed
But scientists don’t have to uproot their lives and relocate to a new country to reinvent their careers. ‘You could definitely still benefit from a sabbatical even without leaving your home institute,’ says Sarah Fankhauser, an associate professor of biology at Oxford College of Emory University, US. Fankhauser’s role requires a tremendous amount of teaching, so she decided to make research a focus for her semester-long sabbatical in 2022. While it was a stay-at-home sabbatical, she found time to visit colleagues in other cities. ‘What I was really interested in is re-establishing some of the scientific and scholarly community that I felt had disintegrated over the pandemic,’ says Fankhauser. The brief trips opened doors to two collaborations. ‘I feel whenever you make connections with new people, the ideas just start to flow,’ she says.
Colin Jerolmack, a professor of sociology and environment studies at New York University, US, took a year-long sabbatical in 2016 to work on his book, Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town.
Jeromack decided not to shift his base for the leave because of family responsibilities. ‘I was actually in my office every day, just with the door closed,’ he says. The sociologist capitalised on this rare opportunity. ‘A sabbatical is a phase where one can actually foreground being a scholar and an intellectual in ways that are very hard, at least for me, to capture in many other phases of my career,’ says Jerolmack.
It also led to an epiphany. After he pieced together the major themes across interviews he had conducted while researching the book during a semester-long fellowship earlier in his career, Jerolmack showed his notes to a colleague who drew his attention to a sidenote on property rights and asked him to flesh it out. Jerolmack found the colleague’s suggestion sensible, and, consequently, refocused the book on how property laws in the US influence the practice of fracking. ‘That was like a major ”aha” moment that is hard to come by if you can’t be obsessed with your work,’ he says.
Making sabbaticals fair
The sabbatical policies at some academic institutions would benefit from changes to make them more equitable. Universities typically provide this opportunity once in a few years to tenured or tenure-track faculty – already a minority in countries such as the US, where 63% of faculty are non-permanent. That, says Jerolmak, is unfair. ‘A sabbatical should be granted to non-tenure-track faculty and people more focused on teaching,’ says Jerolmack. ‘They’re still scholars: they’re writing and researching.’ He added that periodic breaks would allow them to read and keep abreast of the latest literature and create innovative teaching materials.
The sabbatical policies at some academic institutions would benefit from changes to make them more equitable. Universities typically provide this opportunity once in a few years to tenured or tenure-track faculty – already a minority in countries such as the US, where 63% of faculty are non-permanent. Colin Jerolmack, a professor of sociology and environment studies at New York University, US, says that is unfair. ‘A sabbatical should be granted to non-tenure-track faculty and people more focused on teaching,’ says Jerolmack. ‘They’re still scholars: they’re writing and researching.’ He added that periodic breaks would allow them to read and keep abreast of the latest literature and create innovative teaching materials.
At some institutes, securing a sabbatical is competitive – not every eligible candidate gets one. Dale Brugh, associate provost and professor of chemistry at Ohio Wesleyan University, US, argues that this can also lead to inequity. ‘If everyone knows that they receive the sabbatical every six years, then there is no human involved in the process that can introduce bias,’ he says. At his institute, tenure-track faculty take a sabbatical when it is their turn to – no applications required.
Meanwhile, Jerolmack is gearing up for another sabbatical in the fall this year after being department chair for six years. ‘To be honest, I’m viewing this sabbatical as an opportunity to reset,’ he says. ‘I’ve been the most divorced from intellectual life for the past few years than I have been in my entire career.’ He is reluctant to clutter his sabbatical with rigid goals and plans. Notably, a 2022 analysis in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management showed that sabbaticals have transformed into outcome-driven breaks requiring scientists to churn out grants and papers over the last few decades. Hopefully, Jerolmack will enjoy the classic version of the sabbatical: a pressure-free time to read, write and expand one’s intellectual horizon.
Thinking of applying for a sabbatical? Keep these four tips in mind
Plan: You will likely start planning your sabbatical a year in advance. Start by deciding on a broader vision for your leave, says Feakes: ‘What are your personal goals? Are you trying to get more research done? Are you trying to investigate a new research pathway? Are you trying to learn a new technique?’ Then, you can set two to three concrete goals (such as writing grant applications or finishing a book proposal) for specific projects.
Prioritise: While planning and goal-setting are crucial to having a successful sabbatical, Demers says you may not accomplish everything on your agenda – and that’s all right. ‘It is critical to think about the benefits and opportunities of your sabbatical and establish your priorities going in,’ she says. For Demers, collaborations were a critical part of her stints. She focused on building those professional friendships and kept aside non-urgent analysis-related tasks until her return. But as Jerolmack says, ‘Nobody accomplishes what they thought they were going to accomplish on their sabbatical, and for most people it still winds up being OK.’
Make room for fun: Try and explore fun activities outside of work or hobbies you have been putting off. Fankhauser took French lessons via Zoom during her sabbatical, which had a surprising benefit. ‘Being a student in a class provided me with a shocking new perspective. When I’m teaching now, I have much greater empathy for my students,’ she says. She also started a workout regimen around that time – a habit she has maintained since returning to regular professional life.
Draw boundaries: While most sabbaticals provide relief from non-research duties, some faculty members may feel obliged to help. ‘We tell faculty very clearly: you have to step away from all your teaching and service responsibilities. That’s what we’re paying you to do with your time, so please do it,’ says Brugh. If you are not relocating for your sabbatical, try getting an office in another part of the campus or a nearby institute to prevent unnecessary contact with your colleagues.
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