What I did on my sabbatical: Susan Goetz

When asked to write a piece about what I did on sabbatical I was, quite frankly, scratching my head and actually wondering what I actually did do on sabbatical. I have a partial summer appointment and returned to my desk just this week. It was as if time had not passed!

I will confess to having some difficulties at the beginning of the sabbatical leave. As a person of structure, to have none left me wondering aimlessly about my house looking for projects (my personal development) which of course I found.

I made a list of exciting things like painting the downstairs, cleaning out and reorganizing the pantry, taking Spanish and piano lessons, and so on. I also had a rather daunting list of books I wanted to read.

My professional development, otherwise known as my sabbatical project, was probably the only structure in my life at that point. I knew I had a project, that it required research, and I did set about making another list of when to do what and for how long each day.

And then I adopted a three-month-old puppy and life as I knew it changed. I felt like a new mother again, getting up in the night to take the puppy out, spending my days watching the puppy to catch her before she had an accident (and failing, often), taking her outside every 1.5 hours (and this started Feb. 1 when it was very, very cold at 11:30 p.m., then 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.).

She did, however, succeed in giving me back the needed structure. And I knew that because she had so many needs, I would need to schedule my personal and professional development around her schedule.

Olive (my puppy) is seven months old today, and housetrained, although still in need of some watching in order to preserve things like shoes, belts, furniture, the other dog and cat.

However, I have increasingly larger blocks of time to accomplish those sabbatical-like things.

To date, I have taken copious notes on my research project and created an outline of the work, contacted a publisher for possible publication of the manuscript, contacted the publisher of my recently-published textbook to get an informal agreement to publish a second edition (which I needed in order to continue the research on that project), written an article for "Colleagues," agreed to co-write a chapter for a publication on the STEM minor, attended a national conference and presented a paper, completed my quinquennium review, attended a few too many meetings on campus, and continued to monitor my St. Kate’s email on a daily and nightly basis.

Having written all of this, I’m feeling pretty good about my professional development! In terms of personal projects, the downstairs is not painted and the pantry is still in disarray. I did, however, spend a lot of time helping our fifth and last child with college applications with a resulting acceptance to the college of his choice.

I also ran a half-marathon with two of my daughters, met my “sabbatical sisters” for lunch several times and drove to Indianapolis and Cincinnati during January in a snowstorm.

I’m sending a photo of my puppy, who helped me put my time away from campus into perspective: while on sabbatical (actually, at all times), it’s important to nurture others as well as yourself while taking care of business!

Goetz is associate professor in the College of St. Catherine's graduate education department. She is also a former elementary and high school teacher and principal. Her book, Science for Girls: Successful Classroom Strategies, was published by Scarecrow Press in 2007.