s-UH?-bbatical. Emphasis on the “uh.” A weary academic documents her quest. #1

s-UH?-bbatical. Emphasis on the “uh.” A weary academic documents her quest.

GOOGLE "sabbatical" and these are the images that pop up. What the what? What does this mean?!? In academia we are lucky to still have the idea of sabbatical, but only for some. In most cases, you have to be tenured. Then you can apply for this “break.” During this time, one is supposed to focus on their research. But that is all they tell you. So. Here. I. Am. I applied for and received sabbatical. And the idea terrifies me. And I don’t know what to do. You mean I won’t be slammed by emails? Teaching overloads? Chair duties? Committees? Commuting? Event planning? Grading? Independent studies? Rec letters? The idea of having unstructured free time, frankly, freaks me out. So, I have decided to blog. I am inspired to blog during my sabbatical because of 2 individuals and one big science-based motivator! 

One, Dr. Rosalie Aldrich has a regular blog about academic life. She updates it monthly! I do not want to commit to that, but I enjoy reading her remarks. So, I thought, hey, this might be a way to get my thoughts down on “paper” and out there. Two, I am an avid listener to the 5 Minute Medievalist on medievalists.net. I love her shows. On one of them, she mentioned that her current monograph was based largely on her…BLOG!...where she posted her research project progress and then compiled it all. Blog-to-book sounds great to me. 

And, my one big reason is ACCOUNTABILITY. Lots of research shows that if you (or your students!) undertake the act of somehow publishing their work for an audience of peers (other class members, research presentations, etc) the quality of your/their work improves. I want this accountability. I want to track this experience. I want to help others who get to the “uh?” of s-uh-bbatical and don’t know how to move forward. Maybe this will become a future book on how to sabbatical. Who knows? 

My sabbatical is spring semester, Jan 1-Aug 1, but I will teach one summer class online. That is 7 months to focus on my research. Because I am me, I have SO MUCH planned. Here is a list of my research projects and timeline for completion. The sad part is that few of these are new projects. These are all items that have been in the works, but because of other commitments and for other reasons, the going has been slow. The good part about that is that a lot of the work has already been completed on most of them. So, maybe it can all happen more smoothly. Maybe… 

December 

1. I just submitted a chapter finalization (?) titled, “Alfonso X’s Cannibalistic Peripheries: 13th Century Castilian Cartography,” to Brill, out of England, for the forthcoming anthology On Man Eating Men. There may still end up being some revisions, so I am putting it here. Estimated work level: Low 

 2. Revise and resubmit the article “Anxiety in OL L2” with Dr. R Aldrich (IUE) in the Language Teaching Journal. I plan to get this to Dr. Aldrich before Jan and am almosted finished with my part. My plan was earlier, but life happens. The holidays, the loss of our family pet, and sickness probbaly from days of crying and bad sleep. :( Estimated work level: Moderate --thanks reviewer #2! Seriously, y'all. He was so bad Rosalie is going to have to come in behind me with some tact. 

January 

3. Finalize my chapter titled, “Women and Domestic Texts in Medieval and Early Modern Iberia” for the forthcoming “Unbound by Their Covers” book project with the amazing Drs. Ross Karlan and Linde Brocato. I presented on this at KFLC and that presentation was so helpful to my forward momentum. This is due Mid January. Estimated work level: High. 

February 

4. Revise and resubmit “Cantigas de Santa María” with Dr. Alison Carberry (Boston University) in OpenIberia. We presented this at the annual MLA convention virtually and it was so much fun. Estimated work level: Minimal. It is SO CLOSE! 

5. Teaching the Multimedia Cantigas de Santa María with Alison Carberry. Basically we have huge chunks of texts from our other article that we realized was a whole other topic on actual pedagogy and techniques. We just need to plan our workload, assimilate, and get it out. I am not sure about the journal yet. Estimated work level: Moderate 

March 

6. The swanky Dr. Justin Carroll has gotten us a contract with the University of North Georgia Press for an anthology on high impact teaching practices called, Teaching Agendas for New Humanities Faculty: Philosophies, Projects, Assignments, and Rubrics. My chapter is titled, “Olive Oil, Beans, and, Oh!, the Bread: Investigating the Classical Influence on Mediterranean Cultures with a Food-Focused Study Abroad.” Of course, this trip was canceled with the pandemic, but I have a lot to say about the setup given my own travel planning along with syllabus prep and assignments. I had a really neat invited talk at University of Indianapolis with Dr. Meigs that would have helped me prep immensely, but that was canceled due to the pandemic. Onward anyway. Estimated work level: High 

April 

7. Revise transparent teaching and job skills article. Solo author. Titled, “Transparent Teaching in Online Spanish and Student Awareness of Workforce Skills.” Estimated work level: Low 

8. Revise immersion abroad and language growth. Solo author. Title, “Study Abroad and Intensive Linguistic Immersion in Spain Undergraduate Oral Proficiency Gains for Short Term Study Abroad.” Estimated work level: Low 8. Oh my gosh. Am I really at #8? I am excited to have collected data for a new project with Drs. Felix Burgos (first author) and Beth Boyd (third author). We are examining student perceptions of Talk Abroad, a program where they have conversations in Spanish with native speakers. We developed the survey and got IRB approval. The pilot data is collected. Burgos and Boyd are in charge of the draft literature review. This will get rolling asap, but my contribution might be later. Estimated work level: High 

Other 

9. Finally, Lexington Books approached me about interest in my women and recipes project. I could turn the chapter into a larger monograph if I am still alive at this point. Estimated work level: So-high-do-I-even-want-to? 

10. An E-book on beginning Spanish! I do a lot of tutoring and this would just be cool. I would love to put down all the tricks and tips I have developed over my 16 years of college teaching. Estimated work level: highish

REALITY CHECK! In the academic world, maybe I get 8 articles/chapters “out” into the publishing world. But that doesn’t mean they are published. Rarely, an article is accepted for publication as is. Usually one experiences two options: revise this and resubmit it (which is a pretty sure sign it will be published by the journal) or rejected. If an article is rejected you can rework with their feedback-if they give any-and submit it to a different journal. So, even if I meet the lofty goal of getting these articles submitted, it can still be a long road, and a lot more work, before anything is published. 

I write this paragraph for you, good reader, but also for the future me when I am in despair and waiting for reviews, lamenting rejections, and gruffly revising. This list is so long. I have a feeling I might look back at it and laugh at my aspirations. My therapist CERTAINLY had something to say about it! hahaha.