Sabbatical Year

A lot of folks think a sabbatical means a break—like, from everything. It does not. It means a break from teaching, but other projects (often, research) take priority.

For my sabbatical this year, my projects are all writing center focused. I am drawing up a formal assessment plan for our center and expanding/strengthening our tutor-training program.

I had been trying to contact various writing centers in other SUNY schools, and I was making a tiny bit of progress—until this week when my schedule just blew up. A higher level admin put out an all-call via his own contacts, and my email has been hopping ever since. It turns, what I thought was a general reaction of, “Um, no, thanks. We’re not interested in your stupid idea…” (a conclusion I’d come up with since I wasn’t getting many responses—and how’s that for confirmation bias?) was actually “Oh, yeah! We’re absolutely interested! We just haven’t updated our website or directories in awhile, so those contacts aren’t really who you need now. Here are the new contacts…”.

A short list of 5 schools responding (3 of which were actually interested in collaborating) has become a list of 20 in just 4 days.

It’s a boost I needed—even if my daily schedule is absolutely bananas now. Get the kids on the bus, get my creative writing in by 9am, then start on the academics. Read, research, email. Repeat. Add notes and Zoom. Update tables, contacts, and spreadsheets Oh, and keep the critters and kids alive and functioning.

But wow is it great seeing so very many writing centers in NY interested in connecting and collaborating.