Argument for a Full Sabbatical Year

Elizabeth Wissinger, Social Sciences and Human Services

So, you are thinking of going on sabbatical.

Here’s my advice: take a year. Taking a year can be difficult financially, but if you can swing it, it will give your sabbatical the chance to do what it can for you as a teacher, a scholar, a researcher, and a person.

What can it do?

It can give the gift of time.

Time is Different on Sabbatical

A sabbatical is a very special time. It’s a chance to remember the way you were when you first engaged with scholarship. To once again be that scholar you were when you studied to become the expert you are now. To get back in touch with the ideas that matter to you, to shore up your research, and to write it all down. It’s a time to do the things you aspire to do, but you never have the time for.

A sabbatical is a time to remember

Perhaps you remember when you studied to get your PhD. Maybe it seems like yesterday. Maybe it seems a lifetime ago. Either way, I am going to assume it may have happened like this –

Remember when scholarship was everything and the only thing? When you worked toward your PhD, you read up on the latest thinking in your field. You did this on a regular basis. You also spent time and energy thinking about what mattered to people in your field, and why you were working to create a contribution to the conversation with your dissertation. Perhaps you had time to read a lot. Perhaps you read only what you needed to, but the point is, you were keyed into the debates at hand.

As the dissertation got into full swing, you got into your research for real. Perhaps you were out in the field, observing and talking to your research subjects. Maybe you were immersed in the archives, searching for research gold. You may have been in a lab. You may have been in a classroom. Or notating a pile of books so carefully you could barely see the print between the margins packed full of your thoughts. However you did it, you went on a quest for more knowledge about a subject that mattered profoundly to you. Maybe you attended conferences to talk about this knowledge you’d gathered. Sharing with colleagues helped you see how your research and findings either fit with, or confronted, prevailing ideas.

No matter how you did it, working through your PhD meant working deep into the ideas and issues at stake in your field.

The special thing about sabbatical time is that it lets you remember how to get back to that deep questioning. It’s a time to think, to wonder, to investigate and read and find out. It’s a time to engage. Perhaps you can travel or go to a conference (or two!). You can sit down to read a book and maybe finish it that day. You can look through your data and see a new pattern. Your schedule allows you to go with the flow, grab opportunities to get out in the field, engage with your research every day that you want to. You can spend whole days in the archives, hang out with your research subjects at will, run those programs and experiments as much as you can. You can try something new, to see if it adds to your thinking and writing. You can follow a thought to its logical end and learn something you didn’t know before.

A sabbatical is also a time to forget.

Let’s talk about the teaching vortex.

When you got your job teaching you may not have known that being a good teacher can take all your time.

Of course you give your all to your students! You create a dynamic atmosphere in which they can learn and thrive. You have researched pedagogical methods, assignment ideas, ordered a stack of examination copies to make sure your textbook was doing the best it could for your classes. Perhaps you’ve assigned the publisher’s supplements, maybe you’ve assembled your own. You became the best teacher you could become, and brought your best energy and expertise to the classroom because you wanted to and could. And you do it again, and again and again.

Funny thing about teaching, you got the job because you were an expert in your field. But when you teach as much as we do at BMCC, and spend as much energy as we spend on it, sometimes that expertise can take a back seat. There are papers to grade, students to help, lectures to prepare, and So. Many. Meetings. You want to earn tenure so you take on as much service work as you can handle (sometimes more!) in your department, the college, and university. You sign up and show up.

A sabbatical gives you the time to forget the grueling commute, the relentless schedule, the endless demands. No need to check your email every five minutes, to put out the fires that always flare up. It’s a time to forget the endless to-do list. Or at least make a list of things you want to do, not that you have to do. You can make your own schedule.

Of course, sometimes it is hard not to have the routine, the grind, the scheduled days. And thinking is hard. Really hard. It takes the kind of time and energy we don’t normally have when we are teaching. Of course, we do think when we teach, all the time, but to achieve quite different ends. Thinking deeply about an issue, reading, researching, and thinking again, that’s a different animal. Formulating an argument, marshalling the proof, laying out the terms of what is at stake—that is thinking of a different kind. The kind that can rebuild scaffolds of thought. Once they are refurbished, your writing and research can gain strength and breadth. You can develop your expertise and shore up what you know. And remind yourself what you care about.

A sabbatical is the time to finally do things that always fall to the bottom of your list.

Did I mention trying to get published? You want to get promoted, but writing and publishing on top of it all? It’s a lot. Perhaps the scramble to get your work in print has you subscribing to mailing lists and carving out time to comb them for Calls for Papers. Or maybe you keep track of the journals, by spending precious hours searching Google Scholar to figure out the ongoing conversation and how your research and writing might join in. You send things off to journals that take forever to get back to you. They might languish “under review,” only to get a “revise and resubmit” months later. Maybe you are turning your dissertation into a book or a series of articles. No matter what you are doing, there are never enough hours in the day to do it.

But finally, it’s sabbatical time. You have managed to do enough work on your research and writing to convince the committee that you will make good use of your time on sabbatical leave. You have promised you will get SO much done during your time away from teaching, they will be amazed. You are probably planning to amaze yourself.

A sabbatical is not a vacation

It is, or course, a time to rest and renew as best you can. But it is also a time to try new routines, meet new people, go places you may not have been. It is a time to talk to people who care about the same things you care about. It is a time to get back in touch with things that make you jump out of bed in the morning (or stay up late). It is a time to fortify that expertise you worked so hard to achieve in the first place.

That’s why I think a year is barely enough. Your mileage may vary, and scholarship takes many different forms. A wise friend reminded me recently that nobody ever said, “I finished everything I set out to do on my sabbatical.” But there is a joy in trying.

What I spent my sabbatical time doing…

I’ll conclude with a report on the things I did manage to do. In case anyone is looking for inspiration for their time away from teaching.

I made a scholarly visit to the UK to present my research

I told everyone I knew I was willing to give a lecture, a talk, run a seminar, or visit their classroom. That’s how I secured an invitation for a visiting scholar position for a few months at Cambridge University, where I met new colleagues and had fascinating conversations.

On my way to Cambridge, I presented research I’ve done with our colleague Christina Oney in Psychology at the annual conference of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) in Sheffield. I was on a panel about digital work, and presented our findings gathered from interviewing BIPOC models of a certain age about how they manage the pressures of aging, and negotiate the world of self-branding on social media. The paper was well received, and I connected with friends and colleagues old and new while enjoying the unique sensibilities of the midlands, and the unique craziness of the British railway system.

Then it was on to Cambridge with a few side trips to Oxford (see above about the railways). Cambridge and Oxford are like fairy tales – they look like Harry Potter sets, only they are peppered with brilliant minds wherever you go. It was great fun to be a scrappy community college professor in such an august setting.

During the visit, I gave an invited guest lecture to a university-wide research seminar.

The talk was part of a series on technology and democracy, with an emphasis on critically understanding technological futures. I shared my research on technological embodiment, ranging from wearable technologies to biotech. As you may know, embodiment refers to the sense of knowing the world through your body. Technological embodiment describes how technological extensions of the body affect that sense of knowing. Think smartwatch, smartphone, earphones, but also the data you generate by interacting with the internet and AI and social media, as well as the clothing you wear (yes, clothing is a technology of the body). In the talk, I extended the concept to think through biological technologies such as enzymatically activated sportswear, or algae laced garments that can absorb carbon dioxide (Jaouen, 2025).

I also described how wearable technology shapes our bodily experiences, and makes the body in its own image, as a series of outputs, readouts, and data. Wearable technology positions the body as something that can be refined and managed, with proper inputs, such as diet, and proper sleep. I speculated on how AI would affect the design of wearable technologies. I loved that I was in a room full of the leading experts in the field to whom I could put the question.

They were a little nonplussed, however, when I went on to discuss how AI might fit into the unpredictable nature of designing with living biology. A few of them had heard about designers growing leather from the root systems of mushrooms or bricks from biomass culled from agricultural waste. We had an animated debate about the uncertainty inherent in the process of relying on living organisms, especially when I compared it to the unpredictable nature of hallucinations created by machines programmed by 1s and 0s. We considered the idea of AI sentience, where AI would take on a living consciousness of its own making. They suggested the imminence of independently conscious AI is overhyped. They did admit, however, that bacteria and fungi are living organisms with a sentience of their own, and I helped them see how this adds a level of complexity and uncertainty to any technology that engages with them to function.

I did some data botox

I was riffing on research the time away from teaching had allowed me to refurbish and recharge. In truth, this research had been stopped in its tracks by the pandemic shutdowns. During this sabbatical year, I was able to return to the “deep hanging out” I had been doing within a community, to use anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s term. The community in question is a group of young innovators, artists and scientists who believe that anything we make now with plastic derived from oil can be made just as well or better by growing it with biology. Bricks, phone cases, textiles, bandages, disposable bags, you name it, they are finding ways to make them without forever chemicals and land-filling plastic. These biodesigners seek ways to make the things we want and need to consume, yet to create them so they can be easily disposed of without polluting the landfill with noxious waste, or filling our air and water with harmful microplastics. Time during this sabbatical year was spent reviewing my field notes, updating my contacts, interviewing new community members, revisiting old timers, and going to their events and gatherings to get up to date on the latest in their field of practice.

I developed a new expertise

I also spent quite a lot of time this year expanding my understanding of how biodesigners work with textiles in particular and how the fashion industry is responding. I discovered that fabrics grown from bacterial-cellulose or from mycelium or dyed with microorganisms or algae had made it to the runways of Spring/Summer 25/26 and more are coming. I secured an interview with the biodesign artist who created the cellulose sequins adorning the Philip Lim dress featured in the Sleeping Beauties costume exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I talked at length with a designer whose teaching centers on getting her students to pay attention to the “afterlife of what you are making.” She teaches them biofabrication, which is a branch of biodesign that specializes in the “fabrication of materials by living organisms” (Biofabricate, 2020). These biodesigners see a future in which products and clothing can be fun, healthy, and biodegradable. In the course of my research and writing this year, I have been working hard to critically assess the potential for biodesigners to change the world in the manner they claim they will.

Many of the designers I spoke to said they are doubling down on their efforts to design plastic free fashion, to combat the harms of microplastics. Consequently, during this past year, I taught myself a good deal about these tiny particles, their origins, and negative health effects. I zoomed in on the kind of microfibers our clothes shed whenever we wash and even wear them. I also spent many, many, days thinking, reading, and writing about the biodesign community, their values, and the possibilities their work offers for helping us move toward a plastic-free future.

I also thought and read and wrote. A lot.

To better understand the debates in the field from a feminist and Science and Technologies Studies (STS) point of view, I found myself pulling out books I have not opened since I was in grad school. Revisiting them helped me think through whether Marx or Bergson or Haraway or Barad could help parse what’s going on now, even though the technologies they wrote about are far from contemporary. I dictated many notes, spent hours drafting and redrafting, wrote to colleagues with questions like, “Did Stella McCartney ever use plant-based silk?” Sometimes I just spent time staring at the wall, trying to figure out whether or not this technology’s inherent qualities might force engineers and fashion designers to reconsider their relentless attachment to speed of transformation and control over nature, in favor of collaborating with it, coaxing it, and cooperating with it for the sake of humans, of course, but also for non-human ends.

I will publish the results

I did all of this with the idea of putting it all together to share with the other academics and the public. I am hoping that my observations, thinking, analysis, and writing may offer some context, historical and social, for understanding the philosophical and technical issues at stake in the practice of biodesign. This technology has great potential, but it is rolling out in a consumerist, pollution forward, plastic dependent, oil-loving culture. The people I have been studying think we can do better. The time I spent rigorously analyzing their practices and ideas, and writing about it all, will be my contribution to the conversation needed for biodesign to realize its potential. I have been working hard to be a part of the story in which it achieves its promised goals.

There’s not much at stake. Just our health, and the future of our planet.

But I digress.

The point is…

My sabbatical was a time of renewal that will shine through when I return. My students will sense it. At least I hope they will. Even if they don’t, I will have a new reservoir from which to draw, of examples, and ideas, and arguments as to what matters.

I am returning from this year away from teaching as a more thoughtful scholar and teacher, and I am more committed to my research and writing than ever. I plan to share with my students the insights gained from this year away, and I look forward to helping them see that not everything is doom and gloom in the world. There are spots of brightness. You just need to give yourself time to look.

References

• Jaouen, Marion. 2025. “Air to Apparel: Carbon Capture Innovation Changing Textiles: Carbon Capture Innovation Is Transforming Fashion by Turning CO₂ into Sustainable Fibers. Explore the Process, Uses, and Key Startups to Watch.” Plug and Play, April 14.
• Biofabricate and Fashion for Good, 2020. “Understanding ‘Bio’ Material Innovations Report: A Primer for the Fashion Industry.” A report produced by a joint team of members from Fashion for Good and Biofabricate.

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