While hundreds of students leave each term for foreign study programs around the globe, Dartmouth professors from all departments engage in their own type of leave term when they begin their professional sabbaticals.
Going on sabbatical every few years is a worldwide tradition for college and university professors. Procedure varies from school to school, but at Dartmouth, tenure-track professors who have taught full-time for three years get one term of sabbatical for every nine terms they have taught.
"This is standard among the very best universities," explained German Professor Bruce Duncan.
Professors are released from all duties for one term while their salary is continued. On sabbaticals, professors take the time to engage in scholarly research, write books, compile bibliographies, read and think about new developments in their area or even delve into a new field.
While the former President of Haverford College -- now an inn-keeper -- worked as a garbage collector and a road construction worker so as not to "lose touch with the world" while on sabbatical, projects unrelated to scholarly research are not encouraged at Dartmouth.
"This is not a vacation," emphasized Duncan, who is mainly using his two terms of sabbatical to finish writing a book on "Sturm und Drang," a historical German literary period.
He explains that a sabbatical is particularly useful in the later stages of a scholarly project, as it is hard to find the uninterrupted time necessary for writing and revising.
"When you're teaching, that's all-consuming," he said. A sabbatical leaves one free to travel, to do archival research, visit other colleges and work at other laboratories, as long as one doesn't teach or take on another job there.
"It's good to get out of here," he said, explaining that spending a sabbatical on campus may mean being drawn back into administrative responsibilities.
Associate Dean of the Faculty George Wolford agreed that sabbaticals are invaluable in order to "keep up with what's happened and to catch up with details in one's field."
Wolford is on a year-long sabbatical, his fourth, which he said is a special perk of the position of Associate Dean.
Wolford is writing a book on medical decision-making, and he said a sabbatical is the only way to find the long, uninterrupted blocks of time he wants.
"If I get interrupted, I don't get into the flow and I never get any serious writing done," he said.
The objective in leaving campus, he says, is being exposed to a completely new set of people, to encounter new ideas and find new stimulation in original feedback.
"It's absolutely marvelous to leave campus," he said. "You can get stuck in a rut in your scholarly thinking and it affects your teaching."
By teaching for nine years, one can let leave terms accrue to a maximum of one year. The professors must submit a proposal of how they intend to use their sabbatical, which the Committee of Advisers to the President -- who also determine which professors receive tenure -- must approve.
As sabbaticals are not overseen, misusing them would be possible, Duncan admits, but sabbaticals are granted on the assumption of good will. Research may not work out the way the professor had hoped, he said, but sabbaticals still constitute an invaluable component of staying informed in one's field.
