Editor's note: This is the first installation of a two-part series on College professors' sabbaticals.
While the D-Plan allows undergraduate students to leave the College to explore new opportunities throughout the year, Dartmouth professors can similarly take time off to conduct research, rejuvenate after long terms of teaching and meet new academic experts outside of the Upper Valley community as part of the College's sabbatical program.
For Dartmouth professors who are just "students with gray hair," the sabbatical experience is "tremendously exciting, fulfilling and enriching," according to religion professor Susan Ackerman.
"Sometimes professors become professors because they could never get over being students," Ackerman said. "They are life-long learners and the sabbatical time is when they have the most intense opportunity to learn and understand new things."
Dartmouth professors are eligible for one term of sabbatical leave for every nine terms they spend teaching classes, theater professor Peter Hackett said.
"The specific requirements for sabbatical call for a professor to spend a term in service of the College working on something that relates to your field that you could potentially bring back into the classroom," Hackett said. "You're not allowed to go get another job while you're on sabbatical, like running off to teach at Princeton."
Hackett will spend his sabbatical term this Fall traveling to Dublin, London, Italy and Budapest to view theater productions around the world, he said. He will attend the Dublin Theater Festival "one of the major theater festivals in the world" for the first time while away from Dartmouth.
Although his seven years as a College professor entitle him to two terms of sabbatical, Hackett will only use one in order to "rejuvenate" himself and expand his knowledge of the theater world, which he will bring back to his students, he said.
"Dublin, London and Budapest in particular are major theater centers, and in Dublin there will be performers from all over the world," Hackett said. "Being able to be exposed to new writers, performers and performance techniques in an eight-week period is just an extraordinary opportunity."
Hackett will also use the term to work on the revival of "Undue Influence," the Dartmouth Dance Theater Ensemble's 2011 production focusing on sexual assault on college campuses, he said. The play will be performed in its new form in April 2012, as part of Dartmouth's Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
The application process for a sabbatical term is "very straightforward," according Ackerman.
"A faculty member who is eligible for sabbatical will indicate to his or her department that he or she intends to take a sabbatical in the next year, for however many terms they've earned," Ackerman said. "The department is asked to approve it and they're generally anxious to do so. Every department wants to support their faculty in doing research and make it as easy and beneficial for the faculty member as possible."
After department approval, the faculty member's application is reviewed by the Dean of the Faculty's Office, Ackerman said. The Dean of Faculty's Office mainly checks to ensure that the "math is right" and that the professor has accrued the correct number of teaching terms for the number of sabbatical terms requested, she said.
Sabbatical terms spent at other colleges and universities often prove highly useful for Dartmouth faculty, according to economics professor Elias Papaioannou. Papaioannou spent his sabbatical term working with economics faculty at Harvard University in the Fall 2010.
"I spent a term taking a course similar to the one I teach here at Dartmouth about corporate finance," he said. "It was an extremely important experience for me, because the Harvard economics department is one of the top in the nation. I really enjoyed interacting with faculty and being engaged in the academic community of Harvard."
The sabbatical process allows Dartmouth faculty to create a communication network with peer institutions, Papaioannou said.
"It's super important for faculty to experience other departments, meet people and often start collaborations in the process," he said. "It also gave me the opportunity to interact with PhD students, which I wouldn't get at Dartmouth."
Computer science department chair and chair Thomas Cormen took his first sabbatical in 1996 at Carnegie Mellon University, where he researched parallel computing. For his second sabbatical, which he took in 2008, Cormen stayed in Lebanon, N.H., and finished writing and editing the third edition of "Introductions to Algorithms," a textbook that is currently used in college courses.
"My first sabbatical at Carnegie Mellon was very research focused, but for my last sabbatical, I was able to stay in touch with my graduate students and attend department meetings," Cormen said. "Something I've really learned from the sabbatical process is that you need to go where they really want you. You need to take advantage of the opportunities that arise, or else you will turn down opportunities and eventually they will stop coming."
The chance to relax while spending a term away from teaching is one of the most important elements of the sabbatical, according to Cormen.
"During your sabbatical you are able to recharge your batteries," he said. "People come back refreshed and that can't help but have an effect on one's teaching no matter what time you take your sabbatical."
Sabbatical leaves are essential to allowing Dartmouth professors to pursue their interests without the time constraints of "a full load of teaching, research and administrative duties," according to chemistry professor Gordon Gribble. Gribble has taken three sabbaticals since he began teaching at Dartmouth in 1968.
As the recipient of a senior faculty fellowship in 1991, Gribble worked with two research groups at the University of Hawaii, Manoa to collect organisms in search of new biologically active compounds as potential drugs. In 1999, he continued marine research in California, where he took advantage of his location to pursue a personal interest in winemaking.
"I continued my pursuit of marine studies with a world-renowned marine chemist at the University of Calfornia, Santa Cruz," he said. "My host was also the owner of Pelican Ranch Winery in Santa Cruz, and as I am a home winemaker of long standing, I spent time studying the chemistry of wine and winemaking with my host and friend."
Gribble took his most recent sabbatical in 2006, spending a year at Gettysburg College as a research fellow in chemistry and Civil War era studies to research the use of anesthetics during the Civil War, he said. During this time, Gribble was also able to finish his book, "Naturally Occurring Organohalogen Compounds," which was published last year.
The connection between sabbatical experiences and time in the classroom is an "inevitable" one, according to studio art professor Louise Hamlin.
"Anyone who practices what they teach, be it scientific research, creative arts or intellectual exploration of our worlds and our humanity, cannot help but bring the work from their sabbaticals back into the classroom," she said. "It is a big chunk of who they are, what they value and what they want to communicate. It is understood that by practicing something, people are better qualified to teach it."
Hamlin spent her sabbatical in 2009 in the Upper Valley, where she used her time to work on a series of paintings of the Mascoma River at different times of the year, she said.
