sabbatical advice?
Orgheads:
I am going to take a sabbatical in the 2015-16 academic year. On the Facebook group, I asked for input and got one good suggestion. Here, I widen the query. What advice would you give to someone planning a sabbatical? Good places to go? Do’s and don’ts? Other ideas?
50+ chapters of grad skool advice goodness: Grad Skool Rulz/From Black Power
orgtheory.net 
There’s a facebook group?
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Brad Spahn
September 12, 2014 at 12:16 am
Yes, open to all.
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Fabio
September 12, 2014 at 1:08 am
Take a break at the beginning of the sabbatical. I left mine until the end and then didn’t take it, and ended up more stressed at the end than I should have been.
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cwalken
September 12, 2014 at 4:40 am
Find a peer whose research you are interested in and want to learn something more about. Ask him/her if you could spend your sabbatical at his/her university to start writing on a coauthored paper. It sure helps if you bring along data, if need be. Oh yeah, a host university in a great place is always nice so that you can spend some quality time there, too.
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Steffen
September 12, 2014 at 7:05 am
Come to Northwestern!
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brayden king
September 12, 2014 at 12:32 pm
Call a professor and discuss an independent course of study in your favorite area. Meet once per week to discuss readings and submit written work for commentary.
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Fredrick Welfare
September 12, 2014 at 2:36 pm
Cross the border and walk into the Canadian Rockies with just a sleeping bag, a knife, and a small aluminum cooking pot. Just before your classes start again 14 months later, come back to civilization having lost a few extremities but learned more than you thought possible about yourself.
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gabrielrossman
September 12, 2014 at 6:30 pm
Don’t: take any IU baggage along. Resign your committee assignments. Actively discourage IU folks from contacting you.
Do: learn something for yourself. A language; a subject you liked as an undergrad, but left behind; play the nyckelharpa.
Don’t: plan to stay on campus or return often. Rent out your house so you can’t go home (apologies to Thomas Wolfe)
Do: think about two locations, one in the US and one abroad. Build two new nodes in your network (for future invitations back!)
One friend, who has taken 3 sabbaticals and 4 paid leaves of absence, sweeps everything off the desk and into the trash the week before he leaves and sweeps everything off the desk the day he returns. He maintains that this lowers his stress during the leave by 25% and keeps the “local drudgery” off the calendar for at least one month after the return.
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Randy
September 12, 2014 at 10:22 pm
Moving for 10-12 months is no where near twice the amount of work or stress as moving for 5-6 months. It may even be less — e.g., it’s probably easier to rent a house in a college town for a year than it is to rent it for a semester. If there’s any way that you can swing a full year of leave, do it.
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krippendorf
September 13, 2014 at 6:22 pm