I am on sabbatical this semester, although at UNCC, we call it reassignment of duties leave. \u00a0(I think it’s illegal to call it sabbatical in NC. \u00a0WHOOPS!) \u00a0So I tell people that I’m on leave this fall, which of course makes them think I’m sitting around eating bonbons and watching Oprah.<\/p>\n
I’m not.<\/p>\n
I am “doing research” which means spending all day writing, reading articles, and analyzing data. \u00a0It’s actually a lot of fun. \u00a0Ok, that’s bullshite. \u00a0It’s not a lot of fun. \u00a0But it’s a lot less stressful than trying to do all this while I am teaching and doing my university service. \u00a0Still, it’s been \u00a0both easier and harder than I thought.<\/p>\n
The easier part is doing this all day long. \u00a0I thought I would be bored, but I’m not. \u00a0I have a four main projects I’m working on and they are interesting. \u00a0I’m also working in coffee shops nearly exclusively. \u00a0One of our Organization Science PhD students is doing a study on where people work and as I was filling out the survey, I had a “testing effect” moment–I realized that I REALLY, REALLY like working in public, particularly coffee shops, and I REALLY, REALLY hate working in isolated environments by myself. \u00a0Since then, I’ve worked nearly exclusively out and about in the coffee houses around Charlotte (Dilworth Coffee Company, Amelie’s, and, rarely, Starbucks).<\/p>\n
I have also found time to exercise during the day. \u00a0Don’t let the media fool you, that east coast earthquake was caused by me running for the first time in years.<\/p>\n
The harder parts is how much work I still have to do! \u00a0I thought I’d have leisurely days to sit and think deep thoughts about my research. \u00a0While I do feel like I am able to relax and get deeper conceptually and methodologically into my research than what I can do when I’m teaching, I’m not finding that I have free time during the work day\u00a0in any way, shape, or form. \u00a0I’m booked on my projects from the time I drop the twins off at daycare to when I pick my older son up at the bus stop. \u00a0I thought it would be easier to update this blog weekly because I’d have All This Free Time. \u00a0HA!<\/p>\n
I feel a strong need to all up the NC legislature (or some other state’s government if they are interested) and encourage them to watch me work for a week while I’m “on leave.” \u00a0We have ambitions in our state to grow our universities to become more research intensive. \u00a0To do that, we need to support our faculty more so they can do more research (i.e., regular leaves\/sabbaticals for research faculty). \u00a0And a raise more frequently than once every five years wouldn’t hurt either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am on sabbatical this semester, although at UNCC, we call it reassignment of duties leave. \u00a0(I think it’s illegal to call it sabbatical in NC. \u00a0WHOOPS!) \u00a0So I tell people that I’m on leave this fall, which of course makes them think I’m sitting around eating bonbons and watching Oprah. I’m not. I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,12],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-academic","tag-research"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p67nDP-2j","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":150,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2012\/01\/12\/end-of-sabbatical\/","url_meta":{"origin":143,"position":0},"title":"End of Sabbatical","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"January 12, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I thought I'd have more time to \u00a0update my blog during sabbatical. \u00a0I imagined posts along the lines of \"Here is what I am doing mid-sabbatical.\" \u00a0\"Here is what I am doing late sabbatical.\" \"Here are all the great thoughts the tax payers helped with with this semester!\" While I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":153,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2012\/01\/13\/public-vs-private\/","url_meta":{"origin":143,"position":1},"title":"Public vs. Private","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"January 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the outcomes of my recent research has been my belief that online groups can tell us a lot about face-to-face (FtF) groups that we either have not noticed or have interpreted through different lenses--theoretical lenses that can change once we see the behavior in online groups and interpret\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":237,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2013\/07\/24\/facebook-at-work\/","url_meta":{"origin":143,"position":2},"title":"Facebook at Work","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"July 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the newer areas of research that is getting a lot of attention is if, and how, people use Facebook at work. \u00a0Some of the negatives that arise is how employees manage issues of privacy (teacher's enjoying a beer on their personal time) and impression management from sharing one's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":117,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2011\/07\/25\/academic-conferences\/","url_meta":{"origin":143,"position":3},"title":"Academic Conferences","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"July 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I just got back from INGroup11, an interdisciplinary conference for people who study groups. You can read the twitter commentary at #INGroup11. It was one of the best conferences I have ever attended. \u00a0I realize that by saying something like that (or even worse, the tweet confessing that I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":234,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2013\/05\/16\/summer-productivity\/","url_meta":{"origin":143,"position":4},"title":"Summer Productivity","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"May 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"During the school year, when I'm working nights and weekends just to keep up with teaching and service duties, I always think the summer is going to be full of butterflies and kittens while works of brilliance shoot out of my fingers into my laptop. \u00a0I imagine high impact papers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":157,"url":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/2012\/01\/23\/dooce-and-divorce\/","url_meta":{"origin":143,"position":5},"title":"Dooce and Divorce","author":"Anita Blanchard","date":"January 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, I was pretty shocked to hear that Dooce (aka Heather Armstrong) and her husband, Jon, have decided to to separate. \u00a0No, I'm not accidentally posting on my professional blog a topic that belongs on my personal blog (or maybe I am, but I'm choosing to do it anyway).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News"","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/anitablanchard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}