On Apr 28, 2009, at 10:46 PM, Tom Johnson wrote:
Owen:
For me, the best thing about tenure was that it allowed me to take
up to two years of unpaid-leave whenever I wanted, safe in the
knowledge that my job (with fine retirement and health bennies)
would be there when I came back. Without that safety valve, I
surely would not have been able to bear my 19th century dean and
many of my colleagues as long as I did. This, of course, may not be
universal policy, and it was something that I only discovered after
receiving tenure.
I can say, however, that half my colleagues never even took
sabbaticals (a semester off at full pay or two at half pay), much
less invested in their own continuing education during the regular
year.
-tom
Interesting. I talked Sun Microsystems into pseudo-sabbaticals .. one
to go to Italy and study italian and work "in the field" with Sun's
Milan office, the other to go to the SFI summer school. The deal was
that I'd pay for my daily costs and Sun would not dock me vacation time.
Both were life-changing .. wish I had done a couple more!
So if that is tenure-related, I'd say its quite important. It gets
one un-stuck.
-- Owen
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