Sabbatical Stories: Part 1

They say that I am going on sabbatical.

I have taught at this university for eleven years. In that time I have pretty much done what I could. There was teaching that had to be done. I did it as best I could. There were committees that needed participation. I did it as best as I could (indeed, for two years I functioned as Associate Dean just to attend meetings for the Dean). Then there was research. I came to this university at the point of a clean break from my research. At that time I had three research projects near completion and two papers submitted to journals. There just wasn't the time or opportunity to get the projects completed or the trivial experimental work done that would have gotten the papers published. I moved from a full functioning chemistry department with over 20 faculty members to a university where there were 17 faculty. I brought more equipment with me from my research than the university could afford to purchase. Each year I see more pieces of my research equipment break and wear out. Necessary losses all.

When I resigned from a tenured faculty position with a research group at Memorial University in 1996 I understood that I would be coming to an institution that did not have a Chemistry department, did not offer a Chemistry major or minor and in fact had no plans to do so. It is called sacrifice because it hurts.

In 1996 I was hired with TJ to start the Science department here with a degree in Biology. In 1998 we added AB to faculty to support the Biology degree. Under the leadership of TJ we initiated a Biopsychology degree in 1999. It was ironic (somewhat) that after fashioning a degree around our in-house expertise that the following year T left to go to Dordt College citing personal reasons and financial pressures. A subsequent attempt to create a Environmental Studies degree here was lost on the rocks of internal politics and the Science program started to drift. We then hired and lost a faculty member due to concerns over the completion of his doctorate and moving his family to Moncton. We hired ZY in 2001 to replace TJ and then we lost AB two years later (who returned to his deeper and truer love of international development with Food for the Hungry). Our subsequent hire of PH brought our complement of Biology faculty back to two but we continue to bow to the pressures of the moment as P. completes her doctorate.

What this has meant is that we have a regular Biology degree that is respected and accepted by our regional sister Universities. I would argue however that we have not made it uniquely ours or indeed uniquely Christian ... yet.

Going to chemistry conferences these days is kind of painful in an obscure way. It used to be that my friends would cheerfully greet me at the conference mixers, extract my complimentary beverage coupons (in exchange for a ginger ale ... my standard conversion). At some point someone would pointedly ask if I felt that I had made the right decision in 1996 and I would give my usual answer that this university was a better fit for me as a whole package (person, teacher and scientist) than anywhere else in Canada and my friends would all nod sagely. This year however I got the question "So how is it that you have been there for ten years and you haven't been able to get a chemistry degree started yet?" Wow, that was a hard punch right in my privately painful teacher/scientist region. I have been asking myself the same question ever since.

We have got to get a solid Biology degree that is uniquely Christian and uniquely ours before we can build towards me (if we ever do ... I may have to resign myself to academically living as a service lecturer until I retire). I am not a biologist but what would a uniquely Christian / Uniquely Biology degree look like? I can think of some unifying themes and in discussion with some of my colleagues came up with these possibilities:

A] Under the Christian concept of Stewardship Towards God's Creation: a biology degree with a strong emphasis on Ecology or Environmental Studies where Christian Stewardship is a theme in all the courses taught. We have this marvelous, forested property that is under utilized.

B] Under the Christian concept of Education: an intimate link between the Biology and Education degrees offered here with an intentional focus on education of the Community and post-graduate Science education of the teaching professional. We already have a vigorous education degree with a professor that has a Science degree.

C] Under the Christian concept of Healing : we craft a degree program and offer courses specifically designed to aid students in entry to the medical sciences (medicine, pharmacy, dentistry perhaps even veterinary schools). We could build on the recent successful admission of one of our graduates to medical school.

If there has been a lack of leadership ... it was my failure. If there has been a problem with retention ... it was my failure. If there was a lack of collegiality that would have kept faculty here ... that was my failure as well. I have never failed at anything that I truly cared about and I am not used to it now ... I am not accepting it now. Perhaps "success" or "failure" was never the point. Perhaps it was about obedience.

I offered what credit I had as a research professor and a colleague in the local universities to give the nascent Science program here some respect in the region. Was that enough? Was that all?

The fact that I even address these questions means that I need to make a change. No one is indispensable and when one gets to the point where they feel indispensable it is time to change or move on. I am 45 and can offer another university 20 years of service. I am now at the extreme outside edge of being able to move to another university, another couple of years and I could not expect any kind of horizontal move. Perhaps I am deluded in even thinking that it would be possible now.

They say that I am going on sabbatical.

I have stuff that I have to do.
I have stuff that I have to think about.
I have changes that I need to make.

In 20 days I teach my last class of the semester.
At the end of that lecture there will be 505 days before I teach here again.

When I pray, when I lift my eyes up, when I close my eyes and feel the air I feel the need ... the potential ... the necessity for change. It would appear that this university will offer me that most wonderful of opportunities to just allow myself to think.

I wonder what I will think about.