https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3382-4060
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Susan Keith, The Pandemic Sabbatical: Writing after Midnight, Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 14, Issue 2, June 2021, Pages 377–380, https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcab014
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Extract
I started writing this essay at 2:01 a.m., near the beginning of my overnight pandemic research shift. For the first time in hours, my apartment—all 800 square feet of it—is quiet, except for the hiss of the radiators. My husband and 14-year-old daughter are sleeping. So is the cat. I am awake because I am on a pandemic sabbatical, and the wee hours are the only time I can think.
I am taking part in a 140-year-old academic rite of renewal (Eells & Hollis, 1962), which I need after four years as a department chair. While I was in that role—as an associate professor, which presents its own issues (Abele, 2013)—my department welcomed 5.5 new faculty members, an endowed chair, and 15 new adjuncts; worked on four promotions and eight reappointments; created nine new courses and a specialization; mastered a new scheduling system; and moved 60 course sections from face-to-face to remote delivery because of COVID-19. In addition, I provided emotional support to my husband, who was laid off at age 55 and applied for 84 positions before he found a new job; my mother, who lives 1,000 miles away and had four surgeries in a single year; and our daughter, who entered the rocky middle school years. Not surprisingly, my research output slowed.
