Bethany Wilinski is an associate professor of teacher education at Michigan State University and a sabbatical coach. In Part 1 of our conversation, she describes her own sabbatical experience. She talks about how earning tenure in 2022 after the pandemic, young children, and family losses left her burned out and questioning her work’s impact. Initially she planned an “expected” research sabbatical in Tanzania and applied for a competitive yearlong Fulbright, but soon felt unease about starting a major new project and disrupting family life. After seeing a colleague’s Florence sabbatical report, she reframed sabbatical as restoration and family reconnection, chose Bordeaux France for one semester, and returned reenergized and eager to reengage without resuming frenetic pace. She discusses shifting identity beyond career, setting boundaries, pausing before saying yes, focusing on finishing work, and unlearning academia’s hidden curriculum of constant striving.

00:29 Introduction

04:09 Burnout After Tenure and Initial Sabbatical Plans

09:14 Navigating Doubts After Submitting and Expectations

14:03 Post Tenure Pressure

18:18 Slowing Down For Family

24:19 A Different Sabbatical Vision

30:14 Restoration Mindset Shift and Choosing Bordeaux France

33:16 Returning Reenergized

35:59 Identity Beyond Academia

37:52 Boundaries and Saying No

41:26 Essentialism and Finishing

43:19 Hidden Curriculum Unlearning

48:37 Support Systems and Guardrails

52:09 Designing Your Sabbatical

52:33 Outro

Related Links:

Bethany’s Michigan State Uni webpage

Bethany Wilinski Sabbatical Coaching

Bethany on LinkedIn

[Book] Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Crown Currency 2014.

Welcome to Changing Academic Life.

I'm Geraldine Fitzpatrick, and this is a podcast series where academics and

others share their stories, provide ideas, and provoke discussions about what

we can do individually and collectively to change academic life for the better.

I think sometimes that becomes like you're just on autopilot and you're doing it.

Like I think I've been doing good work, but I wasn't, I was so focused on tenure

and getting publications out and doing the next thing that I thought I needed

to do, that I had actually never stopped to ask myself if the things I was doing

were what I actually really wanted to do.

Like, is this what I'm passionate about?

Yeah.

Is this how I want my career to take shape?

I am curious whether you recognize yourself in this

or whether it was just me.

I think we can all get caught up on autopilot and on the next thing,

and we miss the opportunities, those really important opportunities

to pause and reflect and reset.

I am talking here with Bethany Wilinski.

Bethany's an associate professor of teacher education at

Michigan State University and she's also a sabbatical coach.

What Bethany was talking about in this clip was her wake up moment when

she was planning her own sabbatical.

So in part one of this conversation, Bethany describes how she started

off with the autopilot option and then she recognized that she

was actually really burned out.

And needed to make some very different choices.

This led her to reframe her sabbatical as a time for restoration and connection.

It's such a rich conversation covering topics like shifting identity,

setting boundaries, pausing before saying yes, focusing on finishing

work and unlearning academia's hidden curriculum of constant striving.

And while the particular context for Bethany's story is post-tenure sabbatical,

I think the insights that she shares can apply equally well to all career

stages and to all types of leave, like also parental leave and so on.

And this is whether you are a post-doc or post-tenure, or getting into your

later career stage where you may also be starting to question the

shape of the rest of your career.

So I hope you enjoy part one here.

We'll follow up in the next episode with part two where Bethany will go on

to share some practical tips and tricks about how you can be more intentional

in designing your own sabbatical.

Bethany, thank you very much for joining me and why I want to talk

to you today is I know that you are really passionate about the idea

of sabbaticals and that we approach sabbaticals with much more intention,

and being intentional is a theme of this current season of the podcast.

So it actually fits really nicely in that.

Do you want to introduce yourself first?

Sure.

My name is Bethany Wilinski and I am an associate professor of teacher education

at Michigan State University in the US.

I've been in that role for actually almost 11 years Exactly now.

I started in January, 2015, and I earned tenure in July, 2022.

And then I took a sabbatical for a year during the academic year of 2023, 2024.

Right.

And it was that sabbatical experience that put you on this passion path?

What happened?

Sure.

I mean, so it actually started with the planning, which is why

I focus on sabbatical planning in my coaching business.

But what happened is by the time I got tenure, I was just completely burned out.

You know, two young kids during the pandemic.

I joke with my son that my, he's now 12 and I joke that he was a kindergarten

dropout because the pandemic started when he was in kindergarten and school

ended in March and we never went back.

Yeah, so, and then my daughter was, just under two when the pandemic started.

So we were very busy and very stressed.

And then it felt like for people with young kids, it took, you know, multiple

years, I think, kind of the rest of the world had gone back to normal and we were

still dealing with school closures and daycare closures when anyone got COVID.

So that was extremely stressful.

And then, we had a lot of loss in our family.

My mom got diagnosed with a terminal illness and died, you know, not too

long after my mother-in-law unexpectedly passed away, close to my mom.

And so, we were exhausted.

I was exhausted, but I saw the sabbatical as like, it was a lot, it was a lot.

But I'd always looked forward to my sabbatical.

And so I saw it kind of there as a beacon.

Like, this is going to save me, this is going to help me, you know, get some time

to get my feet under me and recharge.

And I always assumed that I would go away for my sabbatical

because I do research in Tanzania.

So I study early childhood education.

I do work in the US but I also do work in Tanzania.

And so, you know, you can imagine I have to wedge those trips to

Tanzania in around everything else, you know, teaching and with the

kids it's hard to get away for long.

You were still doing travel for the research?

Yes.

Yeah, so I was traveling, I mean, with the pandemic of course I had like a

two year break, but by the time I got tenure I think I had started going back.

But I thought, well, sabbatical would be such a great time to spend a year

in Tanzania working on my research.

And so I think I automatically, when my sabbatical was coming

up, I was very excited about it.

But I also very quickly started planning the sabbatical.

That was kind of the expected sabbatical, right?

The one that would be professionally most meaningful.

So when you say expected, where did you get the notions

from about what's expected?

My own head, or the way I've been socialized as an academic.

I do, you know, my work is in the field of comparative education, and so I

think there's something that's in the water, and I do ethnographic research.

So being in country for an extended period of time is very important.

And I think I had seen, you know, mentors, colleagues who went before me

who used their sabbatical as time to have that extended period in the field.

Right.

So, so it was, and I, and I wanted to.

Yeah.

So a combination of both.

Having seen other people do it and that it aligned nicely with your research approach

and that being immersed in the culture.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I had spent, you know, the reason I do work in Tanzania is because when

I, I, my undergraduate degree was in elementary education, and so I

taught, my first job out of college was actually teaching in Tanzania.

Wow.

So I had lived there for two years.

I met my husband there.

So it's a special place and I, and in my current role, I'm a regular

faculty member, but I also work on our, we have an, a sustainable

development project in Tanzania, so I'm very much engaged in Tanzania.

So there was also a personal pull to being, being there and having

the opportunity to live there again.

My husband was excited.

We were excited about, you know, bringing our children

there to live for a little bit.

So.

So that all sounds perfect.

What happened?

Right.

And I, and I thought it was, I know you're like, why would you

not have taken that sabbatical?

So the way I approached it, I applied for a Fulbright, which is a US

department of State grant that allows you, you know, that would've funded

me to go to Tanzania for a year.

They're very competitive.

And so I wrote a very, what I think was a very compelling application.

I proposed this, you know, the goal is really collaboration.

And so I had proposed a new collaboration and it was a very, you know, huge

involved project with new collaborators.

Not my, not the ones I had worked with already, but I thought, well,

this will be a nice way to, you know, meet new collaborators.

But then I'll also obviously have time with the friends and colleagues

I current I already have, you know?

And so almost as soon as I think I I clicked submit on that application,

I thought, I don't know if this is actually the sabbatical that I need.

I'm exhausted, I'm burned out.

I have projects, so many projects in Tanzania, so much data that

I have not already dealt with.

Yeah.

And I'm not sure starting something new and big is actually going to serve me.

Can I probe on what you just said there though?

Because you said as soon as you press submit, you thought.

Was it a thought or did it start in your body somewhere?

Do you know what I mean?

It probably started in my body.

Yeah.

Probably an uneasiness.

I think, as you know, I always tell my clients.

You don't need more advice from me on how to be more productive.

Right.

If you're at the point in your career where, at least in the US if you've

earned tenure, earned a sabbatical, you're pretty productive and highly motivated.

Right?

But I think sometimes that becomes like you're just on

autopilot and you're doing it.

Like maybe, I think I've been doing good work, but I wasn't, I was so focused

on tenure and getting publications out and doing the next thing that I

thought I needed to do, that I had actually never stopped to ask myself

if the things I was doing were what I actually really wanted to do.

Like, is this what I'm passionate about?

Yeah.

Is this how I want my career to take shape?

Yeah.

And so there must have been something that I paused or I had a quiet

moment, and this kind of feeling started creeping in like, mm. I don't

know if this is really what I want.

And part of it, there was a logistical piece to this.

So my husband was an academic at the time, and he is a scientist, so he was working

in a lab, and so he really couldn't go to Tanzania for a full year, but the

only grant available was for a full year.

And so there was a tension because I thought, well, I mean, in theory I could

be in Tanzania by my, either by myself, and he would have the kids in the US or

he would come back to the US after a time and I would be in Tanzania with the kids.

But as I played that out in my head, I thought, that's not what I want.

I really like spending time with my husband.

I don't want to be, you know, the being in Tanzania is not worth upsetting

our family dynamic in that way.

So I think it was a combination of like really wrapping my head maybe around the

personal side of it, but then also this.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think, like you said, this maybe a feeling that, I don't know,

I just, I really need to slow down.

I need a break.

I don't need this.

Yeah.

This huge new project.

It's interesting, isn't it?

The, I don't know, the way that we can get on these treadmills, that

just keep running faster and faster so people keep pressing the speed

button to keep the band going faster.

Yeah.

And that's our mode, that's our mode of working and operating thinking.

And so, you know, sabbatical is next thing on the list, tick.

And what do we need to do to progress and advance?

And that just stopping and thinking.

I mean, even just sort of the stopping and thinking.

Because I'm sure you put, well, clearly you did put a lot of

thought into the proposal.

Yes.

But it was that intellectual thought in from the treadmill, wasn't it?

Rather from the sounds of it in the, and doing more, gathering more.

Yeah.

And it was kind of the, how can I put together the strongest proposal and also

what can I do that really will benefit or make a contribution to the institution

that I'm asking to partner with?

Right.

Because part of the, the goal of this grant, it's a, you know, in the US we

don't have a lot of diplomacy right now.

We're not focused on that.

But the idea is that you are building these cross-cultural connections.

Mm-hmm.

So I was thinking about my career, but it was also a very engaged project where

I was trying to think of what are the ways that if I'm here in Tanzania, being

hosted by an institution, that I can be most useful and beneficial in some

way, and not just be, you know, a drag on their system or be doing something

that's totally irrelevant to their departmental or institutional goals.

And yet when you also talk about just being worn out and burnt out, you

know, there's the question of when you get to stand back and look, how much

use can you be from that position?

Like what resources have you got left to bring?

Exactly.

And I had very few.

I mean, I had, at that time I was not reading much about burnout,

but since I've, you know, been reading more about burnout and

I think, the way that cynicism takes over, the way that you doubt.

I mean, I was sitting there saying, well, I got tenure, so I have a job for life.

I've been validated by peers.

And I felt at that time like I wanted to quit my job, which just doesn't make

any sense because I felt this, there's this very existential feeling like.

Does any of this really matter?

Like am I making an impact if I'm just publishing journal articles?

Is that actually doing anything to improve the world or education?

Mm-hmm.

Right.

And since I work in an applied field, I feel like, you know, the reason

I do research is because I want to make things a little better if I can

for teachers and kids and families.

And so I, as I look back now, I realize that sort of disengagement or just kind

of right unfounded resentment toward maybe students who weren't doing anything wrong,

it was just my own frustration and being, having no energy or resources left that

was driving that cynicism and resentment.

Do you think this is a common thing?

Post-tenure?

Because it feels like, especially in the US system where tenure in, in some other

countries institutions, there is that sort of equivalent of a tenure review process,

you know, promotion to the next step.

But it's more, a checkpoint for everyone and a nice sort of

validation point rather than there are only X positions and x plus Y

people applying for these positions.

And so it feels like, especially in the US there's much more

pressure on that tenure process.

I think so I think, you know, I have a good friend who was a faculty

member in Australia and then Scotland.

And what I learned from his process is that the US system is very

high stakes, I think for tenure.

So if you get denied tenure, then you have one more year at your

institution and then you have to leave.

You can't try again.

Yeah.

So I do think, there's a lot of pressure.

And then the other thing that happens, and you know, I, I really like my job

and so this is not to throw shade at my institution or department, but when I

was going up for tenure, the expectations were not very clear and it just felt

like, you know, I think some institutions will say, you need this many articles

in these types of journals, or, and, and so you know what you're aiming for.

To me, going up for tenure felt like you just had to do more and more.

And I think some people are in this situation where no one will kind of

tell them when they've met the bar.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so then it does put you in this position of feeling very

unsure whether you've ever kind of done what you're supposed to do.

Mm-hmm.

And the, the cynic in me feels like sort of the, the neoliberal university

maybe likes that a little bit.

Happy, happy for the, it makes you more productive, you know?

Yeah.

If you're constantly striving.

So I do, you know, the more people I meet now through my work, I

think it is very common for people to just feel very burnt out.

Mm-hmm.

And honestly, particularly women and women who are starting families early

in their career, I think there is a lot to balance in this constant weight of,

you know, well I need to get another publication out, or I have to go to this

conference in order to build my network so that my external reviewers will be

able to write good things about me.

You know, and there's always this like, you need to network and get

to know people, but people can't know you that well because then they

can't write for you for your review.

So yeah, just a lot of grace space and a lot of, a lot of striving, I think.

Yeah.

And what other ways did that sense of sort of burnout worn out, play out for you?

You talked about the students just being too much or just wondering

what you were doing, having impact.

Yeah, I mean, I think just, I really slowed down on my research.

I was really not very interested in, in working on my research.

I think after I got tenure, I mean, the nice thing was that I

felt like I could finally breathe.

And so I think I took that next year.

Different institutions do it differently.

We had to, once you get tenure, you can't go on sabbatical right away.

So I had a year where I went back and I was teaching and doing my regular work.

You apply that fall for sabbatical, but then you don't start your sabbatical

until the following academic year.

And so in some ways that is really nice if, because I think I went

back and I just, every time I had that feeling of I have to do this, I

could stop and say, but do I have to?

Why do I have to?

Is this an a real expectation or is this an expectation that I've put on myself?

And most of those were expectations I put on myself because at that point,

if I already had tenure, I mean, I knew that I wanted to continue my research.

I knew that I wanted to continue publishing, but there was no urgency.

Yeah.

And so I think I spent that year, I think because I was so burned out

and exhausted, I spent that year kind of stepping back a little bit.

Yeah.

And really easing up on the pace that I had been working at.

Yeah.

And that, and that's definitely a theme I've heard from people I've

talked to for the podcast series over the years, getting through

tenure and just that time afterwards.

And it sounds like it's such an important time, as you said, to breathe.

Just to breathe.

Yeah.

And to just reconnect with a longer term perspective about

what are you doing and why.

Yeah.

And also to give my family a break, you know?

Yeah.

I think my, I think sometimes we underestimate the amount of,

or the ripple effect that our own stress has on our family.

And I know for me it's very real because my husband will always say, well,

you're grumpy and the kids are grumpy.

And I'm like, that's not fair.

Why does everyone have to peg their emotions to mine?

They need to choose someone else to, you know, to tether

to, but, you know, so it is.

And so I think, you know, it really, when you have an ecosystem

of people that you're a part of, it's not just my tenure process.

I mean, we had all been working very hard to support me through this process.

Mm. And so it also became an opportunity to say, okay, let's kind of slow down

the pace and also think about . You know, my husband who's followed

me to Michigan for my job and is now figuring out his own career.

Maybe the focus doesn't need to be on me.

Maybe we can shift the focus and part of that for me means, you know,

traveling a little less or saying, do I have to go to that conference?

Or can I be here so that the caregiving, you know, the solo parenting is not

always falling to him or, what does he maybe, does he need longer days and so

I can be with the kids a little more.

That sort of thing.

Yeah,

I, I think we're starting to get more discussion and awareness

about how we're not superhero solo researchers off on our Grand quest,

but we are part of an ecosystem and we build on the work of others and,

you know, collaborate with others.

And I don't often hear families getting included in that

discussion of the ecosystem.

And that's a lovely reminder that we are multiply connected and, and anything we do

is achieved, you know, in the context of all of these different relationships with

the different costs that are entailed.

Yeah, and I think that, I mean, the perspectives that we've taken in my family

is that this, having these moments where, you know, I go to Tanzania for a week or

two for field work, those provide nice opportunities for the kids and my husband

to have a different kind of relationship.

Right.

And so we've created a family life that does not depend on.

Me being present.

And it shouldn't because they're his children too.

He should be able to take care of them.

But I think sometimes, you know, things default so much

to mom in these situations.

Yeah.

And, I'm fortunate that my husband has been very supportive

of, you know, understanding that my work involves this travel.

And he's encouraging of it.

Because I know when he goes away I'm like, when are you coming back?

This is, this is hard to do on my own.

But he is always very gracious about it.

But yeah, and I think like the kids, you know, I, my son, I always joke that

he's my, well now he's like my business advisor because he asks me questions

about my sabbatical coaching business.

But before that, you know, he's very curious about the method, the methodology

I use and kind of what I'm doing.

And so I try to include them in those conversations so they understand,

you know, when I'm traveling it's not because I want to get away from you

guys, but here's the goal of that trip.

And here's, and for me, and with Tanzania, it's really about, it's

about research, but it's also about building relationships over time.

And so I want to keep going back to say, I'm here with you, I'm

learning with you, and I'm not just someone who's kind of popping in,

collecting my data and then leaving.

Yeah.

So being there regularly is very important to me.

Yeah.

So what did you end up deciding to do with that sabbatical then?

Oh yeah.

We really, we really left the audience with a cliffhanger there, so.

Your Fullbright applications in click, smile on the face,

then a pit in the stomach and

Yes, exactly.

And I had also been coming up with ideas like, if I don't get the Fulbright,

how can I go to Tanzania anyway?

Right.

And researching schools and apartments.

So the whole thing was underway.

The other thing that happened is in my department we have this nice tradition

of when folks come back from sabbatical, often during the first faculty meeting

of the year, the department meeting, we'll have a sabbatical report where

people do a slideshow and it's really nice because they talk not just about

the academic things that they did during sabbatical, but they also show pictures.

And you know, many people have kids and so they're talking about

what they did with their kids.

And so it's very nice.

Soon after I submitted my Fulbright application, my colleague David gave his

sabbatical report presentation, and he had been in Florence for his sabbatical.

And I looked at his pictures and I just thought, oh, I kind

of want David's sabbatical.

I've been planning this sabbatical in Tanzania where I, you know,

a country that I love to be in.

But I just thought his seemed so magical.

And I hadn't been to Europe in a long time and I thought, I just imagined myself

like walking down cobblestone streets and looking at beautiful architecture.

And like you said before, like there was something inside me that thought.

I felt calm thinking about that version of sabbatical, a calmness that

I didn't feel when I thought about my sabbatical that I was planning.

And so I remember I said to my, I think I actually, after that meeting,

said to one of my good friends, like, I think I want David's sabbatical.

And I was joking, but not really because then I started thinking

differently about my sabbatical.

I started asking myself different questions.

So before this moment, before this sort of turning point, I thought sabbatical is

about the next professional step, right?

It's about positioning myself for the next part of my career.

It's doing something meaningful, and it is right, like there is an accountability.

Sabbatical is not just a vacation.

You have to show that you're doing something to, you know,

advance your career, benefit the institution, that sort of thing.

But I started asking questions like, what if sabbatical was about

having an adventure as a family or reconnecting as a family?

What if sabbatical was about my husband's career and not mine?

What would be useful for him?

I've been pulling him along to lots of different things.

What if my sabbatical was about rest and overcoming burnout and not right?

Surprise that, that didn't cross my mind until about five

months into thinking about it.

And as I asked myself those questions, I really just, all these new possibilities

for sabbatical came into my mind.

And I really, I decided to build my sabbatical, not about the next, you

know, not around the next logical professional thing, but around me.

Overcoming burnout, reconnecting with my work, reconnecting, like

having some fun with my family.

Because I felt like the past four years had just been

really stressful for all of us.

Maybe three years at that point.

I can't, I feel like COVID has just created this blur in my mind where

I can't keep track of time anymore.

And what if it were about finishing projects instead of starting new ones?

So I thought going to Tanzania is lovely for all the reasons

that I had described to you.

But the other thing is that being in Tanzania requires me to always be

engaging and being in relationship with people and starting, you

know, starting something new.

And I just started thinking that what I actually needed was some

time where I wasn't building lots of relationships and starting something new.

I needed time that was a little more quiet where I could read, think

deeply about the projects that I had started and evaluate whether I still

wanted to continue them, and then to just analyze some data and do some

writing, because that's the part of my job that I really like the most.

And so I wanted to create space for myself to kind of get back into those

scholarly activities that really make me feel connected and like

I'm doing something meaningful.

So that is a long way of then and then of explaining.

And you had said that part of the burnout was just feeling like me getting

back into the research again was Yeah.

So it's a so lovely shift in perspective.

I just have this picture in my head of this busy, busy, busy and then

they're going and giving and building new relationships and collecting more

data is the, the busy academic mind.

And, I loved the what if questions, just allowing yourself the space to,

I mean, that's even just stopping, stopping and asking what if is a stop.

Mm-hmm.

What if it could be different?

And that the point that you came to was this isn't about giving

out, and collecting more.

It's about taking in and reconnecting to yourself and other things that

are important or that you love doing.

Yeah.

It was really about restoration.

Yeah.

And, and at that point it became very exciting.

So I. I mean, things might have spiraled a little bit.

My husband said it was a little, I don't think it was stressful, but I think it was

amusing to him because for the next two or three months, I have serious wanderlust.

And so for the next two or three months, I would be like,

what if we went to Costa Rica?

What if we went to Portugal?

What if we went to Spain?

And so I just had so many ideas.

I was researching all these different possibilities.

And we eventually settled on, Bordeaux, France as our sabbatical destination.

And it was a little bit, a little bit pragmatic.

One of the criteria I had in my mind was somewhere that was a little bit

warmer than where we live here in the mm-hmm frozen tundra of Michigan.

My husband, his preferred temperature, I don't know what it is in Celsius, but

would be like 80 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit.

So originally I was looking at Spain for those reasons.

Mm-hmm.

But then in Spain or Portugal, it would've been difficult to get a long-term visa.

So we were worried about where we could get a visa, knowing that I

had completely abandoned the idea of being attached to a university.

So in Tanzania I would've been attached to a university and this new version of

sabbatical, I said, let's go somewhere that we want to be as a family and where

we can have, and also I was sort of thinking of my husband's career and he had

wanted to make some connections in Europe, so we kind of landed on Europe and then

it was between, Valencia and Bordeaux.

And Bordeaux had kind of the right combination.

There was a small bilingual school we could send the kids to.

It was a place where we could have the lifestyle that we wanted as a family.

We live a very suburban life where we drive everywhere and we just wanted to

not have a car, take public transit, eat good food and, and be in Europe where

we could travel around with the kids and have some reconnect with the part of us,

you know, that really enjoys adventure and travel and being in new places.

Mm-hmm.

So we spent, about five or six months.

So one semester, the fall semester in Bordeaux.

and then because my husband, I joked that, you know, he was

the, . Weighing us down or he prevented us from staying a full year.

But we had, we came back to Michigan for the second part of my sabbatical

because he had to go back to work.

But we had this magical sabbatical in Bordeaux and it really, it

did for me what I needed it to do.

And if people could see your face when you talked about that, you just lit up

and, I could see you almost reliving the, some of the memories when you're talking

about the magical, the magical time.

Yeah, absolutely.

I get feeling that, if you had have done the sabbatical that you first planned, you

would've come back even more burned out.

How did you come exactly back after this sabbatical?

So, the biggest surprise for me, was that when we came back to the US.

We, we came back right before Christmas, and then in about January

I actually wanted to pick up my work.

I felt a desire to reengage, and I should say that I did no

work while we were in Bordeaux.

And it felt like a risk because I really worried if I, if I stop working,

will I ever want to start again?

And the answer was yes, because I let myself rest.

I, I mean, I walked around Bordeaux, I had coffee with fr, you know, I made

friends and we would go out for lunch.

We cooked more.

We took day trips.

I did a lot of jigsaw puzzles, which is something I really enjoy.

And so, and I, I ran a lot.

I really wanted to get back into running.

And so I also trained for half marathon.

And so I did one in Nice actually in November.

I think I tried to get into the Bordeaux one, but it fill up very quickly.

Yeah,

because I, I believe they stopped for wine tastings en route.

Is it?

People aren't so concerned about their times.

Yes.

Yeah.

There is one that goes through the, I think the Medoc wine region.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

I don't know if I could do it.

Drinking wine.

I mean, there's one, like in Wisconsin, I went to a grad

school in Madison, Wisconsin.

And so Wisconsin is a big beer state, I guess.

And so at the end of the marathon, as I think is, or the half marathon as I think

is normal, there's always beer at the end.

And I just think like, oh, that's the last thing I want after I'm done running.

But, anyway, so it was, you know, on a day-to-day basis.

There wasn't, we weren't doing anything terribly exciting.

The kids were going to school, but it was just like, Bordeaux is a beautiful city.

We drank good wine, we ate croissants.

When we've gone back now we stock up on butter, we bring it back.

Because you just can't get butter like that in the us.

But it was the, the time that I needed.

And then in the, when we came back, I mean, in the spring semester, I

was excited to get back into work.

But I didn't get back on that treadmill.

I was not working at like full time at the pace that I was before sabbatical.

Because, so you talked about it being a restoration and it sounds like a reset.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And it, it changed the way I see my career, I think.

So one of the things that was very interesting about being in

France was that no one cared what I did about my profession, right?

We live in a university town where we know a lot of professors and and

I think the US is just a little bit more, like the first question

people ask is what do you do?

And we talk about work a lot.

And in France, you know, I think people were curious about how we were able to

just live in Bordeaux for five months.

But after I'd say I have an annee sabbatique they'd say, oh, okay.

And then no one cared.

No one wanted to know my resume, right?

Or my cv.

And I think something I discovered was that I can be an interesting

person who makes friends and enjoys their life without having my

academic, my career as the foreground.

And it was hard because it, for me, talking about work is easy.

So then thinking about what else do I like to talk about or do.

But I think for me, that really shifted my perspective on my career

and who I am in relation to my career.

And so it's something that I continue to work on is kind of being less

attached to my scholarly identity and remembering that I have a lot

of other, other things that I value and other things that are important

that, Hmm, that I want to prioritize.

I love that question.

Who am I in relation to my career?

And how do you keep reminding yourself to reflect on that?

Because once you get back into the system, I imagine it's

easy to get pulled back into.

I am my career.

I think one of the ways is.

The boundaries that I set, or asking myself the question of, is this something

that I have to do, actually have to do?

Or is it something that I'm telling myself I have to do?

And so an example is a colleague and I, we have a grant right now to do some

work in Tanzania, and we were kind of looking ahead to the next grant and

we had to make a decision this fall.

The call for proposals came out.

It was going to be a very quick turnaround, and old Bethany would've

said, okay, like, come on, let's do it.

And I would've, that would've taken over a month of my life and

I would've been very stressed out and working long hours on this.

And instead I said, okay, well, we currently have a grant.

It doesn't end until the end of June.

We're going to have writing to do after that.

Do we actually need to spend the time right now applying for a new grant?

Is that the best use of our time?

And the answer was we didn't have to.

No one was telling us we had to.

And in fact, right now is a challenging time to apply for a grant because

so much funding has been cut in the US that these foundations are

being flooded with applicants.

And then, and I thought about, is that what I want my life to

look like in the next month?

And no, it's not.

So you know that that funding will probably be there and

if it's not, that's okay.

And there'll be other funding somewhere.

There'll be right.

Mm. So I think it's hard because unlearning that muscle memory

of just, you always have to go for the next thing is very hard.

But I think I've also.

I'm just able to maybe slow down a little bit and I don't always get it right.

I make mistakes and then I have to undo it.

But, giving myself time to pause.

I have a colleague who said she never, when someone asks her if she wants

to take on a new project, she always waits 24 hours before responding.

And so I've tried to do something like that where, again, I think this

is a very gendered thing or I'm a people pleaser, but I think I have

this, I want to make you happy.

So I will say yes, and just saying, I'm gonna need to think about that, or I'm

going to need to look at my schedule and see if I have time for that.

Helps me to not just, yeah, take on more and more and more

because I feel like I need to.

Yeah.

And also, you said early in the conversation about this being

applied work and work that you really care about and the impact

that you wanna have through the work.

So it's also that thing of, also wanting to have that impact.

And that's just such a wise thing to do, just to gain that pause and

that space just to create the time to reflect and really think about.

Reminded me of a question that I often ask myself.

Sometimes I have a post-it hanging on my thing about if I say yes

to this, what am I saying no to?

Yes.

And you've just articulated that whole trade off, that is entailed

in any of these decisions.

Because you could, and that's one of the problems with academia, isn't it?

There's no stopping point.

You can always, have another grant and put in the month or more to write it.

Yeah.

And then when you get it, you've got to deliver on it

. And it's a lot easier to start things and work on new ideas than to finish them.

And so I think the other thing that I've realized is that I am able to

follow through and publish things, but if you're constantly in this cycle of

starting something new, then you don't give yourself time to really think

about, what you want to write about it.

And that's where we have the impact.

It's not in collecting the data.

. So I think there's a, there's a book that I had, that I'd read, or I think I

skimmed because it's fairly obvious, but I think it has a good, important message.

It's called Essentialism, and I think the image on the is kind of this circle with,

I don't know, eight arrows emanating from it, going in all different directions.

And the main idea of the book is that if you are putting energy into

so many different little things, you don't make an impact on any of them.

And if you streamline and you choose a few things to focus on, then you

can make your highest contribution to the things that you are working on.

Yeah.

And so I try to think about that too.

Where do I want to make my highest contribution?

Yeah.

And that's something that the egg collecting in academia of how many grants

and how many papers and the targets that performance metrics we lose focus on.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And I think it's counter-cultural to say, I'm actually going to

try to do less, but do it better.

Better.

Because I'll be more focused.

And the finishing is such a good point as well.

Because again, I think that's something that I, I reflect back on.

There are many things that we did the work on, we collected the data on and

never finished in the wrapping up.

You talked about the time and space to reflect and draw out the insights

and that from the work and you come from an education background and

you also talked about unlearning.

In what ways do you think your disciplinary background influences

your thinking around these issues around unlearning and the importance

of reflecting and thinking?

Yeah, that's a great question that I haven't thought about.

But I think, you know, in education we talk about the explicit curriculum

and then the hidden curriculum.

Hmm.

So in any classroom there is, of course, kids are learning

algebra or geometry or whatever.

But then there's also a hidden curriculum in the way that kids are being socialized

or the kinds of implicit signals that they're getting about how to act in a

classroom or the kinds of things that will get positive attention from a teacher.

And so I think I have been thinking more about this, partly because

I'm teaching a research methods class in the spring and I think.

We're going to do kind of a class research project about the hidden

curriculum of being a graduate student.

Mm-hmm.

You know, the [Oh, lovely].

The things people tell you and the things that they don't tell you.

Just as a way of learning how to do interviews and observations.

That's a lovely meta project.

Yeah.

I thought it would be meaningful to the students.

And it's not in anyone's research area, I don't think.

So I think part of what I'm trying to do is unlearn the

hidden curriculum maybe, or the,

the, yeah, I don't know.

Maybe just also have more agency in the pro process to not just be

caught up in the wave of, well, this is what the academy wants me to do.

Um, and to sort of resist the the expectation that you'll just give

more and more of yourself for quite frankly, not more compensation.

I got asked over the summer, I was getting emails from a unit

on campus asking me to be part of meetings about some new initiative.

And I thought, initially I thought, oh, this is kind of interesting.

But then I realized I wasn't really clear about what they were asking of me.

And so I asked the question that I think you're not really supposed to ask is

like, how do you imagine that being part of this work is going to benefit faculty?

And they said, well, you know, if you have a research interest in X, it might be.

And I just said, well, thanks.

That's really clarifying.

Actually, I don't prefer to be part of these conversations.

Mm-hmm.

Because again, it would've taken me away from the things that I care about.

And so I could have spent, you know, these hour long brainstorming

meetings and I think it's important work, but it's not work for me to do.

And it's, it can feel very flattering.

I think ego is part of it too, right?

It feels flattering to be asked to be part of something or to write something.

I think some people are surprised when they ask me, oh, would you write a

chapter about this for this edited volume?

And I say, well, that's not actually my research interest.

So no, I'm not able to.

And people have a hard time hearing that People have a hard time hearing

you say, no, I'm not, you know, well, but it's going to be so prestigious.

Well, that's, that's lovely.

But it's actually not I don't want to spend six months or a

year of my life working on this.

Not because it's not important, it's just not what I am focused on.

It's not important.

It's not your important for now.

Yeah.

And it's easy to get, I think, pulled into things because it feels flattering

to be asked to be on a committee or to make a contribution to something.

But like you said, every time you say yes to something, you're

saying no to other things.

And so I think that's the other way that I try to keep things in check is saying

like, do I actually, if I say yes to this, what is my life going to look like in two

or three months and what am I not able to do either professionally or personally?

Because I'm just not interested in being a person who is working

frenetically all the time.

And when my son was very young, my husband and I decided we basically

would not work on the weekends.

And so I told myself if the work that I'm able to do, and still

be present with my family, can get me tenure, then that's great.

And if it doesn't, then I'm sure I have other marketable skills that I

could use in a different industry.

Yeah.

And that's something we do need to remind all of ourselves and our

students and our colleagues about that.

We can get obsessed with this one gold standard supposed career path.

And there are many ways that we can apply our skills.

So a lot of your personal journey, it seems post-tenure has been

about finding your own identity and what's important to you.

And finding your agency in making the choices, in saying yes or no

in asking the what if questions.

I'm just curious, do you have any like reflective journaling practice or

anything like that to help you in this?

Or is this just something that sort of mulls in your head?

Yeah, I wish I could say that I had a journaling practice, but no, I think it's

just something that happens in my head.

And then I have a great friend and mentor.

I just spent a couple hours with her the other day and she's a,

a great person for me to kind of say, this is what's happening.

These are the choices that I'm making, or this is coming up and it's friction.

And she's very.

Helpful in, you know, she'll call me out if I'm just being selfish or unreasonable.

Yeah.

But in saying like, it's okay to make decisions that, that meet your needs and

to not get pulled into other people's expectations or do things just because

other people want you to do them.

Yeah.

That's lovely.

Just having that sort of support and colleague that you can trust to do that.

Yeah.

Because so many people will, I think, encourage you to just keep going.

It's, it's well-meaning, right?

But I think people will say, well this strategic thing would be to do this.

And so someone who kind of help will validate the idea that I

don't need to be doing everything.

But I think the more I think I do reflect on it, but also the more I

practice it, the more I stop and think about things and then make a decision

that's grounded in sort of my own values or how I want to spend my time.

I think it becomes easier.

And it's a little easier to then see the things where, you know, or

to see colleagues who are kind of like unnecessarily wrapping themself

up in the department politics or taking on more and more things

that they don't need to take on.

Yeah.

And in the process, you're gathering more evidence to, to

confirm that it all still works.

Exactly.

And something that I ask my clients a lot because when we're working

on a sabbatical plan, a big part of that is thinking about boundaries.

And so.

How you make this great plan.

Now, how do you protect your time?

Because again, it's well-meaning people, but students are going

to keep needing things from you.

Mm-hmm.

Collaborators will keep needing things.

So how do you put those guardrails in place so that your time is protected?

And people will say, well, I don't, I'm worried that if I stop reviewing

grants for this organization, you know, X or Y might happen.

Or if I step away from this X or Y. And so I usually ask like, what's

the worst thing that could happen?

Mm. And usually it's nothing actually.

Yes.

Bad.

You know, the things we imagine, even if the worst case scenario

happened, it's probably not that bad.

And I've had this experience, I've talked to enough colleagues and clients now

who have said, you know, I said no to a lot of things during my sabbatical.

And guess what?

Guess what?

Yeah.

You come back and people still ask you to do things, you know,

and they ask you to do more.

So that's why in my experience, it's so important to have good boundaries

during sabbatical, because once you come back, you get flooded

with requests for doing things.

Yeah.

So I want to come back to the boundaries because that was going to be one of

the questions that I had about creating the space, but still having the

responsibilities for students and labs and projects, so, among other things.

But just stepping back, what's one of the first things you ask?

You get people to think about when they're thinking about their own sabbaticals?

So we start in a place that I think is counterintuitive

And sadly, that's where we leave it for now.

If you are curious about what is the counterintuitive place to start when

you're thinking about your sabbaticals, keep an eye out for part two that

will be released as the next episode.

Part two will provide lots of practical guidance for you about being more

intentional about designing, not just your leave, but also I think your

career and a career that is sustainable and meaningful in the long term.

You can find the summary notes, a transcript and related links for this

podcast on www.changingacademiclife.com.

You can also subscribe to Changing Academic Life on iTunes, Spotify.

And I'm really hoping that we can widen the conversation about how

we can do academia differently.

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