Designing Your Intentional Sabbatical: Purpose, boundaries and career sustainability.

This is Part 2 of my conversation with Bethany Wilinski, an associate professor of teacher education at Michigan State University. Building from Part 1, where Bethany described her own sabbatical experience, here the the focus is on how to more intentionally design your sabbatical (also relevant for any leave) by starting with purpose, priorities, and desired feelings rather than a to-do list. Bethany outlines practical boundary management strategies to protect your time amid ongoing responsibilities while on sabbatical. These include clarifying expectations in advance, shifting cognitive load to students, and batching meetings into limited windows. She makes a great case for how we can use sabbaticals as a chance to test systems and carry changes forward: balancing structure versus unscheduled time, normalizing rest and reading as productive, and using sabbatical (and other types of leave) to reset habits around health, work rhythms, and scarcity-driven opportunity-taking. Bethany also also reflects more generally on academia’s lack of positive reinforcement, her sabbatical-planning coaching business, and the need for sustainable career choices and incremental culture change.

0:29 Introduction

03:55 Starting With Purpose and Priorities Before Tasks

07:34 Mapping Obligations And Boundaries, Setting Boundaries

12:31 Reducing Cognitive Load, Taking Control of Scheduling

14:51 Structure Rest And Reading

18:25 Mid Career Reset And Scarcity

22:01 Career Choices In Uncertain Times

24:12 Lessons From Parental Leave

26:22 The To Do List Never Ends

29:35 Validation And Sustainable Culture

35:58 Starting A Coaching Business

39:21 Changing Academia From Within

41:18 Outro

Related Links:

Bethany’s Michigan State Uni webpage

Bethany Wilinski Sabbatical Coaching

Bethany on LinkedIn

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.

Welcome to part two of my conversation with Bethany Wilinski.

We are going to focus in this part on how you can be more intentional

in designing your own sabbatical.

But before we get into that, a reminder about who Bethany is.

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 this sabbatical experience that Bethany shared with us in part one.

And for me, the key thing was how recognizing that she was actually really

burned out and that she needed a very different type of sabbatical than the

one she'd originally planned, led her to make very different choices that

had so many positive consequences, both professionally and personally.

So in this part two of the conversation, we start getting into more about

what you might do to design your sabbatical so that it can work for you.

And Bethany talks about the value of not starting from your to-do

list, but starting with your purpose and priorities and how you

want to feel in your sabbatical.

We also get very practical talking about how you might manage your boundaries

in terms of time, because you're still going to have ongoing responsibilities.

And so we cover things like clarifying expectations and getting other

people to pick up some of the load and how you can batch meetings

and manage your email access.

I think she also makes a great case for how we can use sabbaticals as a chance

to test out new ways of doing and being.

So she talked about things like balancing structure versus unscheduled time, about

how we can play with normalizing rest and reading and that that's still productive

work instead of feeling guilty about it.

And just using our sabbatical more generally.

And, and this can apply to other types of leave as well, I think, to reset

habits around health and work rhythms and, and that FOMO pressure or feeling

like we need to take advantage of all opportunities that come our way.

Bethany also reflects more generally on aspects around academic culture, her

own coaching business and just generally how we need to make more sustainable

career choices and be part of the incremental culture change where we work.

So I hope you enjoy this.

I think the insights play out not just for sabbaticals, but any type of leave,

whether that's going on parental leave or sick leave, as well as study leave.

Picking up where we left off in part one.

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?

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 because I think

most people, when they think about their sabbatical plan, at least in the

US you have to write an application.

So you have to say, here's what I'll use my sabbatical for, here's

how it contributes to my career trajectory, to the institution.

And so most people think starting with those professional tasks like that

to-do list is how you plan a sabbatical.

And the way I work with clients is we actually put that to-do list

to the side, and I say, we work on the purpose of your sabbatical.

So where are you right now?

How do you want, what do you want to feel like at the end of your sabbatical?

Yeah.

What will you tell people about your sabbatical when it's done?

How will you know your sabbatical was a success?

And then we do some visioning activities where it's like, imagine yourself,

picture yourself on sabbatical.

What does it feel like?

What are you doing?

And this is often not aligned with that sabbatical proposal

that they wrote, you know.

It's just like your Tanzania proposal and the

Exactly the to-do list is very long and very busy.

And when you ask people, what do you want to feel like on sabbatical?

What do you want your day-to-day rhythms to be like?

It is much slower.

It's, you know, having your morning coffee and or reading fiction right.

People do not say, I want to be in Zoom meetings from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM Yeah.

This is not what people envision.

So we start with what's the purpose?

What are your priorities, both personal and professional.

Thinking about who's involved in your sabbatical, because people

have caregiving responsibilities.

Yeah.

They have spouses.

There's a lot of things going on that, like we talked about before, you're

not just taking this sabbatical on your own and the rest of the world stops.

Other things are going to keep going.

You still have responsibilities.

So we start there and then we talk about what are the goals, but by

identifying the purpose and priorities, we can align as we talk about goals.

I can say like, how does that goal align with this vision you had

for your sabbatical of it being more restful or slower paced?

And so that having the purpose and priorities set out in advance kind

of creates a, like a rubric almost.

Right?

And we can evaluate the goals against that and then make decisions about

what to keep and what to set aside, so that we don't create a sabbatical

that's just going full steam with research if that's not what the person

actually wants from their sabbatical.

Yeah.

And I know that this would be complex and depend upon where they are in their

career path or in their research project or all sorts of different things.

So when you are talking about boundaries, then how do you practically, what are some

practical boundary management strategies?

Because you still have your research group, your PhD students, maybe

your projects that you've got running, commitments to finish

off writing papers with people.

How do you manage the boundaries then?

Yeah, so what I have people do is spend a little time thinking about,

and even looking at their calendar, I say like, look at your calendar

for the next week and what are all the meetings that are coming up?

What are the commitments?

What are the obligations?

And to make a list of all the different obligations that they have.

And also the things they think might come up during sabbatical,

like request to review journal articles, for example, or to serve

on this committee or that committee.

And then we go through those one by one.

I mean, sometimes it's like, okay, tell me about this PhD student, right?

Because a PhD student who is in their second year and still doing coursework

is going to be very different from a PhD student who's writing a dissertation.

Yeah.

So we think about the boundaries for each unique circumstance, because I

think the PhD student who's still in coursework, you can say, okay, we're going

to check in once a semester or whatever.

Right?

Yeah.

Again, it is so dependent on yes.

Each individual situation.

Yes.

Or can we think of a faculty member, a colleague who could be like

the point person for that person?

And then if it's someone who's writing their dissertation, then we think

about, okay, what is the rhythm?

What are you going to offer to this student?

And so I think instead of thinking, well, I have to be there for them all the

time, it's more setting the boundary in advance, I think lets everyone know the

expectation and it's kinder that way.

Yeah.

It protects the person you're setting the boundary with because

then they're very clear about it.

And it also protects your emotional energy, I think, because you don't always

have to be feeling badly when you get an email like, oh, or resentful, why

are they taking so much of my time?

Well, if they didn't know that you didn't want them to email you all

the time, then how could you know?

How could they have known?

Especially if we've set it up inadvertently by wanting to be

helpful people that they need to come to us a lot for help and support.

Yes.

And then we get cranky when they disturb our sabbatical because we've set it

up that they can't do it on their own.

Yes.

And I think that's why the sabbatical can also provide an opportunity to

think about the systems you have.

Intentionally or inadvertently put into place.

And what I talk with my clients about is, so how did that work during sabbatical?

Or how does, how did the student respond to that new expectation

that you set with them?

And what would it be like to carry that forward?

Mm-hmm.

So for example, saying instead of, we're just going to have a meeting and

talk about whatever comes up, is the expectation that the student has to send

you something they've written in advance?

And if they don't send it, then you don't meet with them.

Right?

Which can be a hard boundary to hold.

But I think about it with toddlers, right?

We do this all the time.

If you just give in, then they know that there's no actual boundary there.

And so we talk about, well, what would you do if you set this

expectation and they don't meet it?

Then what is your response going to be?

But.

What I try to work on with boundaries, particularly with students, is really how

can you shift the balance a little bit so that the cognitive load is not on you.

So you're not following up.

So you're not always sifting through emails to say, what are we meeting about?

What, you know, where the student is proactively sending you

something in advance of a meeting.

And so you use that time in the best way possible.

And sometimes, like one of uh, my clients over the summer, she had just been

meeting with her students every week.

I said, well, like how, how's that working for you?

Are you getting a lot done?

Are they able to get a lot done between those two meetings?

And she said, no, I don't think we actually have to meet every week.

Because if the goal is to move them forward on their writing, there's no

way that they can, you can meet, they can write, you can read something.

So there's also, I think just kind of really digging into those

pacing issues can be helpful.

And then ultimately, I think people realize, I might think I'm doing

my students a favor by meeting with them all the time, or being so

available, but it's actually not, like you said, it's not helping them

develop skills to be independent.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think the point that you made about even the cognitive work.

The cognitive load.

That even if it's not the blocked out hour on the calendar, it's the cognitive

load of thinking, have they sent me?

Where is it?

What's going on?

And that's just as much a load and adding to the pressure and stress

and taking away from your own time to think about your own work.

Mm-hmm.

Or to do your jigsaw puzzle if you want to.

Yeah.

Exactly.

It's still work.

It is.

And the other thing that I encourage people to think about is how much

of their sabbatical time they want to be scheduled versus unscheduled.

And for me personally, I did not want lots of meetings on the calendar.

And so one of the strategies people then often use is picking maybe only

having meetings in the afternoon.

Which can be hard, but also I've had like clients who do this and then

they say, I thought people would push back so much and they actually didn't.

It was fine.

One client who said, I'm only having meetings on Wednesdays.

And so she created a Calendly.

And for her students it was like, if you can find a time on Wednesday, we can meet.

And if you can't, then look at the next Wednesday.

Right.

And so, I think.

Keeping your work, like keeping meetings to only a couple days or to certain times

also helps with that cognitive load.

Because then you're not constantly task switching.

Or you can kind of say, okay, today's the day that I'm more

like outward facing and engaged in these like external conversations.

And that can work with collaborators too, I think trying to or even limiting the

time that you're working on projects.

So the other strategy that sometimes people use is to say, let people know,

I'll be looking at emails related to this project during these times and

you can expect a response from me then.

So don't keep following up if you don't hear from me.

Yeah.

Obviously there might sometimes be an emergency.

But often then people have ways of getting in touch by text or something.

So another part of boundaries, I think, is figuring out how to not be so tethered

to your email or not letting the external kind of dictate your schedule for the day.

Yeah.

Have you had many people who use the sabbatical time to create more structure?

You said your preference was for less structure and the people, the examples

you've given have been about trying to block more structured sort of activities.

Have there been people who actually feel more comfortable being able to

have lots of structure and scheduling?

Yeah.

Well, I actually think that's why many people want to work with me

because it can be very intimidating to see this blank calendar, right?

Yes.

When in a regular semester we have these things that we're accountable to.

So if I know I need to teach my students on Wednesday, I need to plan for that.

And it creates a framework and then we fit our other things into that.

So yes, we do work a lot, on, again, after we do that sort of meta big

picture, like, what do you want your rhythms and routines to be like.

Then we do create a more clear structure for people, people who

want it, where they're thinking about creating those blocks of time.

I try to caution people against filling every available space with something.

Because another thing that we work on a lot is people want to rest and slow

down, but people often feel a lot of resistance or guilt about resting.

And so sometimes I'll say, well, what if you just scheduled an hour into your

afternoon where there's no plan and you can just do whatever you want without

guilt because you've already accomplished your writing goals for the day.

And many times people need to take baby steps to really kind of

feel comfortable with not being productive every minute of the day.

And even things like time to read.

We hear so often that for many academics, reading is one of the first things that

goes when you get into super busy mode.

Yet it's one of the most important things we should be doing.

Yeah.

And sometimes that can feel like a guilty pleasure or time that I

shouldn't be giving myself to read.

And it seems like sabbatical could be a really important time just to give

that permission for reading time.

Yeah, and that's the other thing that I feel like I'm on a mission to

my ways of being countercultural is saying that reading is a productive

use of your sabbatical time.

That being productive on sabbatical is not just about having finished products

like an article or a grant proposal.

Honestly, I think institutions should value more the fact that, if I come back

rested like I am of much greater value to my institution because I didn't work for

the first half of my sabbatical and I was able to not be burned out than if I had.

You know, and I still published things.

I wrote a grant on sabbatical.

I was still productive in sort of the way that most people think about productivity.

But I wish that we could look at even a semester sabbatical, which is 15 weeks.

And that's much more than norm of how much time people are taking.

I think if you just rested during that time, that is productive.

But yeah, you know.

Sabbatical, the bean counters would not agree with me I don't think.

We need to also often play the game in the proposal that gets sent in.

So I really appreciate the thread that's come through a lot of this

as, it's not just a sabbatical for those weeks that you take, but it's

the opportunity to stop, step back.

The sort of restore, reflect, reconnect, and reset.

Yeah.

So that it's not just stuff you do in the sabbatical, but those boundaries that

you've experimented with get carried on.

Is there any more that you want to say about that sort of reset?

Like especially as people get into this mid-career space?

Yeah, I think it's just, you know, as academics we often have

a lot of flexibility and autonomy and I know that is a privilege.

But I think that we don't often lean into it enough the

way that we have this freedom.

And in the US it's post tenure.

Everyone always says like, after tenure you can do the

work that you really want to do.

But in order to figure out what that is, and it doesn't have to

be a dramatic change, I did not dramatically change my research.

I'm still doing the same line of work, but I'm doing it with more intention and I'm

less likely to get swept into things just because it seems like a good opportunity.

Another thing that I think drives a lot of people throughout their

whole careers is scarcity, right?

This idea of scarcity and like, if I don't take this opportunity now, I'll

never get this opportunity again.

Yeah.

And so I think using the sabbatical as a time to just stop.

Evaluate.

And think about are there things that you want to do differently moving forward?

Like for me, one of those things is just my own health and

running and kind of prioritizing.

These are the things that when you get busy, I don't have time to work out.

And I thought on my sabbatical, but actually like my physical body

is very important to me long term.

Yeah.

Right.

And so if I can't make time for that, that's my own choice, I think.

Right.

And so, and that's about how we schedule ourselves.

So my calendar, well for my coaching business and even I try to not schedule

meetings before 9:30 or 10:00 AM which is a luxury, but then I can get my workout

in in the morning and I just think like.

That's my long term wellbeing.

Right.

And my career is not forever, although for some academics it is kind of forever.

Yes.

Yeah.

Um, but yeah, I don't know if I'm answering your question, but I, I do think

it's just this, I think the important thing about sabbaticals, if you want to

use your sabbatical to really do things differently or rethink, then it's very

important to get yourself out of your normal daily routine and to not just have

your sabbatical be for me it would've been sitting in my home office in the basement

just working eight hours a day minus the teaching and service responsibilities.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So in, in the sort of intentional theme, it's being intentional, not waiting until

you get on sabbatical to be intentional, but to really that work beforehand.

If you can.

Yeah.

I think it's hard.

Yeah.

But how much more value you can get out of it.

Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you'd want to mention?

Just that I think for people who might be thinking about sabbatical or just

thinking carefully about their career and or feeling a bit of like angst about

where they are, I would encourage you to just sit back and say like, what

are the things that matter most to me?

How can I create more time for that and how can I limit?

The other things that are pulling me away from the thing

that's really energizing me.

And it sometimes takes time, right?

There's, you might have to extricate yourself from things slowly.

Yes.

So it's not immediate.

I think there's a lot of right now, so I mean we're recording

this at the end of 2025.

A lot of things feel uncertain in higher ed, particularly in the US.

And so there can be a desire to maybe throw the baby out

with the bath water, right.

Or just academia is horrible.

I'm just going to get out.

But I think a first step I'm glad I didn't quit my job.

Mm-hmm.

I don't know that that would've been, that probably wouldn't have

been the answer because I probably would've just gone into the same

mode of work in a different career.

Yep.

But instead, I feel like I've been able to make my my job, work for me.

And I still do the things that I need to do and I don't always get to do the

things that I want to do, of course.

Right.

Sometimes you have to do something or be on a committee

you don't really want to be on.

But I think looking at the structure of your job and the choices that you

are making, either intentionally or unintentionally, that may be creating

some of that friction for you.

And then seeing if there are ways that you can make different choices or step

away from things that are not serving you.

I think that's, sabbatical is a great opportunity to do that, but you don't

have to wait for a sabbatical to do that.

Yeah.

And I'm also thinking that a lot of the wisdom that you've talked about in

the ways that we can better approach sabbaticals can also be applied to

other sorts of leave as well, whether it's health leave or parental leave.

Because it's still that thing of we still have our job and our identity and how do

we keep in touch with it or not and give ourselves the space in that leave time.

It was just making me think of a client I've been working with who's

pregnant and thinking about a sabbatical and then a parental leave and, when

after the baby is born do you go back and start doing field work?

And that caused me to reflect on my two parental leaves and

just how lovely my second one was when I had months, you know.

And in the US we're very, uh, inhumane about parental leave.

So, with my son, he was born while I was in grad school.

I had six weeks and in that time I gave a job talk for the job I have currently.

I mean, it was, It was horrible.

It was so stressful.

And so with my daughter, I was able to, essentially because of the timing

of her birth, I had about six months.

And it made all the difference because I was able to slow down and be a mom.

I joked that I pretended I was a stay at home mom for a little while.

Because I would be going to these baby play groups and things that I never

would've, I knew I wouldn't be able to do once I was back to working full time.

But that again, being able to have a focus and not have my attention going in so

many different directions, I think helped me come back from that leave in a place

where I said, okay, like I am, I'm ready to like engage intellectually again and

stop talking about diapers all the time.

Right?

Yes.

And I also think there's a lovely invitation in all that you've

said for us, even if we are not on sabbatical or not going on, leave

to think about how we can create little pockets of intentional pauses.

And rest.

And reflection.

And reset.

Yeah.

Right.

Like over a break.

I think often we tend to use the summer or winter break as, oh, this is when

I'm going to catch up on everything.

And what if you didn't?

The to-do list is never going to end.

That is a, I think about this.

A couple years ago, one of my main pain points was laundry at home.

And I thought, you always feel like at some point the

laundry is going to be done.

And then it's very disappointing when there's always more laundry.

And I was listening to a podcast, and this just sounds so silly and

simple, but it really resonated.

And they just said, the laundry is never done.

You shouldn't have the expectation that you'll ever be done with laundry.

And I think it's kind of like that with our academic work.

The to-do list is never done.

There's always going to be another thing, another opportunity, another

student who needs something.

And so we shouldn't be waiting until everything is done to relax.

We have to find places within the busyness, or we have to be intentional

about saying, you know, I don't need to have that meeting this week.

Maybe I can have that meeting in two weeks.

And that'll be fine too.

And that'll be fine.

I think that there's, we need more people who are just like, willing to

put stuff out into the world that is helping give people guidance or like

different, just different ways of thinking about their work and career.

And I think, you know, the things that you were saying, like just having permission

to stop, I actually just had a discussion this morning with someone who's pregnant

on sick leave, going on parental leave.

And I can see that they're in the spin and they actually need to step

back and prioritize their body and their baby, but they can't get off the spin.

Yeah.

And I just think it's so hard because, and I feel fortunate

to have this perspective, but you don't get that time back.

You know you don't you don't get to... And that's what I always thought.

Like, when my son was born, it was just, it was crazy.

And I think I was trying to keep living my life as if I didn't have a baby.

And eventually I realized like, I'm going to miss everything or just be

stressed out all the time if I try to act like nothing has changed.

Yeah.

Especially having kids, it's such a important thing to do and it's

something that you're only going to do even if you have 10 kids.

Yeah.

It's only, and not many people do, but it's just like once or twice in your

life, in a longer term perspective.

Or caring for.

I mean, I think this comes a lot up a lot too, even with like

caring for aging parents and stuff.

And it's just, you know, I think people are making such hard decisions that

I wish that they didn't have to make or feeling so torn when it's like.

An outsider could say, well obviously the important thing is, you know,

this relationship and this human being and not this conference

proposal or something, you know?

Right.

In the grand scheme of life, that thing, that conference does not matter,

but, it's hard when you're in it.

Right.

And feeling pressure.

It's really hard when you're in it and when the external validations of your

worth are around the other things.

Yeah.

And when the external validation comes so infrequently.

That's what I've always felt like, at least in my department, it feels

like unless you publish in the top journal or get the most competitive

fellowship, no one's saying, oh, you know, great job teaching

today, or Great job on this thing.

There's initiatives, no positive reinforcement.

There are some initiatives in Europe to try to do that, but it's going to

take a long time to filter down to you getting someone saying great teaching.

I'm encouraged that at least it's making it to discussion now,

but it's a long, slow process.

Yeah.

Well, I was struck by that when I, so when I started my business,

I was part of this bootcamp.

It was a very intensive thing with a guy who's like a marketing expert, and

I was actually part of a pilot of his, um, so he built my website, but then

I got to participate in this bootcamp and he was basically teaching us how

to get paying clients and mm-hmm.

It was great because I could figure out the curriculum, but he, obviously,

I knew nothing about marketing or anything like that, but he gave

me so much positive reinforcement.

I was so struck that, you know, here I am 40 years old and I. Like, this is the

most positive reinforcement in a short period of time that I've gotten, I don't

know, in like 20 years or something.

Right?

Yeah.

And just how good it felt to have someone saying like, you're doing a great job.

Like, way to go and is there any way I can support you?

And I just realized like, wow, that is not something that I

am hearing in my job at all.

Mm-hmm.

So now I try to be that, you know, my clients tell me.

Yeah.

They feel like I'm giving them permission and I say, you don't need permission

from me, but I can just be that person who, you know, if you say no to that

committee, I'm not in your department.

That doesn't affect me.

My investment is like you having the best sabbatical you can have, and so I'm going

to cheer you on and help you do that.

Yeah.

And they're like, oh, I feel like there's no one else I could talk to

about this, or like, thank you for helping me realize that I could do that.

Yeah.

So anyway.

I teach a PhD course still, with the cheesy title of Survive to Thrive,

but it's about crafting your good professional life and the emphasis is on

what you, all the things that you talk about, what's important to you, what

are your values, what do you love doing?

And

Wow.

And the last session that we had, because it's over a semester, was about

connecting with others and about how we don't have to wait for our supervisors

or heads of department or whatever.

We can be the ones who say to each other, great work, or, I really

appreciate that you've, what you've done.

And that's actually their worksheet for this week is to tell a couple of

people, to give someone how great there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so nice.

What an amazing, speaking of the hidden curriculum of grad school,

like I think we just don't, that's not something we talk about.

I try to do that in my classes, like give students a peek behind the curtain

or tell them, you know, like, I, I told them last fall, I remember I,

for, I don't remember how it came up, but I told them I don't work at night

or in on the weekend, and they were like, I can't believe you said that.

I mean, yes, now I have the privilege of having tenure,

but I did that pre-tenure too.

Yeah.

I'm too tired and at night I don't have good ideas.

And so I think they were shocked to hear that, but I think that's important

that you don't think we're all just working nonstop and not having any fun.

Yeah.

And that you are there as a successful, academic as well, that you can do it.

It's, that's role modeling.

Yeah, exactly.

So it's nice that you all have a class where you help people think about this.

Because I think there's not, yeah, we do need professional development about how to

have like a sustainable career, I think.

Yeah.

And that sustainable is the big thing.

Because you can't just keep doing the burnout to sabbatical,

recover, which is often the model.

As well.

Yeah, no, that's not good for anyone.

We also do workshops for leaders as well, but for the PhD class, I always

also try to get them to be brave enough to have a discussion with their supervisor

that they will not be reading email the supervisor sends them at weekends

or evenings unless it's important.

It's very hard.

Some of them have done that,

which is surprising.

That's good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I mean, having boundaries when you're not the person who has power

Yeah.

Is harder.

But also

to survive, you have to, I mean, I remember doing that when my son

was born in grad school, we couldn't afford to have full-time daycare,

but I wasn't working full-time.

So I had to tell my supervisor that Thursdays I am like,

I'm completely in mom mode.

I was taking care of my son.

Yeah.

And our friend's baby.

And that was like, you know, please, same thing.

Like, don't expect me, I can't be in any meetings.

But I think, you know, the reason I had to come back after six weeks.

So fortunately, like I had a healthy baby, everything was fine.

But when my son was three weeks old, I got invited for

my job, talk at my current job.

And, I mean, I was exhausted.

I, so I had to plan a job, talk and travel.

With baby brain.

It was just terrible.

And then I think the day I got back, and then we had my son's baptism

like already scheduled for right when we came back or something.

And then I think the next Monday, who I was working for at the time had emailed

me and said, I thought you were coming back, like, when are you coming back?

And I thought, could you just have given me a couple more weeks?

You know, you knew that I had a job interview that's very demanding.

And then, and I was having other job interviews, you know, I think when my

son was 10 days old, I had another Zoom interview, you know, it was just absurd.

And so now, I mean, the people I work with when they have babies,

I take a very different approach.

Yeah.

And I, you know.

Yeah.

I say, I know you think you may want to be back at this time.

Yeah.

But let's not count on you feeling like coming back.

Right.

Oh God.

I hate hearing that these sort of things are happening.

So how much time do you spend on your consulting coaching work relative

to the, like is your job full-time and you're doing the coaching?

My job is full-time and I do the coaching on the side.

I started the business while I was on sabbatical, so I spent a

lot of time getting it started.

And now, I mean, I think maybe.

Five hours a week at most.

The number of clients I have kind of varies.

And so they're, I mean, speaking of boundaries, like last fall, I

think I was starting my business, and so I'm like, I'll take everyone.

And then I realized I have so many sessions and I think

I need to really get done.

So, now I have like three to four clients a semester, and they're

not all on the same schedule.

Yeah.

So I maybe have like two sessions a week or something.

But it's part of what makes me like my academic job more because it's really

fun to, I'm meeting people from all different institutions, all different

departments, and so it, I don't know.

It awakens like a curiosity in me for also knowing like how different people's

jobs work and how institutions function.

That's your, that's your ethnographic bent.

Exactly.

Actually I'm trained as an ethnographer, an interviewer.

And like my job is to actually talk to people, learn about their

perspectives and experiences, and then find patterns in the data.

And so that's kind of, that's what I do in my business too.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And so what made you think, like in sabbatical that, I'm going to set this up.

Yeah, it was early on and I started, I actually did start

writing in a journal about this.

I think it was, you know, September, we were in Bordeaux,

the kids had started school.

Yeah.

And I said to my husband, I was feeling like this was the right place.

We just, we loved it.

I mean, we've, we keep going back.

We can't get enough of Bordeaux and of France.

Yeah.

But I think I was just realizing how different sabbatical would've been if

I hadn't [yeah] have gone through that process of thinking differently about it.

And I think because my uncle is a coach, so I had this sense of like,

coaching, and I said, I don't know, do you think people, like, I wonder if

other people would need help with this.

Like, I wonder if I could help other people plan their sabbaticals.

And so I think I, I percolated on that for a while, and then it was in April that I

really started getting serious about it.

And that's, and then I launched my business in May, so

Oh, good on you.

It's been a year and a half now, but it turns out like I did not

know if anyone would pay me to help them plan their sabbatical.

And it turns out the things I talk about resonate with people

and they do have similar struggles.

Yeah.

And like I said, it's really, it's less about the sabbatical

and more about like career.

What does the career look like?

It's, it is, it's the sabbatical is the excuse to go, who am I?

What am I doing?

Why am I doing this?

Exactly.

And it's the anticipation of having more time that I think lets

people think about, well, how do I actually wanna spend my time?

Yeah.

And like, are the goals that I had when I started this position do I

still have those same goals or do I want to focus on something different?

It's been great.

It's a fun adventure.

And then I get to, you know, meet people like you.

And I feel like I've uncovered this whole different world of academia

and academia related business and stuff that's kind of interesting.

Yeah.

So.

And there are more and more people wanting things to be different and working in

different ways towards a more sustainable culture, more sustainable choices.

Yeah.

So the more we can get the word out there, right, I think.

And if people are hearing it in different places, then suddenly

it becomes like an acceptable

choice to make.

Because one of the things with academia is it's not just a matter

of, I don't know changing the culture within a company in our office.

Yeah.

Because we have so much mobility that we can't let someone here just

not worry about any publications because that's what they want to do.

When we know they might want to get a job in the US where they'll have

no chance, you know, we are operating in this sort of global marketplace

as well as within our local cultures.

And it's true.

That's really tricky about how to help people find their own identity, make good

choices, and navigate the game, you know?

Yeah.

Because it is a game and yeah, I tell students, you know, some of it like.

It's, it may not be fair, but it's the system you're operating in.

And so it's not productive to say, well, I think, you know, it's ridiculous that

we have to publish in academic journals.

Well, if you don't publish in academic journals, then you won't get a job.

And so the best way to try to create change, I think, is to get into the

system and then change it, you know, make these micro changes from within.

Because you can't just, no one's going to burn it all down.

It's too, it's too well established to this point.

It's going to be slow.

it's going to need . I think it needs both the bottom up and the top, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Lovely point to end on.

Yeah, I'll put a link to all of your web pages and if people wanted to talk

to you about their sabbatical as well.

And thank you very much for your time today, Bethany.

Really enjoyed the conversation.

Thank you.

It was great to be here.

What a wonderful conversation.

For those of us who have the privilege of applying for and going

on sabbaticals, I hope there are some insights there for how you might

approach thinking about your sabbatical from a very different starting point.

. For those of us who may not have sabbaticals, I think there's

still so much to take from this.

And I invite us all to think about how we might apply some of the principles

right into our day to day work, whether that's around boundary setting or

normalizing the value of rest and reading as productive time and so on.

Small choices can make a big difference.

What might you do as a result of listening to what Bethany has shared?

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.

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

we can do academia differently.

And you can contribute to this by rating the podcast and also giving feedback.

And if something connected with you, please consider sharing this

podcast with your colleagues.

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