When faculty depart, students left in lurch

Professors usually use the time away from teaching to do extensive research, publish a book or accomplish some career goal that they would not be able to while working full-time at the University. A professor can take either a semester or a full year off from teaching while on sabbatical.

Though professors on sabbatical leave cannot serve as official junior paper or senior thesis advisers, in many cases they are still close to campus to informally advise students. Some professors stay near Princeton while conducting research, which makes them available to help out students.

A professor’s eligibility for leave depends on his or her tenured status. Untenured faculty in the social sciences and humanities are eligible for a semester of paid leave within their first six semesters at the University. Tenured faculty are granted leave by the department chair, with oversight from the Office of the Dean of the Faculty.

Faculty members may not take two periods of leave within five months of each other, whether or not their period of leave is paid or unpaid.

“We constantly monitor what our peers are doing, and while it is difficult to precisely compare policies since there are variations, we believe that our leave policy works for us,” Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin said in an email.

Computer science professor Jennifer Rexford will be going on sabbatical leave this fall but will spend most of her time in the Princeton area. Rexford stressed that is especially a time for professors to start something new and take a break.

“That’s the purpose of it, for us to recharge and refocus,” Rexford said.

Generally, if a professor is going on sabbatical leave and a student asks the professor to advise his or her independent work, the professor will try to guide the student in the right direction. The professor might offer to informally work with the student or refer them to another professor who can.

History professor Sean Wilentz said when he took sabbatical leave last year, he tried to find people in his department to help the students he couldn’t advise and told students who requested him to be their adviser that he would be available to answer questions via email.

English concentrator Alexa Freyre ’13 said she did not get the adviser she wanted because he is on leave in the fall. Although the professor she requested offered to help Freyre out whenever she needed it, she was assigned a different adviser.

“It may affect my independent work,” Freyre said. “The professor I initially asked to be my adviser is an expert in the field I am interested in, but I think my new adviser will be very willing to help as much as he or she can.”

Being away from Princeton also means that these professors miss out on teaching classes and interacting with their students.

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Bruno Carvalho, a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures, has spent this past year on sabbatical in Brazil, France, Peru and Bolivia conducting research for his next two books. Although he has been far from Princeton, he still has been offering help to students via email and Skype.

“On the one hand, it makes me realize how much I miss the classroom and how teaching is a vital part of my intellectual life,” Carvalho said in an email. “On the other hand, it makes it clear that it is very difficult to conciliate serious, focused research with the semester’s obligations.”