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Just a Saturday on Sabbatical - October 8, 2022

 Just thinking that I'm totally enjoying a relaxing Saturday to sort of take care of some loose ends.

Last Saturday I had a jogging accident and dislocated my right shoulder - very inconvenient.

But, this Saturday I'm enjoying time to regroup, plan, and do some reframing from the week's meetings and follow-ups that are needed.

I also love the sabbatical time to allow time for considering, processing, and percolating on topics and interwoven elements for projects that ARE better, with time to sort of ponder and meander around rather than jump and race to potential "fixes" or plans, or other types of "expected' responses.  

The sabbatical leaves room for thoughtful (meaningful) extrapolations of ideas and notions that are interrelated and significant.  Without TIME for this kind of reflection, we may lose opportunities for connections and more impactful connections of thoughts, research, and scholarship that are truly inspirational and significant in our areas of scholarship and academic contributions.

For example, I work at a TEACHING institution, but that doesn't negate the importance of research informing our work. Those who are at RESEARCH institutions can collaborate with our teaching practitioner work to more effectively find research-based (evidence-based) data that we can apply to our teaching and learning work.  However, IF we label ourselves with barriers, how can we collectively and more effectively impact learning in our higher education institutions.  This does not imply there are different goals for various types of institutions, however, IF we are all on the same page regarding higher education, then more collaborative research and scholarship sharing can bridge gaps for our students who learn, live, and transfer to various types of learning institutions in higher education.

Finally, just a note, that on sabbatical I've learned to live in the moment- if its a Saturday or a Friday or a Monday and I'm inspired - I just roll with it!



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