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September 6, 2002
'In
between Plans' The Perfect Time for a Presidential Sabbatical
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President
Joanne V. Creighton and her husband, Tom, visited Florida,
England, Germany, and South Africa during the president's
sabbatical.
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"Sabbatical"—it's
a word with biblical origins, but its meaning has remained the
same in different contexts through the centuries. While it was
originally used in relation to the practice of leaving land unplanted
as a means of rejuvenation, now "on sabbatical" most
often refers to academicians who leave the daily demands of college
and university life untilled in order to sow the seeds of new
ideas and encourage growth of the mind. The word is grounded in
the Mosaic law of ancient Judea, under which farmers left each
acre of land fallow for a year after six consecutive harvests.
Yet the term "sabbatical" is not without mystique. According
to Jewish legend, a sabbatical pool in Judea was dry for six days,
but gushed out in a full stream upon the seventh, the Sabbath.
Whether used as the
stuff of legend or agricultural practice, the word "sabbatical"
has the connotation not only of rewarding services, usually six
years worth, already rendered but also of being a means to invest
in the future "harvest" of the institution (farm or
college) granting the leave. This has been the case with the modern
version of the sabbatical since the days when colleges and universities
first began granting them (Harvard started the practice in 1880).
In 1907, a committee
of the trustees of Columbia University noted, "The practice
now prevalent in colleges and universities of this country of
granting periodical leaves of absence to their professors was
established not in the interest of the professors themselves but
for the good of university education. University teaching must
be progressive; it requires on the part of the teaching body,
as it were, a periodical refurbishing of its equipment. It is
not merely national, it is international; contact with other institutions,
with specialists of other countries, with methods of acquiring
and imparting in vogue elsewhere, which cannot be obtained during
the summer vacation as this is a period of rest practically everywhere,
is for the real university teacher an intellectual and practical
necessity."
Mount Holyoke has
been granting sabbaticals to its faculty since 1925. Professors
are eligible for semester-long leaves after three years of teaching
and for yearlong ones after six. This spring, after completing
six years as MHC's president, President Joanne V. Creighton became
the second president of the College to take a sabbatical. (Elizabeth
T. Kennan '60 took one during the spring semester of 1984.) Creighton—a
teacher, literary scholar, and experienced academic administrator
known for her expertise in strategic planning and implementation—began
her presidency with a focus on strategic planning. During her
first eighteen months as president, Creighton led a comprehensive
and collaborative planning process that culminated in the adoption
of the The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2003. She has just returned
"refreshed and recharged" from a six-month sabbatical
that took her first to Sarasota, Florida, and then to London and
the British countryside, Berlin, and South Africa. She will now
devote a good deal of her energies to working with the community
to develop a new plan to carry the College forward as a leading
liberal arts institution for women.
Creighton set planning
for The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2010 in motion before she
left, and Acting President Beverly Daniel Tatum led the effort
while the president was away. Creighton plans to have a first
draft of the new plan in place for community reaction by October
and hopes to secure trustee approval of a final document by May.
Creighton used her
sabbatical to "reflect on the first six years of [her] presidency,"
she says, "to recall and learn from the signature moments
as well as the low ones, and to consider where Mount Holyoke was,
where it is now, and where it will be going." The timing
worked out well. "We were in between plans," she said,
"and it was a perfect time to take stock." While she
was away from campus, she "reconnected with her scholarly
as well as family life," enjoying three months in Florida
with her husband and son. While in Sarasota, the president had
visiting-scholar privileges at New College, wrote some papers,
served as an outside reviewer on a dissertation, and read a great
deal.
During her time in
London, Creighton met with several alumnae (and ran into two current
study-abroad students at Claridge's Hotel) and visited the city's
Royal Holloway College, originally a women's college. She found
that institution eager to build on recent exchange arrangements
with MHC. In Berlin the president was a speaker at Rethinking
University, a conference spearheaded by a group of committed German
educators who are dedicated to more women in academic careers
and leadership positions.
In Cape Town, Creighton
met with a group of women faculty and administrators at South
African universities who, under the auspices of the HERS Program
supported by the Mellon Foundation, have sent interns to MHC,
Smith, and Wellesley. "It's gratifying to see that educators
in all of these countries view the College as a distinguished
model of women's education to emulate and with which to collaborate,"
says Creighton. "In Cape Town I also was delighted to learn
that Huguenot University College at Wellington, which is now being
incorporated into Cape Technikon, began as a Mount Holyoke offshoot
in 1874 under the direction of Abbie P. Ferguson, class of 1856;
and Anne E. Bliss, class of 1862." The president also spent
time with three alumnae living in Cape Town, who "toured
me around and gave me fresh examples of the intrepid spirit of
MHC women who are, it seems, everywhere in the world," she
said. While in South Africa, Creighton also toured Cape Town townships
and went on safari in Kruger National Park.
Creighton says her
sabbatical was a "healthy respite" from a job that she
views as demanding, but as a "great privilege." Notes
the "revitalized" Creighton, "I am truly honored
to be Mount Holyoke's president." When asked what she enjoys
most about her position, Creighton responded that it is the "bird's-eye
view of the institution, the opportunity to make all the parts
function well together by defining goals and then realizing them."
By providing Creighton with the opportunity to expand her view
through a sabbatical, Mount Holyoke can anticipate a rich harvest
of initiatives from its seventeenth president.
The fall 2003 issue
of the Mount Holyoke Quarterly will feature a piece by Joanne
Creighton about her sabbatical.
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