Academic sabbaticals and study leave

[Brown and Boris]

Of late several academics I have emailed at work have had an auto-reply saying they are on sabbatical for between a semester and a year.

How doew that work? What are they doing while away? Do they stil get paid? Just curious.

[Tadite]

Depends on what you mean by sabbatical.

In the US a sabbatical leave is something that a professor would get every 3 or 4 years (depending on the quality of institution and professor). It consists of a quarter or semester off to focus on research.

In the UK people call the normal spring/summer vacation a sabbatical which is just the time between quarters/semesters.

Either way if you are a full time professor (or lecturer) you are paid for the year most often (some schools it is for the 9 months of teaching).

Keep in mind just because you aren't teaching doesn't mean you aren't working. Depending on the level of academia you are talking about the vast majority of time is spent on research.

[MentalSarcasm]

One of my archaeology lecturers was on sabbatical last year after he received funding to go and dig up bits of Greece.

Along with co-ordinating said dig, he was also working on a book (which was what this dig was for), and continuing as PhD tutor for several PhD students via the net.

[Brown and Boris]

Some of them are not lecturers, they are researchers. I suppose they could be writing up papers, books, flicking theselves off whilist watching Trisha?