Professors Step Away From The Classroom For Research

BY JULIA RIVERA
Miami University journalism student

Sixty-nine Miami University professors will be out of the office -- literally -- for at least part of this school year.

That's because they are on academic leave, taking time away from teaching to conduct research in their respective fields.

Of the 69 faculty members on leave this year, 29 are away for the fall, 31 for the spring and nine all year. They come from a wide range of departments and hold tenured or tenure-track positions with the rank of assistant, associate or full professor.

Under Miami policy, there are two types of assigned research leave -- on-campus, and off-campus. Faculty members on-campus are expected to “continue university assignments other than classroom teaching and, therefore, requires the appointee’s presence on campus.” Faculty on off-campus leaves are working on research that "makes absence from campus necessary," according to the policy.

Tenured faculty with at least seven years of full-time service can also seek "faculty improvement leaves." Those are also off-campus.

According to the roster of faculty with 2016-17 leaves, provided by Miami's general counsel office, 42 members of faculty have on-campus leaves this year, 13 have off-campus leaves and 14 have faculty improvement leaves.

To be considered for a leave, faculty members must pitch their case, first to the dean of their department then to Provost Phyllis Callahan, and finally to President Greg Crawford.

In their proposal, professors must outline a statement of purpose of leave, including why they are interested in the research topic, what they plan to accomplish, how they plan on doing so, and “evidence that the proposer has taken into account the relevant existing work.” Staff members are still paid for their time on leave and can only ask for one semester off.

Richard Campbell, professor and chair of the Department of Media, Journalism and Film, is taking a leave to update his book “Media and Culture: Mass Communication in a Digital Age” as well as begin work on a book about television and journalism.

Campbell said: “We put out the edition then we do an update then we write the next edition. So about every other year we are doing a new version.”

Although some professors take time to update their publications, others like Stephanie Danker, a professor of arts education, take a leave to dig deeper into a subject they are passionate about. Danker is taking the spring semester off to explore art education.

"My research interests and specialty area is based on arts integration ... so it's really important for art teachers to learn in their preparation programs how to effectively incorporate other disciplines into art so they see how art is really bringing together all these other areas," said Danker.

During her leave, Danker will be writing a curriculum about trans-disciplinary connections and issues surrounding artist Christo’s Over the River project in Salida, Colo. The artwork is an installation of translucent fabric draped over 5.9 miles of the Arkansas River. The project has been a work in progress since 2009.

Danker is taking an off-campus assigned research leave, under leave provisions that allow “a tenured or tenure-eligible member of the instructional staff to spend a semester conducting research in an off-campus location when the nature of the research project makes absence from campus necessary.”