Overview: This post is one of 23 interviews with scholars about their research process and career. My discussion with Dr. Amber Genau focused on what she learned by taking a sabbatical and advice for other faculty who are interested in embarking on one.
Dr. Genau recently completed her first sabbatical in Germany (Spring 2019). Most academics can apply for sabbatical leave every seven years. This break from teaching obligations is meant to allow the faculty member to learn new techniques, expand a research program, or finish a book manuscript or set of articles they’ve been too busy to complete. Most faculty are funded by their institution for nine months (fall and spring) and they typically have the choice between a one semester (fully funded) or two semester fall/spring (partially funded) sabbatical. The interview began with soliciting Dr. Genau’s thoughts on being a faculty member and pathway into her faculty position, as I believe that every unique path is of interest. However, I specifically sought to speak to Dr. Genau to get her perceptions on the mechanics of taking sabbatical and the benefits of this experience. I hope this information will be useful to other associate professors taking their first sabbatical or any other faculty hoping to get the most of a secondary sabbatical.
About Dr. Genau: After finishing her PhD at Northwestern University, she spent two years as a guest scientist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, Germany, working in the Institute for Material Physics in Space. In 2010, she joined the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where she is now a tenured associate professor. Since then, her group has produced research that has helped elucidate the solidification behavior (and microstructure) of alloys. Their work has been supported through many awards including the NSF CAREER award (2016). You can find her most recent publications on Google Scholar.
You chose the tenure track rather than pursuing a position within a national laboratory or industrial facility after completing your PhD in materials science. Why?
I decided to get my PhD and then apply for a faculty position because I was really drawn to the idea of teaching and mentoring college students. These students are going through a very formative experience, growing in terms of both their technical fields and personal growth. As a faculty member you are often assigned to teach students at several points in their curriculum and can watch this growth in real time. One of my favorite parts of my job has been watching students mature and gain confidence in themselves as engineers between the time that I meet them as sophomores in our intro to materials class and when they graduate several years later. As a faculty member, I also enjoy continuously improving my pedagogical skills to help students better master the core concepts presented each term.
What has been the most unexpected aspect of being a faculty member?
I am not sure that this is unexpected, but its impact on me was larger than expected. When students cannot see the utility in the course material, I feel like I need to both help them learn the objectives for the course and “sell” them on the importance of the material. I feel it more often when I teach courses to those outside my discipline in introductory courses (such as a first- or second- year course). The flip side of this is that teaching students majoring in materials was always a thrill. I think materials science is fun and getting to engage/challenge students to really think about why things occur leads to great discussions. Another surprise is that I enjoy helping students develop their non-technical skills such as writing. In my classes, I really want students to walk away with core knowledge and the ability to convey that to others through clearly written abstracts, etc.
What has made you “feel” like a researcher at the different stages of your career progression (undergraduate to associate professor)? Why?
During my senior year, I enrolled in a BS/MS program. That gave me the ability to start work on graduate-level research (in my case, characterizing atomized Al-Si powder) while still finishing my undergraduate classes. About a year into my research work, I had my first research “Eureka” moment. I was characterizing some samples with a scanning electron microscope and while mulling over the results I realized that I had been making a fundamental mistake in phase identification. At that moment, everything I thought I knew about this system rearranged in my head and the pieces came together in a way that made so much more sense. That was the first time I felt like a “researcher.”
Today, I don’t really see myself as a researcher anymore – I supervise other people who do research, which is an entirely different job.
What do you see yourself as since you don’t identify as a researcher?
Now, I am an academic/a professor. On any given day, I transition between roles of instructor, manager, facilitator, trainer, or chief problem solver (for example, figuring out how to repair broken equipment in my lab or why an experiment didn’t work as expected).
I was a “researcher” as a graduate student and as post doc and even during those initial years as a faculty member. That identity for me, however, began to shrink as other academic identities strengthened. It was fun to step into that role again on sabbatical (but those questions are coming later).
Speaking of that, why did you decide to do a sabbatical in Germany? With so many options, why did you choose to return to Germany?
I considered a number of different options and talked to a variety of people before deciding on Germany. In the end, it was a place that I both knew I could do good work and a place I wanted to spend time. I really enjoyed my colleagues and the German culture when I worked there as a postdoc in 2008-2010 and had always wanted to go back for a longer period. I had several ongoing collaborations with German researchers that I thought could be strengthened by a longer visit. I also bring UAB students to Germany on faculty-led study abroad trips, where we visit universities, labs and companies across the country, so I hoped to build out the connections I make on this trip as well.
What were your responsibilities when you were on sabbatical?
Because so much communication is digital these days, it was hard to completely break away from my responsibilities at UAB even though I wasn’t physically there. Except for not having to teach, my job didn’t really change much while I was on sabbatical. I still had students progressing in their research, proposals to write, professional society commitments and a few administrative responsibilities that I didn’t know how to offload. I now try to tell others preparing for sabbaticals to put as much of that on ice as possible until after they return. Faculty should try to disconnect from nonurgent responsibilities at their home institution so that they can be fully present in their sabbatical experience.
How did you know it was time to apply for a sabbatical? What prompted you?
I knew theoretically that sabbaticals existed. However, my department did not have a tradition of faculty taking their sabbaticals, so it was not on my radar. In the 12 years I’ve been here, I’m still the only one in MSE who has taken one.
In 2018, my department held a mock review for an accreditation review by the nonprofit ABET. This is a practice session for an engineering department who is getting ready to submit for accreditation from the nonprofit ABET who reviews programs offering bachelor’s degrees in applied and natural science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology. Our external reviewer, Chet Van Tyne from Colorado School of Mines, asked me if I was thinking about sabbatical. He had taken the time to review my CV and knew I was eligible. At the time, I had been at UAB almost seven years and just earned tenure. After that meeting, I went back to my office and searched the UAB electronic faculty handbook. Sure enough, our handbook laid out the requirements Chet alluded to and sabbatical was something I could apply for. At that point, I started thinking and planning. To this day, I still say, “God bless Chet.” Without him, it would not have happened.
How did you determine your priorities or goals for your sabbatical?
Initially, I thought only about the research aspect of the sabbatical. I took some time to decide where wanted to go and outlined a plan before setting up a meeting with my department chair. I remember enthusiastically explaining how great a sabbatical would be for my research productivity. I rattled off all the amazing equipment I would have access to when I visited another laboratory. At that point, my chair stopped me. He reminded me that the word “sabbatical” comes from the Biblical idea of sabbath – of rest. He made the point that if I just wanted to go somewhere and use microscopes not available on the UAB campus, I could do that during the summer without being on sabbatical. He challenged me to reconsider my plans based on those thoughts and to really develop a plan that would make my sabbatical time special. But we both knew that sabbatical activities still must be relevant to a person’s development as a faculty member. My chair suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that perhaps I could climb a mountain and read research papers at the top. The balance I struck was that I decided to spend the first month of my sabbatical taking an intensive language course. I had always wished my German were better and given my research and educational connections to the country, setting aside time to improve my language skills seemed like an exciting and appropriate use of sabbatical, since I would be able to collaborate more closely with colleagues in the country.
How early did you need to apply? What was your application process like?
It was September of 2017 when I first got the idea of taking a sabbatical. I started talking to my chair about it the following spring and submitted the official paperwork in summer for 2018. I was then actually on sabbatical the first six months of 2019. UAB requires sabbatical applications to be submitted 6-12 months in advance. There is a short and straightforward form to fill out detailing when the sabbatical will be, how it is being funded, and how your campus responsibilities (teaching, research, admin, etc.) will be handled while you are away. I also had to submit a plan of activities for the sabbatical period, which ended up being about a page long. And I had to sign a document committing to return to my university for at least a year after the end of the sabbatical and promising that I would submit a “concise report of activities” upon my return. All of that had to be approved by my chair, my dean, the provost, and the president before the leave was officially approved.
Sabbatical leave can range between 6 months to a year. Why did you opt for a shorter sabbatical versus a longer one?
The arrangement at many universities seems to be a choice between six months at full pay or twelve months at half pay. I opted for six months for a variety of reasons, one of which was just that leaving for a full year seemed significantly more complicated to organize. In addition, I would have felt bad leaving my graduate students (and my husband, whose job kept him in Birmingham) for any longer. While we touched base virtually, it was not the same as being in person. It was also financially easier to go for only six months because UAB paid my normal salary the whole time. There are opportunities for external sabbatical funding from organizations like Fulbright or the German Academic Exchange (DAAD), but they must be applied significantly in advance and I wasn’t organized enough to manage that.
How did you keep your research group at UAB “moving” while you were abroad?
This was hard.
I exchanged a lot of emails with my graduate students during my sabbatical. I also went back to UAB in the middle of the six-month period for a couple weeks of in-person meetings. If I had to do it over, I would have instituted regular Zoom meetings with my group from the beginning. While the technology of course existed, I somehow did not consider it in those pre-COVID times.
What advice do you have when selecting a host (researcher and/or institution) for your sabbatical?
Important considerations when choosing where to sabbatical include identifying what you will be doing, who you will be working with, and the physical location of the host institution. I knew I wanted to work with someone in my field who I could learn from and hopefully build or grow an ongoing collaboration with. I made a list of possible places and talked to several people, many of whom I knew through my involvement in professional societies like the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS).
In the end, I decided to go to Access e.V., an independent research lab associated with RWTH Aachen University, and work with Dr. Ulrike Hecht. The group she is part of is one of the best in the world at solidification science and always has several different cutting-edge projects going on that combine experimental, modeling, and simulation aspects. From my past interactions with her, I knew she was not only an exceptional scientist, but also a good mentor and a very kind person.
So how was your sabbatical? Did you meet the goals you set for it?
It was fantastic, both personally and professionally.
First of all, I got to get back into a laboratory and feel like a researcher again. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy sitting at a microscope and analyzing my own data. I processed and imaged samples from home for my students, using equipment that we don’t normally have access to. I started a new project related to what my hosts at Access e.V were working on and got some great preliminary data for new proposals in a highly fundable area. I also was able to attend a couple European technical conferences, and I was then asked to become part of the scientific advisory committee for one of them. One unexpected bonus turned out to be a connection I made with an RWTH PhD candidate, who came and worked with me at UAB the following year.
Taking the language course was a wonderful break from “real life.” It was really challenging to be on the other side of the classroom and gave me new empathy for my students. I’d forgotten how hard it is to sit and pay attention to a long lecture and how exhausting it is to learn something completely new. The class also made me conversational in German, which was a longtime goal.
Finally, just being in Germany was lovely. I got to travel, to enjoy the food and culture, and to spend time with old friends and make some new ones. Being away from home and my daily routine provided a good chance to reflect on my life and career: what was going well and what wasn’t, what I wanted from the future.
Any advice on the homefront (getting a temporary apartment, finances, etc.)?
An acquaintance at RWTH pointed me towards some websites used by RWTH students to find apartments, which is how I found a sublet.
That same person also showed me the German equivalent of Craigslist, which I used to buy a bike that I rode to work every day (and then used to resell it when I left). Like many large universities, RWTH is used to playing host—they have an office dedicated to helping visiting researchers (and their families) that I wish I had known about and gotten connected to sooner. The institute secretary was also a wonderful source of help and advice.
So, your department chair really emphasized the idea of rest to you. Were you able to bring that concept home to UAB?
That’s a great question. I’m not sure. I definitely have taken more time to rest the last couple years, although often with a guilty conscience. As a faculty member, there are always so many things that can/should/must be done! I am trying to be better at saying no to some things so that I have the time and energy to say yes to others. I have some new things coming down the pipeline in the next year, so we’ll see how that goes and if I still manage to find time to rest.