Category Archives: Sabbatical

So friends, I’ve been in Florence, Italy for 1 week. I’ve been a professor my entire (post undergrad) working life. I have loved it. I have lived my passion. I have grown, developed and shifted my interests throughout my career. I have become achingly aware of the fact that in moving at the speed of light it may, at times, be difficult to do several things: 1) acknowledge the accomplishments which will help feed future work, dedication, and commitment, 2) plan for the future – I don’t know about you, but I typically spend so much time on the “fire of the day” that feeding my own passion happens less than I would like. Don’t get me wrong. I DO feed my passions. I just sometimes get caught up in the demands of the moment and attend to them less than I might like. I also realized recently that I don’t make long term plans any longer. For years, I had 5 year plans. That changed when I was promoted to full professor. Then my strategy shifted to taking whatever “cool” opportunities came my way. Opportunities had to most importantly 1) benefit my students and/or 2) allow me to work consistently with my beliefs and values. The best projects did, and still do, both. I refused to do anything that was not consistent with my beliefs and values.

More and more, that has meant grant funded work that emphasizes community-based participatory research, specifically, working with communities to help them identify issues of interest to them and maximize their outcomes. That said, sometimes that has also meant taking the money for the students rather than the passion. These strategies have found me working over the past decade in public health preparedness (my first foray into CBPR); identifying barriers for minority populations of accessing help in paying utility bills (one of the most insightful projects I’ve ever undertaken), while at the same time helping the utility provider improve their reputation following a disastrous stint with ENRON; health promotion for older adults in rural and frontier areas of Kansas; community-based decision making around wind energy; working with an interdisciplinary team to create a toolkit to help older adults in a Kansas County to reduce falls called Falling LinKS  http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=AGING&p=/FallingLinKS/Page1/, and hunger awareness and activism. Perhaps my most fulfilling work over the last decade has been launching the Hunger Awareness Initiative as Wichita State University. You can find us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/WSUHungerAwareness, on Twitter at @WSUHunger or #WSUHunger, and visit our website at: https://wsuhunger.wordpress.com.  I wrote earlier about what got me into the hunger space: https://dballardreisch.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/who-am-i-on-this-hunger-awareness-journey/. I have a number of blog posts on this issue, but this is my “Who am I?” post.

3) I have also recognized that none of us do “this” the same way. There is a great deal of writing, thinking and lamenting on the downside of multi-tasking at the moment. I could not disagree more! Multi-tasking is not a myth and it is a godsend for those of us who think 24/7 and who are highly productive. (I plan to write more on that later, but for now, suffice it to say, we are all differently abled. Somehow we have lost track of that in recent years and anything that is not “normal” has become problematic. I would argue that there is no such thing as “normal” and that striving to be so keeps many of us from recognizing our unique gifts – but I digress.) That said, even the best multi-taskers might at times need to take a break and just “be”, just reflect, plan, breathe. That is, among other things (I AM a multi-tasker after all), what I am doing on this sabbatical.

While I love my life and my career, I also have a strong desire to do something different. I have no idea what that will be. I do have faith that I will find “it”.  On September 2, 2014, my first full day in Florence, serendipity stepped in and I met a woman I wrote about in an earlier post, Lauren Haas, who 1-1/2 years ago sold everything she owned to become a traveling writer. She takes gigs that pay $30-$150 which generally have nothing to do with where she’s living, and she travels the world. How cool is that?! Her adventure reminded me of this cartoon. I love meeting people who are following their dreams! http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/what-if-money-was-no-object/

I’m not yet sure what my next dream will be, but for now the streets of Florence beckon, and I will answer. I love walking these hills. More later, dear readers.  

I wrote this entry on my first full day in Florence, Italy, September 2, 2014.

Serendipity 1: Started before I even left the U.S. for Florence. I stopped by my office briefly, prior to my trip and a casual friend, Amy Geiszler-Jones, stopped in to say hello. As a freelance journalist, she was in the building interviewing one of my colleagues. She had interviewed me several times before and we’d hit it off. I mentioned I was going to Florence for 2 months on a writing retreat as part of my sabbatical. She mentioned that she had a friend in Florence I might like to meet. She put us in touch through Facebook. We made tentative plans to get together.

Serendipity 2: Both of us considered cancelling our meeting, me due to jetlag, Lauren Haas because she had decided to leave for Milan a day early. Both of us decided at the last minute not to do so. Why not meet? We both needed to eat anyway, or so our thinking went. We met at the Ponte Vecchio, the old bridge over the Arno River where goldsmiths and jewelers sold their wares. It is still much the same today. We walked on looking for a place to eat and have coffee. We found a lovely outdoor restaurant, and as it was a mild morning, decided it was the perfect place to stop. Both of us ordered Italian breakfast, which included cappuccino, a crescent, and orange juice. I may fall in love with this breakfast. The cappuccino (for those of you who know me, you know I am not typically a coffee fan) was frothy and bitter. Two packets of sugar later, it tasted like heaven, the perfect blend of sweet and bitter. The crescent was flaky and tasty. The orange juice freshly squeezed and delicious. But, I digress. Lauren and I settled in to get acquainted.

Serendipity 3: Lauren started talking about her world travels. She defined herself as a traveling, freelance journalist, then clarified that where she traveled didn’t necessarily have anything to do with what she wrote. Her stories were fascinating. She had simply jettisoned her life 1- ½ years before, selling everything, to travel the world. She picked up writing gigs where she could get them. Her specialty is travel writing. At one point I asked if she had ever been to Peru. She told me that she acts as a grant writer for a very special orphanage in Cuzco called, Niños del Sol http://www.ninosdelsol.org/(formerly Case de Milagros). I talked about my work with Angels of the Amazon http://angelsoftheamazon.org/in the Tahauyo River Basin, one of the tributaries of the Amazon River. As Lauren talked, it became clear to me that she could benefit from a communication intern to assist with the organization’s website, Facebook page, newsletter, and communication with donors. I told her I had a number of students at Wichita State who would be qualified and would benefit from such an internship. We will continue communicating to “set things up” for this internship.

Serendipity 4: As I mentioned in my prior post, I am using this sabbatical to vision my future. I may enhance what I do in the academy, reduce what I do in the academy over the next several years, or leave the academy all together at some point. I have never “been” anything professionally other than a professor. Lauren’s story of leaving everything behind and becoming a traveling writer fascinated me. She shared a number of sites she’s found helpful in her journey. They include www.copypress.com for writing assignments, trainings and tips, and ww1.helpx.com for volunteer opportunities worldwide.

I don’t know what the future holds for me, but the things Lauren and I have in common make it seem almost destined that we should meet. The serendipities that brought us together and that emerged during out conversation have the potential to lead to lasting collaborations valuable to both of us. She’s also an amazing person I thoroughly enjoyed meeting. Plus, we both like Jason Mraz and Norah Jones.