The Learning Matters Podcast captures insights into, experiences of, and conversations around education at the University of Sussex. The podcast is hotsed by Prof Wendy Garnham and Dr Heather Taylor. It runs monthly, and each month is centred around a particular theme. The theme of our first episode is ‘scholarship leave’, and we will hear from Sue Robbins (Senior Lecturer in English Language) and Dr René Moolenaar (Senior Lecturer in Strategy) as they discuss the experiences and outputs of their recent scholarship leave. 

Sue Robbins  

Sue Robbins is Senior Lecturer in English Language and Director of Continuing Professional Development in the School of Media, Arts and Humanities.  

René Moolenaar 

René Moolenaar is Senior Lecturer in Strategy at the University of Sussex Business School and Associate Professor at the University of Queensland. 

Recording

Listen to the recording of Episode 1.

Transcript

Wendy Garnham 

Welcome to the Learning Matters podcast from the University of Sussex, where we capture insights, experiences and conversations around education at our institution and beyond. Our theme for this episode is scholarship leave, and our guests are René Moolenaar 

 Senior Lecturer in Strategy and Sue Robbins, Senior Lecturer in English Language. My name is Wendy Garnham. I’m professor of psychology and director of student experience for the Central Foundation Year Programmes, and I’m your presenter today. Welcome, everyone.  

Okay, so my first question, which I’m going to direct to you, Sue, is what is scholarship leave and what prompted you to apply?  

Sue Robbins 

Thanks, Wendy, and thanks for inviting me. So at Sussex, colleagues on the Education and Scholarship track who are undertaking scholarship can request a semester of scholarship leave every three years. And I was awarded a period of leave from August last year to January this year, and I used it to complete the manuscript of an e-textbook, and to simultaneously prepare it for publication. So over the last couple of years, I’ve been using some of the time allocated to me for scholarship. We have a 20% allowance built into our contracts to write a textbook for learners of English as an international language, and I used the period to complete the manuscript and it was published in January this year, and it’s called Develop Your English with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, or Develop Your English for short.  

So it’s an e text book for upper intermediate to advanced level English language learners pitched at approximately IELTS 6 to 7.5, if that’s something you’re familiar with, so it’s appropriate for undergraduate and postgraduate students. And I published it, with Open Press at University of Sussex, so it’s published under a Creative Commons licence and is free to access and use. The book integrates scholarship and professional practice in that it combines the application of second language acquisition theory to practice with the affordances offered by digital technology. I could say loads more about it but I probably won’t.  

René Moolenaar 

Thank you and thank you for inviting me. So for me, what prompted me to apply was, I’ve been with the School [University of Sussex Buisness School], for about 11 years at the time. So I did my scholarship leave in the autumn of 2022. So I’ve been 11 years there. I’ve also just finished the role of director of student experience, which is a rather challenging role. And I’d also just finished my doctorate in business administration and I thought this is the time to actually apply for scholarship leave and to continue my scholarship, based on the thesis that I wrote for my for my doctorate.  

I thought it would be nice to do the scholarship leave at another institution, to get experience of another University. Of course I could have stayed in England with the University, but decided to go to the other side of the world and managed to get a place at the University Australian Centre For Water and Environmental Biotechnology, which is a bit of a mouthful. And a strange home for somebody who has worked in the Business School, since 2011. So yeah, this was kind of interesting.  

Wendy Garnham 

Really sort of quite diverse experiences, I think, during the notion of scholarship leap period. Could you give us an idea of what you sort of feel you achieved during that period of scholarship leave?  

René Moolenaar 

Yeah, so I took the topic of my thesis, which is all about how placements can support the development of a broader university-industry relationship, which is also how I pitched it to the center at UQ. For them that particular topic was really important, they do a lot of work together with industry. The framework I had developed to the local situation, and then to present my original findings and the findings from the study that I did there, to the Centre. Which they very much appreciated. They liked it a lot, given their interest in this particular field and they are actually in the process of applying the framework that I have developed.  

Wendy Garnham 

It sounds as though it was a very beneficial period of leave but to both of you, I just want to pose the question. Were there any unexpected outcomes from your period of scholarship leave? It was extremely beneficial,  

Sue Robbins 

Unlike Renee, I wasn’t in the other side of the world, I was sitting at home in my second bedroom working away at my computer. There were many, many different aspects to the management of this project, but what was really great was to have a single focus because a lot of our working lives, we manage so many different things on a daily basis that being allowed to just think about one thing for six months was a huge benefit, and I think it would have been difficult to complete the project without the scholarship leave. An unexpected outcome, is that I made an early decision to turn all of the written tasks that I’d made into interactive ones because I was working on a digital platform that allowed for interactivity, And not exactly inadvertently because it had been at the back of my mind, but I did give myself a substantial amount of extra work making that decision.  

Wendy Garnham 

It’s definitely a gold star for my active learning interest.  

Sue Robbins 

Yeah. The book is fully interactive. I used the content creation tool H5P, so all of the tasks are interactive and all of them have instant feedback so that students can self-assess at every stage how well they’ve done with every task. So it was definitely worth doing, but it hadn’t formed part of the original plan.  

Wendy Garnham 

How easy was it to use H5P? 

Sue Robbins  

It’s fairly straightforward. I’ve used it before, so I was very familiar with it. I’d created a short course for the Department of Language Studies a couple of years ago, a short online course in which I’d used it. I think of all the content creation tools, HP5 is the easiest to get to grips with. There is a learning curve, but it doesn’t stress you too much to understand how the tool works.  

The only thing really is that the back end of the tool looks absolutely different to the front end. So you have to get used to that. Yeah. But I’ve tried a range of content authoring tools and for me this one is the easiest to get to grips with.  

Wendy Garnham 

René. How about you? Any unexpected outcomes?  

René Moolenaar 

Yeah. The very pleasant and unexpected outcome was that I was offered an adjunct associate professorship of University of Queensland (UQ), which was very nice. I had not anticipated that clearly, but on the penultimate day of my stay there, I had a meeting with the director of the Centre and they suggested that I should become an adjunct. Which after some discussion and sort of trying to understand a bit more what that would actually mean, how much work do I need to do and such things, we agreed that I should do that, went through the formal process and was offered that, I think about a couple of months later.  

Wendy Garnham 

Thinking ahead in terms of the impact of your scholarship leave, what impact has your scholarship leave had on the academic community or what impact do you hope it will have?  

Sue Robbins 

Yes, so publishing with Open Press here at University of Sussex, rather than with one of  

the big English language teaching publishers, which I’ve done in the past, it gave me much more freedom in the design of the material. And Develop Your English is innovative in the field of English language teaching in that the content incorporates global perspectives into the into the language learning process, because it focuses on international themes which I’ve organised around each of the, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.  

It gave me an opportunity to think about how language education can play an essential role in sustainability literacy because potentially the market for the book is enormous, potentially, and sustainability literacy can be developed through the use of the textbook. So that’s something that could potentially shape the field in a way that it hasn’t been shaped before. And in terms of international impact, it’s also the case that English language textbooks, the cost of them is prohibitive in many low-income parts of the world, which leaves very many learners without access to good quality material.  

So using this digital platform offered via, Open Press, there’s the potential of reaching those learners that isn’t there currently, and in order to make that more possible the book can now be offered in a range of formats, so it is essentially an e-textbook, but it can also be accessed in e-Pub format which means it can be used offline, and this is important because many learners in many parts of the world, if we think about, digital poverty, don’t have access either to a good internet connection or to, hardware. So it can be used as an e-textbook, it can be used offline as an e-Pub, and it can also be downloaded as a PDF which means places where, where people really don’t have good access to the things they need. Assuming one time access to a printer, it can be downloaded and printed out and used as a hard copy. Obviously, that loses the interactivity, but there’s a full answer key in that version. So thinking about sustainability literacy, which is important, and thinking about, access and equity, it has the potential to address both of those things. Yeah, I mean it ticks so many boxes I think that are real sort of hot topics within scholarship at the moment, so I’m sure it’s going to have a really big impact on the community.  

The difficulty will be, promoting it. Open Press is a small press and it’s very new, So it’s how we get people to know that it’s there will be the next challenge to try and overcome.  

Wendy Garnham 

Looking at impact, René, how about you? What impact?  

René Moolenaar 

Yeah. It’s a good question. So the original framework I developed was based on the study I did at Sussex. And whereas I thought it was already fairly complete, going over to a different university on a different continent, different parts of the world, it was interesting through the data collection process and reflecting and challenging my own framework to find out that it wasn’t Although good parts sort of survived of it, clearly there were elements of it that needed updating. Partly specific to the local environment but also clearly with a much broader application, as well.  

So I ended up with an improved version of the of the framework, that is now being applied, which is kind of interesting. It’s interesting to pick something up that you developed in one situation to then take it to another situation. In this case we went from a Business School situation to, in fact, a center that was in the Information Technology and Chemistry department. It’s an entirely different situation.  

And data and then to see how well your your framework can be applied to a very different situation. So that was an interesting process and it led to an improved version of the of the framework.  

Wendy Garnham 

I mean it sounds from both of your perspectives as diverse as your experience was that you’ve really gained a lot from it academically and professionally. How about personally? Would you like to sort of say something like what was the experience of being on scholarship leave?  

Sue Robbins 

It’s difficult to separate the professional from the personal to be honest. Yeah. Because they interact so strongly, don’t they. In terms of scholarship. But it was really rewarding to have that time to just I think I said early on to just focus on one thing. Yeah. Which isn’t something it’s not something we normally have space to do. So I was able to complete something that I’d been working on for several years already and I think without the leave it would have taken me several more to be honest. So it was it was rewarding, I mean, and it was really interesting. And also having access to Open Press and to the Open Press team was a joy because they share a lot of my, I’m going to say passion, it’s an awful word isn’t it, but they share a lot of my passion for open practices generally, and so it was really nice to spend time talking through what we were doing with people who had a similar outlook.  

Wendy Garnham 

Did you find it difficult managing your time?  

Sue Robbins 

No. Well, I say no in the sense that I I tended to overwork during that period because I knew it was a finite amount of time and I knew I wanted to get the project done, I did go at it. Yeah. And, and so managing it in the sense of, you know, don’t wear yourself out, was perhaps the challenge. Yeah.  

Wendy Garnham

How did you find that, René? 

René Moolenaar 

I agree with Sue that the two interact very much, the personal and the professional if you like. But from a time perspective, given that I was at UQ for eleven weeks, I had to (and early on they had already said, René you’re going to present in the penultimate week), that gave a real deadline by which I need to have completed all the additional research, reflection and evaluate the impact on my framework and then of course to present. So, there was not really an option to do it a week later or something, this had to be done. It was actually quite, I’m sort of part time, it’s important to say that I’m part time here at the University, so I’m still in industry.  

And given that I sort of went from industry into academia fairly late compared to younger colleagues, my experience of other Universities was limited. So to actually spend time for eleven weeks long at another University’s properly embedded in is just, it’s just very interesting to learn how they work, the challenges they have compared to the challenges that we have, the successes etc. Of course you’re extending your network of contacts which is amazing. But I think almost above all, being awarded, applying for scholarship leave is not easy because there are limitations of course, the number of people in a department that can go on scholarship leave. So to be awarded it is kind of special.  

And it gave me a feeling of an element of reward. I’m being appreciated by being awarded the scholarship leave. Because at the end of the day, you know, we’re able to focus on a particular topic, scholarship topic, with continuing sort of pay and that’s clearly very nice. So yeah, this it was it was kind of amazing, it lifted my spirits, I came back almost rejuvenated and there’s renewed energy to take on, you know, the role that we have, which is a challenging role to combine often a significant teaching workload with a scholarship workload.  

Often the scholarship piece gets compromised because of the teaching element that we need to do and to be given time to focus on the scholarship element I think is fantastic. I think it’s needed. I think it’s absolutely needed and fundamental to our own development and the development of our colleagues because we’re clearly spreading, if like, the word, what we are doing. But I think it’s also very nice to for this idea of there’s an element of rewards here.  

Wendy Garnham 

I guess that sort of links into our next question, which is about advice that you would give to anybody contemplating taking a period of scholarship leave.  

Sue Robbins 

I think at any given moment most of us could come up with a range of scholarship projects that we’re either already tackling or are really interested in or would like to pursue, and I suppose given that as René said, this scholarship leave is a gift, and it’s one that, you know, is precious and it might not come round very often, it’s worth thinking about is there something that actually you really need that time to complete, or you’d really like to be able to complete or carry something out in that time that you might not be able to do without it. Because we do have, and it isn’t enough, but we do have that twenty percent built into our contracts where we can keep chugging along with lots of stuff. So is there something that you really want and that you really need that time for, and can you really do it in that amount of time? How much can you achieve in 6 months is a big question to ask yourself. But do it because undertaking and undertaking and sharing scholarship is really important work.  

René Moolenaar 

Adding definitely to what Sue was saying, for me the piece of advice would be to prepare for it. It took me something like a year from thinking I’m going to apply to actually go on scholarship leave. And of course perhaps in my case it was maybe slightly different because I wanted to go to another university. I was absolutely set on that, and that that’s not easy. And I thought it would be easy. I thought I’ll just talk to some colleagues from around the world and I’m sure they can find me a desk somewhere. And absolutely not. Colleagues that really have very good relationships with other universities. I’ve tried but no, I think it would have been different if I was a professor with a long list of publications under my belt and a name in a certain field. It probably would have been different. But that was not me. And so to find an open door somebody, somewhere was hard, was difficult. Took me quite a few months to find it. So yeah, definitely about prepare prepare prepare. So you may not even get it with your first application, because of maybe a limited number of colleagues that can go in that particular term or that particular year on scholarship leave. So it may you may need to apply twice to get it.  

Wendy Garnham 

As we all know, the importance of feed-forward is forever at the front of our minds as good good, scholarship individuals. So I guess 1 thing it would be good to leave our listeners with is some suggestion for further reading or a resource that might be of use. So if you could name one resource or article or any sort of further study, what would you suggest?  

Sue Robbins 

So in terms of educational for sustainable development or, sustainable literacy if you like, Christiane Lütge has written a lot in this area in terms of relating that to language teaching, and she’s really worth following up and having a look at. But I can’t not say, please do have a look at my book. Yeah. So do Develop your English with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. You might want to share it with your international students. You might want to see how the goals can be integrated into the learning process, not necessarily just in language but in any discipline. You might be interested to see how H5P works in practice, or you might just be interested in having a look at our own Open Press site which includes lots of, other books including some edited by Wendy. So I’ll just leave it there.  

René Moolenaar  

I think on the topic of scholarship leave or study leave or sabbatical, there are a number of journal articles published, I even found one that went into the history of it. And it going back to explaining the name sabbatical and when Harvard in, I think it was 1880 or something started this, that after six years of work you could then have one year of sabbatical. Anyway, so a number of articles on the topic. The book that at least one found two books on the topic, I haven’t read either of them, but one struck me with an interesting title. It says The Academic Sabbatical A Voyage of Discovery.  

It was published in 2022 and I thought it is very much a voyage of discovery. It gives you an opportunity to go on a journey and to discover and to continue with scholarship or to discover another university or to discover certain interests that you may have that you want to develop going forwards in the field of scholarship. So I think that that’s an interesting book that I actually might well buy and or suggest a library to acquire, that might be an interesting read.  

Wendy Garnham 

All of these including a link I believe to Sue’s book will be in the episode description for anybody who would like to follow-up on those. That brings us to the end of our podcast on scholarship leave. So I would like to thank our guests, René Moolenaar, Senior Lecturer in Strategy. Thank you. And Sue Robbins, Senior Lecturer in English Language. Thank you.  

And thank you for listening. This has been the Learning Matters podcast from the University of Sussex, created by Sarah Watson and Wendy Garnham and produced by Simon Overton. For more episodes as well as articles, blogs, case studies and infographics, please visit Learning Matters 

References

Sue Robbins 

Robbins, S. (2024) Develop Your English: with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Open Press at University of Sussex. Available at: https://openpress.sussex.ac.uk/developyourenglish/   

Lütge, C., Merse, T., and Rauschert, P. (Eds.) (2023) Global Citizenship in Foreign Language Education: Concepts, Practices, Connections. Routledge. Available at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003183839/global-citizenship-foreign-language-education-christiane-l%C3%BCtge-thorsten-merse-petra-rauschert  

René Moolenaar 

Gardner, S.K. (2021) ‘Faculty learning and professional growth in the sabbatical leave’, Innovative Higher Education, 47(3), pp. 435–451. doi:10.1007/s10755-021-09584-4.   

Macfarlane, B. (2022) ‘The academic sabbatical as a symbol of change in higher education: From rest and recuperation to hyper-performativity’, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 45(3), pp. 335–348.  doi:10.1080/1360080x.2022.2140888 .  

Sibbald, T. and Handford, V. (2022) The academic sabbatical: A voyage of discovery. Ottawa, Ontario: University of Ottawa Press.  

Zahorski, K.J. (1994) The sabbatical mentor: A practical guide to successful sabbaticals. Bolton, MA: Anker Pub. Co.