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Scholarly Debts

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By Mary Werner

I just bounced a check. That's because I've stopped recording my spending on that little register in my checkbook, out of sheer, cringing denial about my financial state at this point in my sabbatical.

I'm finishing the sabbatical about $8,000 in debt, a figure almost exactly equal to the amount of pay I sacrificed in order to take a semester off from teaching at my liberal-arts college. Last time I took a sabbatical, I was on half-pay for a year and ended up $20,000 in debt -- a hole it took me until very recently to dig out of.

This time I took only one semester off, at three-quarters pay. Let's see: A semester's pay for me at this advanced stage in my career is about $32,500, and a quarter of that is ... my MasterCard bill.

At least I get a sabbatical. I have friends who don't get one at all at their institutions. If they want time off, they have to apply for grants or fellowships, or they can take teaching overloads until they "earn" a semester off. How can their institutions expect them to keep up in their fields with no college-sponsored opportunity for research? If your college has a heavy teaching load and doesn't build into your career trajectory a semester or a year off to get your research started -- or restarted -- you're certainly not going to be winning a Guggenheim or an NEH grant to enable you to finish.

For those of us in the privileged position of being able to take sabbaticals, a period of reduced pay, however long it lasts, might not seem like much of a problem. When I calculated what I'd be pulling in this year, given my semester off, I was sure I could get by on my new monthly check.

I remembered the first time I had had a sabbatical at three-quarter's pay, back when I was a frugal assistant professor living alone in an apartment. Back then I didn't end up in debt at all. I had decided to take the spring off, so I sublet my apartment for the year, moved in with a pal for the fall, while I was teaching, and then hopped on a plane to Europe for the spring semester. I lived on lentils, took public transportation, and stayed within my budget.

Eleven years, a partner, a child, and a dog later, it's a whole different story. I can't spend the semester at the overseas archives I used to use, can't leave my partner with all the child care, and can't find any way to cut our expenses. My research takes place in my own study or in the libraries of neighboring research institutions. And even without international travel, the debt rises, despite my best efforts to economize.

As I pondered the fees for my insufficient-funds check, I tried to trace how I'd gotten myself into this pickle. Here are some of the problems I found with living a three-quarters pay lifestyle:

• Oddly enough, the mortgage folks weren't that keen on lowering my payments by 25 percent until I got back on full pay.

• My daughter didn't want to reduce her number of meals from 21 per week to 15.75.

• Not driving in to campus eliminated my commuting expenses, but staying home all winter raised my heating and electrical bills.

• Printing things on my home computer instead of in the departmental office meant buying ink cartridges and reams of paper.

• The phone bill rose, as I had to make calls on my home phone that would otherwise have been made from my office. Actually the phone bill rose a lot, especially when I used my cell phone to make long-distance calls before I discovered how few substantive calls you can make in 400 minutes a month.

• I had to buy stamps for business correspondence -- no campus post office to take care of letters and manuscripts.

• Although I didn't have to keep up my teaching wardrobe during sabbatical, I did have to try to look professional for the occasions on which I had to make an appearance in a professional context (that was not an issue when I was a new assistant professor). I couldn't give in to the temptation to go six months without a haircut or without taking anything to the dry-cleaners.

I probably could have anticipated most of those problems if I had thought it all out last year. And maybe I've learned my lesson now, and I'll plan better for my next research leave. Or maybe I'll just wait longer next time, until I've earned a semester at full pay.

I'm lucky that way. My institution has a relatively generous sabbatical policy. I can earn a semester sabbatical at full pay every six years. It had been three years since my last sabbatical. So instead of taking a leave at reduced pay now, I could have waited three more years until I had earned a fully paid semester off from teaching.

But I knew that if I had to wait three more years, I would be unable to sustain my research project. I have found that I need either a full year for research and writing every six years or a single semester at more frequent intervals. Otherwise, by the time I got to a sabbatical, I would be starting from scratch each time.

I hate going into debt. But I'd hate it even more if I couldn't take sabbaticals. It's hard to keep a research agenda going during the teaching year, and summers never seem to be long enough. The semesters off make all the difference for me, as they do, I know, for many of my colleagues.

The other night I saw financial guru Suze Orman on television. She was telling an audience of enraptured twentysomethings how to get themselves on the right career track and how to keep out of debt. (I know, but it was late and I couldn't sleep, OK?)

She told them that normally her advice is to avoid using credit cards at all costs but that she makes one exception: If you find a job in a field you love, with advancement potential, but the job does not pay enough for you to live on, use a credit card to get by, and work like hell to advance in your career. Soon you will be promoted, your salary will rise, and you'll be able to pay off your credit cards systematically over the next year or two. Think of it, she said, as an investment in yourself.

That sounded good to me. I'm using the semester to work like hell to advance my career, and I can pay back the credit cards when I get back onto full pay. In fact, I'll even be getting a good raise this year. The interest on $8,000? It's an investment in myself.

I'd better get back to my research now. After all, I want to have something more than a bad credit rating to show for myself at the end of this sabbatical.