A draft sabbatical application letter (#1295)

Topics/tags: Autobiographical

As I noted yesterday, I’m eligible for a full-year sabbatical in 2025–26. In that musing, I took notes on what belongs in the two-page letter to the Dean. My muse suggests that I should now put those notes into a letter—maybe not the final version, but at least a decent draft. Here goes.

Dear Dean Seaman [1],

I am writing to apply for a full-year sabbatical in 2025–26. I plan to use that leave to work to transition my trove of course materials (e.g., daily handouts, lab instructions, problem sets) for CSC-151, Functional Problem Solving, and CSC-207, Object-Oriented Problem Solving, Data Structures, and Algorithms, into open interactive textbooks. I am particularly interested in adding interactive exercises, likely drawing on the Runestone Academy open textbook platform. I also hope to work with the newly open-sourced Turings Craft/CodeLab. I also intend to expand the discussion of computing for social good (CSG) as well as associated exercises and activities relating to CSG. I expect to spend time integrating Scamper (Grinnell’s Web-based implementation of the Scheme programming language) into Runestone Academy and adding additional image-processing functions to Scamper.

The likely product of this work is two open textbooks. I may also write papers about related issues. For example, I anticipate using Runestone Academy’s support for Parsons Problems (a type of problem in which students are given code out of order and are asked to put it in order), and there is little, if any, research on the use of Parsons Problems for functional programming languages.

I plan to do the work in Grinnell. I’ve spoken to my department chair about advisees, and we’ve agreed that the high advising load in the CS department makes it best that I keep my advisees and even that I pick up some new advisees in Spring 2025. Since I will continue to work with students (both my advisees and some student assistants) and am scheduled to give up my lab for incoming faculty, I would prefer to keep my current office space.

I do not anticipate needing funding beyond what is available through my faculty development funds. However, opportunities for workshops on Parsons Problems, Runestone Academy, CodeLab, or CSG may become available, and I would appreciate additional funding to attend. I believe those would be eligible for funding through the Instructional Support Committee. I may also need funding if I identify substantive opportunities for student assistants. In that case, I will apply for one of Grinnell’s competitive grants to use in the spring.

Student-faculty research has always been a core part of my activity as a Grinnell faculty member, most frequently through summer MAPs and MIPs. Unfortunately, personal issues have recently limited my ability to supervise summer research. Since my last sabbatical (2019–2020), I have supervised the following students [3]. Himanshu Bainwala, Christa Cochran, Mingyang Tony Fan, Nina Kouchi, Anushka Kulshreshtha, Davin Lin, Asya Shneerson, and Mai Phuong Vu (MAP, Summer 2020, Math and Images: Constructivism, Creativity, and Computing) [4]. Himanshu Bainwala, Sumin Goh, and Davin Lin (MAP, Fall Term 1 2020, A Mathematics of Images). Nina Kouchi, Davin Lin, and Asya Shneerson (MAP, Fall Term 2 2020, A Mathematics of Images). Evelyn Gonzalez (MAP, Summer 2021, Arts Computing). Megan Bernacchi, Sarah Bryan, Zaen Chou, Hong Doan, Colin Finke, Samantha Morrison, Siman Lisa Shen, and Madeline Thompson (MIP, Summer 2021, Arts Computing) [5,7].

In addition, I’ve included research preparatory activities in the introductory courses, which are my primary teaching responsibility. Most recently, I’ve added a unit on the Association of Computing Machinery’s Code of Ethics to CSC-151 and CSC-207. I’ve also added an open-ended activity in which students design a hybrid sorting algorithm, optionally using ChatGPT. This activity gives students experience considering how one goes beyond the basic sorting literature.

I am happy to provide additional details or answer questions on any of the above.

Regards,

– SamR

Is that two pages? It seems like about two pages. We’ll see when I put it into Grinnell’s official letter format. I don’t think I can cut much, although I could be a bit less verbose. It also seems long enough that I shouldn’t need to add anything if it’s less than two full pages.

Followup: It’s about one-and-a-half pages. I could write a bit more. Should I expand on the sabbatical project? Explain the features of Runestone Academy? Add some other options? I’ll give myself a break for a few days and revisit the letter to decide.

Up next: Updating my CV and figuring out how to enter my Faculty Activities Report [8].

Although I didn’t mention it in this musing or the previous musing, I also considered using sabbatical to work on MIST (my image-making software). However, teaching rules my life (or at least my academic life). I just hope we’ll continue to have courses like 151 and 207 when I return [9].

[1] Today, we received notice that Dean Montgomery is stepping down from her position. Gerald Jerry Seaman is stepping in as interim dean from a position at Credo [2].

[2] How much do higher-ed consultants make? And what does that say about what his salary will be? I guess I’ll learn from our 990 in two or so years.

[3] I once thought that the names of MAP and MIP students were protected under FERPA. However, it appears I was wrong; the College publishes those names.

[4] Those were awesome students. I loved working with them, and I miss them all.

[5] The Dean’s Office asks us to write a brief description of contributions to student research [6], but also to include name of student and title and term of MAPs if already completed. It doesn’t seem possible to do the latter and achieve brevity. Just imagine if I’d had six or seven summers of students rather than just two!

[6] Grinnell College. 2023. Procedure for Application for Sabbatical Leaves.

[7] These were also awesome students. But I’ve had the chance to keep working with some of them until just a few months ago. I miss the ones I haven’t seen in awhile, and I know I’ll miss the others, too.

[8] Class prep is also on the agenda, but that’s less relevant to this musing.

[9] If I know we’re not, I’ll probably pivot to working on textbooks for whatever the new courses are.

Version 1.0 of 2024-08-05.