I think it’s fair to say that this blog has not focused much at the reason we are ostensibly here. Some of you are confused as to why your tax dollars are allowing me to do this! To clarify why this trip is happening at all: the USNA is hoping I’ll learn something new and return reinvigorated, and with a more diverse skill set (rather than sitting in my office, undergoing tenure-based calcification). As a result, every seven years I get to apply to do this; it’s a pretty standard perk of academic jobs. Salary is mostly paid by the USNA, and the remainder can be filled in with research grants.
In the last couple years, I’ve expended a lot of time and effort helping to stand up the new USNA Center for High Performance Computing. However, I have a lot to learn about these systems. So, my sabbatical is with NTNU’s Anne Elster and her HPC Lab, a smart and fun group of people doing great work (some of them were featured here before), all while being located right next to a fjord. I’m overseeing two Masters’ projects, have substitute-taught a few times, given several talks, kept up collaborations with people back home, and started up some new research collaborations with people here, including the hiring of a PhD student.
Many thanks to Prof Taylor for giving an interesting #MachineLearning talk at the #telenorntnuai seminar 2tay pic.twitter.com/jfIZ3FiOIq
— Heri Ramampiaro (@heriram) October 20, 2017
The biggest benefit is the complete lack of administrative work. For a variety of reasons (a consistent lack of a federal budget and occasional politically-motivated hiring freezes among them), there is a great difficulty in hiring administrative staff at USNA, and we now all do a lot of paperwork that takes a huge amount of time away from students and research; on sabbatical, everybody pretty much just leaves me alone to do the things I want to do.
I have an office! It comes with a standing desk.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt more American than when I’ve taught here. At home, my classroom is already a pretty theatrical place — enthusiasm is a tool for teachers, and one I work hard to cultivate; putting that in a Norwegian classroom, where students are pretty quiet, is a bit of a scene. Early on in the first day, after asking the class a question, and getting (startled?) silence in response, I paused and said, “guys, we’re going to do this the American way, where I ask you questions, and if you don’t answer, it gets weird.” By the end of my subbing, we were all pretty amused at each other, and things were rolling along well.
When I first filled out our residency application, I filled in the terms of my employment so Norway could be sure I wasn’t being imported and exploited as a cheap replacement for a Norwegian. My initial statement of working 40 hours a week was flagged as a little high — the typical work week is 37.5 hours. It should be noted that like in the US the “typical work week” has only a loose correlation with how much people actually work, but the culture still is one of balance (it may even tip a bit too far towards non-work-life).
The effect of less working hours has been remarkable. First, I get at least as much done. Second, I’m sleeping far better. At home, I have some insomnia, and wake up at 2 or 3 am pretty regularly. Here, I get a pretty consistent 8.5 hours a night (frankly, this might be the best part of all this). I work out or do something active pretty nearly every day. It’s pretty magnificent.
Occasionally, some faculty member here has pushed for me to try and stay (“what, are you going to go back and work for Trump for 20 years?”). At Navy, they obviously can’t require you to return from sabbatical (13th amendment, and all). However, they do make you sign a contract acknowledging a “moral obligation” to return for at least two years. If it were only me (Allison’s law degree doesn’t translate as easily to a job abroad), it would be a debate, but I’m pretty sure I’d still decide to keep the job at Navy rather than take something permanent at NTNU. Because of the Norwegian approach to work, a job at NTNU would definitely be “easier” (for example, NTNU professors get a sabbatical every four years), but I’d miss my students and the teaching-centric nature of my job at Navy, even at the cost of dealing with infuriating federal bureaucracy and longer hours. And, in six years, I get to come back!
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