President Murphy to Go On Sabbatical

Johnson State College President Barbara Murphy will go on what she referred to as a “mini-sabbatical” this semester, taking some time off to travel to South Africa.

Murphy has been president at Johnson State for six and a half years. She began in July, 2001 after being president of Community College of Vermont for about six years as well.

A president in one of the Vermont State Colleges may be granted a four to six week sabbatical after serving for about six years, “to do something,” Murphy said, “It can’t be just a vacation.”

Murphy asked for the break about six months ago. She wrote to the chancellor wishing to fulfill a goal set the previous year to pursue the sabbatical. She said in the letter that she wanted to think about access issues for college.

This is precisely what Murphy will be doing on her leave. She plans to take two weeks to do pre-trip research, including reading, writing and reflection. She will then travel to Capetown, South Africa.

“I have been very interested since the end of apartheid in South Africa,” she said, “to imagine what it would be like, first in general to be in a country that had just had this enormous deep change.”

This made Murphy think about education, whether more people were aspiring to attend college, and if black students were able to attend traditionally white schools.

“I’m interested in issues of access to higher education,” she said. “Who gets to go to college and how those decisions are made, and then how students overcome different obstacles.”

While she is gone, President Murphy’s duties will go to Academic Dean Dan Regan. The president said her tasks include such things as making sure the budget is balanced and payroll is met, leading conversations about goals, focusing direction and identifying resources, and fundraising, to name a few. “I also facilitate a lot of conversations,” she said.

Murphy did not feel that her leaving would change normal student activity. She said, “I think it’ll be very smooth,” and added that mid-semester was a good time for her to do it.

Murphy said the general response to her sabbatical has been congratulatory. She said her trip is a “very abbreviated way of getting a little breather.”