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what? why?

just how did this all come about?

what & why

introduction just in case anyone is curious how I got this boondoggle... (more)

the proposal Project ideas written in November 1999...

.az = Arizona It's my home state, but I'll relocate to a different part for July-August... (more)

.nz = New Zealand Off to the home of "kiwis" for September - October ... (more)

.au = Australia "G'day, mate!" will be my vocabulary after spending November-December down under... (more)

the goods So what actually came out of this? ... (more)

Maricopa Sabbaticals
At Maricopa, I am part of the Management And Technical (MAT) employee group, which provides professional growth opportunities in the forms of funds to attend conferences and a competitive sabbatical program.

The details on sabbaticals are provided in the application forms, but the purpose is stated:

Sabbatical Leaves are designed to provide the employee with the opportunity to participate in intensive activities away from the worksite designed to expand the employee's existing skills or to provide new skills NOT to do a project at the worksite. Sabbatical Leave funds are used to support the employment of a replacement of an employee during the employee's absence.

My Sabbatical Proposal
A number of people use the Sabbatical program to pursue their advanced degrees, but it is also possible to develop a proposal for a "project" sabbatical, the route I chose to take.

Below are links to the proposal I wrote in November 1999. Fortunately, I was able to solicit a number of letters of support (obtained so easily by e-mail!) for the places I was choosing to visit. Note that some site visits have been added and a few deleted as arrangements were made over the last few months.

Proposal in web format [30k] (more or less as converted to HTML from MS Word, not my favorite way to create web documents...)

Proposal in Acrobat (PDF) format [44k] (fully formatted document; requires free Acrobat Reader from Adobe)