Your Sabbatical: Operating Instructions - Structuring Unstructured Time

A panel of three faculty will walk participants through their advice, experiences, and best practices for structuring the unstructured time of a sabbatical. 

Monday, April 6
Noon - 1:00 pm 

Robert Hampton is a professor in the Department of Psychology and Yerkes National Primate Research Center; Director, Program in Neuroscience and Animal Behavior; and Co-Director, with Patricia Bauer Mechanisms of Learning training grant. He received his B.A. in psychology from Macalester College in 1988. He did his graduate work in psychology at University of Toronto, completing his M.A. in 1990 and his Ph.D. in 1995. He continued his training at the National Institute of Mental Health as a Training Fellow from 1996 to 2000 and a Research Fellow from 2000 to 2004.

Dieter Jaeger is a professor in the Department of Biology. His research areas are neuroscience and computational biology. His lab combines electrophysiological recordings and detailed computer modeling to examine how neurons in the basal ganglia and in the cerebellum process their inputs. In particular they are interested in the functional significance of inhibition and of active neural properties in network processing. They also apply these concepts to investigate the mechanisms underlying the clinical effects of deep brain stimulation using multisite recordings in anesthetized rodents. The ultimate goal of this work is to understand the motor function of basal ganglia and cerebellar networks in normal and disease states.

Jennifer R. Ayres is associate professor of religious education and director of the Doctor of Ministry Program. Her research interests include religious environmental education, social activism and religious identity, faith formation in the context of popular culture, and feminist practical theology. She is the author of three books: Waiting for a Glacier to Move: Practicing Social Witness (Wipf and Stock, 2011), Good Food: Grounded Practical Theology (Baylor Univ. Press, 2013), and Inhabitance: Ecological Religious Education (Baylor Univ. Press, 2019). Her current research, for which she received a grant from Emory’s University Research Committee, investigates the educational task of cultivating Christian faith that is deeply rooted in our ecological context, with attention to the kinds of religious leaders needed for this work.