AROUND THE WORLD: David Matthews and sons visit the Eiffel Tower during his sabbatical, taking advantage of travel opportunities while away.© NANCY MATTHEWS/SABBATICALS 101: A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR ACADEMICS AND THEIR FAMILIES (NEW FORUMS PRESS)
Medical statistician David Matthews had arranged to spend his sabbatical from the University of Waterloo in Canada overseas at the University of Oxford in 1998, but he and his family nearly didn’t make it to the U.K. at all. Matthews’s wife Nancy had to schedule outpatient surgery three days before their departure. The doctor’s orders to rest went out the window when she returned home to find that the family’s Kitchener, Ontario, house was far from ready for arriving tenants. After some frantic last-minute packing, David and Nancy loaded their luggage and their two school-age children, Lucas and Josh, into the car of a friend who was driving them to their flight, with no time to spare. As they sped towards the airport, Nancy turned ...
