Leaving Tenure....

[polly_mer]

Depends on the SLAC. If its one that's hurting, they might not be able to fund a replacement, or even overloads for existing dept. members, making the prospects for granting leave not so great.
However, they might be better off than that. OP implies no, they aren't so well off (even some not-so-rich SLACs no better than to operate in the red).

Regardless, it can't hurt to ask. if they say no, or you decide not to do it, you either stay and have a job or go and have a job.

I agree that a struggling institution that's using online graduate enrollment as a cash cow likely isn't granting leaves.

Has anyone at your institution ever gotten a leave for a year or two?  I've been at big places where leaves are common for all kinds of reasons.  I've not yet seen a struggling or even just small institution really do any leaves except medical.

Super Dinky went so far as to only allow one faculty member in the whole institution to go on sabbatical at once.

[Morden]

Our institution used to give all sorts of leaves to faculty who wanted to try being administrators elsewhere. They have since stopped. I don't know if that's because of financial reasons or because we had too many return.

[adel9216]

You're not crazy.

You have definetely put a lot of thought into your decision.

I would say that you have self-respect. Which is both courageous and rare.

Congrats on making that decision for yourself.

I am a PhD student, and I don't know if I'll become a professor one day. But if I do, and if I do end up being unhappy in my position for whatever reason, I really hope that I will have your courage.

[the-tenure-track-prof]

If you have secured another position with same or higher salary and benefits then I dont see any reason as why not to transition to another institution.
I do have a question about the impact of pandemics on student enrollment rates. In my program, the dean encouraged all departments to consider going fully online starting this coming fall. I wonder how many schools have considered this option to overcompensate the loss in revenue from closing campuses this semester?.

[Ruralguy]

Its way "off brand"  for many schools to go completely online for more than emergency reasons. What they gain for a semester or two in not having to pay to maintain big buildings and such, they lose by bleeding out students who only bothered to go to super-dinky, medium-dinky, or whatever because of the value added of being able to speak with  a human being or having a human being show you how to use lab equipment, or build a circuit, or do a particular procedure on an animal or human patient.

So, I can see some, and maybe even most making attempts at online all the time, but I there would be certain SLACs or professional schools for which I would advise against making this a major feature.

[polly_mer]

Its way "off brand"  for many schools to go completely online for more than emergency reasons. What they gain for a semester or two in not having to pay to maintain big buildings and such, they lose by bleeding out students who only bothered to go to super-dinky, medium-dinky, or whatever because of the value added of being able to speak with  a human being or having a human being show you how to use lab equipment, or build a circuit, or do a particular procedure on an animal or human patient.

So, I can see some, and maybe even most making attempts at online all the time, but I there would be certain SLACs or professional schools for which I would advise against making this a major feature.

Agreed.

Even places that aren't dinky are elite or elite adjacent precisely because they offer contact with faculty, not adjuncts (except the super star special ones), not TAs even.  Those institutions are selling the experience of small classes with a full-time engaged faculty member, usually in a residential environment of 18-22 year olds.  The only thing that dinky enough places can offer is the small group experiences with live human experts.  Going to online would be shooting themselves in the foot for the one mission space that they can legitimately tout as competitive against the large places.

In addition, as the fora discussed once not that long ago, if any one action confers a competitive advantage, then having "everyone" take that action means no one gets the competitive advantage.  One thing killing some of the smaller places or even medium late adopters is that offering online education is no longer the slam-dunk in extra enrollment that it was 15 years ago.  That market is saturated with institutions that invested real resources into making a good online experience.  There's no reason to pick an ad hoc, homemade-and-not-in-the-good-way experience over one of the good experiences.