Engineering students are well acquainted with the demands of a busy schedule, so it should come as no surprise that the dean of their school would also appreciate some time off once in a while.
This September through November, Kristina Johnson, dean of the Pratt School of Engineering, will take a leave of absence to explore intellectual pursuits that she has not been able to cultivate in her administrative position.
"It's a time to step back and get reacquainted with a lot of scholarship that I haven't had time for," she said.
Provost Peter Lange approved the sabbatical two years ago when Johnson agreed to another five-year term as dean. She pointed out that professors are granted such a release every seven years.
Although no other dean has taken a leave of absence during Lange's tenure, he noted that the previous provost, Peter Griffiths, took one.
With the Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences open and the most recent strategic plan finished, this fall seemed an appropriate time to get away, Johnson said.
"We've got such a great team at Pratt," she added. "It's a great time. It looks like a very bright future."
Pratt Senior Associate Dean Robert Clark, a professor of mechanical engineering, will serve as dean in Johnson's stead.
"It just seemed a natural way to go," Lange said of Clark's temporary post.
Johnson hopes to develop two projects in particular that have been on the mental back-burner. One, an idea that came to her "literally in the shower," concerns software and information technology, a new area for her. The other-which she described as "more hardware"-would be more in line with previous endeavors.
Johnson wrote in a May e-mail to the Pratt community that she hopes the leave of absence will allow her to take the ideas from their nascent stages "to products, processes and possibly to the marketplace."
Although she intends to spend some time at Duke during her sabbatical-particularly to attend the Board of Visitors meeting and help "steward the implementation of the strategic plan"-Johnson said she also anticipates some travel.
Colorado, where she has a home and a small company, is a convenient layover for coast-to-coast business travel-and an enchanting place to watch the leaves change in September, she added.
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