An Analysis of Agricultural Faculty Members’ Lived Experiences of Society and Industry Sabbatical Leave

Society and industry sabbatical leave is one of the ways to establish a systematic collaboration between “universities” and “society and industry”. In order to plan and implement this matter as effectively as possible, it is necessary to deeply analyze the merits and demerits of this program based on the lived experiences of the beneficiaries. Therefore, this research studied the lived experiences of agricultural faculty members with a qualitative approach. Phenomenological method was identified to a suitable method for this purpose. In order to collect data, some in-depth interviews were conducted with the agricultural faculty members. After conducting 13 interviews and achieving the theoretical saturation, data gathering was stopped. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi's strategy and MAXQDA software. Trustworthiness of the data and results was achieved by credibility, authenticity, transferability, and confirmability. The findings showed that the expected outcomes of faculty members from the society and industry sabbatical leave included: (a) scientific, educational, and research promotion, (b) trust and expanding future cooperation, (c) communication, support, and networking, and (d) personal-professional promotion. However, based on the lived experiences of participants, some factors including (a) transparency and information, (b) administrative process, (c) rules and guidelines, (d) support services, and (e) aligning with the concern of the faculty member were of the most important challenges of faculty members in their sabbatical leave in society and industry. Therefore, for the effective implementation of the sabbatical leave, it is necessary to make decisions and actions to eliminate the mentioned challenges.