Tenure and tacos: A Miami professor’s semester at Chipotle and abroad

Leah Wasburn-Moses, a tenured professor at Miami University, requested a leave of absence last fall to visit her daughter who was abroad. But when the university denied her personal leave request, she was left with an unplanned semester off — and a lot of time on her hands.

Wasburn-Moses’ 16-year-old daughter was studying abroad in Birmingham, England for the fall semester, so she asked her supervisors if she could take a few days off or teach online. Once they said no, she realized that if she wanted to visit her at all, she had to take a semester off without pay or benefits.

“I am a very active person,” she said, “so even if I had a salary, I would want something to do, and so I had to find something productive … that would make some amount of money for the time that I had in Oxford.”

Wasburn-Moses, who teaches educational psychology, applied everywhere she could think of to stay busy during her semester off in Oxford.

“I just sent my application to everywhere you can think of in town that's always hiring, and nobody called me back,” she said. “I just did exactly what students do. [I] went from door to door, just kept going, and then Chipotle called me for an interview.”

She was interviewed by Brayden Osborne, a Miami first-year majoring in nursing.

“I do remember when Leah came in for an interview,” Osborne said. “I was shocked to find out she was a professor … but it all added up; she was very smart and professional.”

The job, she admits, was no joke – the physicality was a shock.

“I'm pretty fit, but I have not had a physical job like that, so that was really a challenge,” Wasburn-Moses said. “It's not a challenge for me to be on my feet for a seven-hour shift, but I am not used to carrying heavy boxes and getting on stools and taking things down from high shelves and pouring and spilling.”

Wasburn-Moses said she enjoyed the difficult and novel approach brought to her through this work experience. Leaving for a semester to see her daughter and learning about life along the way turned out to be the best situation for her.

She said she understood that requests for personal leave are dependent on the professors’ situations.

“Obviously, we want our professors to be present and in the classroom and with students,” Wasburn-Moses said, “but once the request was denied, it turned into five weeks.”

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Aside from England, she also traveled to Athens, Greece with her oldest son and ended up taking a five-week solo cruise from Fort Lauderdale, stopping at places like Albania, Malta, Corsica, Spain and Portugal.

“When I tell what happened, I feel like I'm making it up,” she said, laughing. “I've certainly never done any kind of travel like that before in my entire life.”

The juxtaposition of her two professional worlds — academia and the food industry — prompted a change in perspective.

“I think it changed how I view my students,” she said. “I just really appreciated learning more about their lives – what they're really thinking about, the pressures they face from home and work and romantic relationships – just getting to know them as a person really meant a lot to me.”

After a semester away, Wasburn-Moses uses her experience as an important lesson and tool to grow her teaching in the classroom. It taught her more about the skills they can acquire in a “simple” job like working in a restaurant and applying that to life.

“I feel like all of those skills I can really make use of in the classroom,” she said. “I hope that makes me a more compassionate instructor who understands a little bit more about … students' real lives.”

Learning about her students made a large impact, but she also came to learn more about herself. Her time at Chipotle and going abroad didn't just shift her perspective — she said it reshaped her confidence in what’s possible.

“I learned that I can really switch up everything in life and be successful, even if it's something that is completely different,” she said. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”

wenholje@miamioh.edu