After spending six years as a tenure-track faculty member andultimately gaining tenure and promotion at my home institution ofCalifornia State University, San Marcos (CSUSM), I was set to beginmy first sabbatical in fall, 2002. As is no doubt true of manysabbaticals, one of the great successes of my semester-long breakfrom teaching was a renewed interest in the classroom. “Renewal” isfrequently identified as one of the primary purposes of asabbatical; Good (1992, B3), after all,wrote that he became “surprisingly nostalgic for the company ofstudents once the initial shock of being on leave ha[d] worn off.”But my renewed excitement for teaching came largely from once againentering the classroom as a student. Given my own experiences inreturning to student life, I enthusiastically encourage facultycolleagues to take occasional opportunities to step away from theinstructor's podium and enjoy a class as a member of the studentbody: not only did I have the opportunity to expand my perspectiveon interesting subject matter, but re-experiencing life from thestudent point of view reminded me of why I began teaching in thefirst place and reinforced important aspects of good teachingpractices.[Editor's note: Thismanuscript was accepted for publication by PS: PoliticalScience and Politics in September, 2004.]