FORTUNATE ACCIDENTS AND WINDING PATHWAYS: The Personal and Professional Spaces of Authenticity

This chapter presents the author’s stories, framed here in the context of three dominant themes: fortunate accidents, winding pathways, and cultivation of spaces for personal and professional authenticity. Tania’s journey toward a career in service-learning is the result of a choice for the lesser of two college evils: community service over a 20-page research paper. Tania, too, writes of blurring the lines between the community and the campus, trusting her institution’s commitment to public engagement and walking headlong into that commitment. For Ben, the authentic space rests in challenging disciplinary and parochial thinking in fields where human experiences do not lend themselves well to ownership by a single discipline. Despite the considerable personal benefits of community-engaged scholarship, challenges exist for community-engaged scholars in research universities, particularly scholars in basic and social sciences. However, like most other research universities, grants, peer-reviewed publications, and other traditional research products are considered most valuable in the promotion and tenure process.