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The purpose of this study was to provide more insight into the skills and support systems needed to encourage scholarship among student affairs practitioners. We used topical life history to examine the scholarly lives of eight student affairs practitioners. To guide our examination, we used the questions posed by Jablonski et al. (2006) as our research questions: 'What skills and knowledge [did] practitioners need to develop a scholarship agenda?' and 'What support, coaching,and job modifications create[d] environments for practitioners to be successful?'" (p. 197).Participant life histories revealed a variety of direct and indirect influences, such as institutional context, mentorship, personal characteristics, and significant others on the participants' work as student affairs practitioners. The findings highlighted the following as major influences on the professionals' decisions to engage and sustain scholarship: community, intrinsic motivation, and cultural change. What these findings also suggest is practitioners are willing and desirous to make an impact on the broader field through scholarly engagement; they just need support and compelling reasons to do so.

Building on conceptual literature on the scholar-practitioner, this study explored higher education and student affairs practitioner's perceptions of what influenced their use of scholarship in practice and the role of doctoral education in their scholar-practitioner identity development. The resultant findings and discussion give particular focus to the roles of socialization and mentoring and the potential of doctoral education to transform higher education and student affairs practice.

This study utilized scholarly personal narratives to explore the experiences and perceptions of four Black women who served as full-time contingent faculty members in higher education and student affairs graduate preparation programs. Authors drew upon Black feminist thought and intersectionality to frame this study. Specifically, authors extended Collin's outsider-within status to outsider-outsider-within status to describe the unique experiences of Black women in contingent faculty appointments. Specific findings included: (1) marginalization of contingent faculty, (2) intersections of identities inextricably linked to teaching, and (3) devaluation of scholarly pursuits. Implications for institutional policy and practice are discussed.