Three scholars at work: making sense of the twenty-first-century academy

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore our ideas of academia, university life and professionalism in the twenty-first century, based on our personal experiences as three scholars at different stages of our academic careers. We are three scholars working at the same institution – a PhD candidate, a senior lecturer and a scholarly manager. As we prepared this chapter, we engaged in a series of trialogues where we shared our expectations and perceptions of the nature of scholarship as we have lived it and continue to do so, in our own academic worlds. This enabled us to explore our somewhat shared vision and conceptualisation of scholarship, academia and professionalism. By engaging in a scholarly discussion of scholarship, we suggest that this chapter is valuable in two key ways. First, the scholarly activity of investigation, in itself, enhances our own professional self-awareness, and second, we see the communication of our joys and concerns about the nature of the academy to be part of a wider conversation that scholars, in our opinion, have a responsibility to engage in beyond narrow disciplinary boundaries and career orientations.