Forming an Intellectual Community of Practice for Scholarly Writing at a Professionally Focused University

Abstract

Scholarly writing is an expectation for faculty at many universities because this writing is intended to advance knowledge and innovation. However, many professionally focused teaching universities do not have minimal faculty requirements for scholarly publication. This is a problem because faculty at these universities can contribute to the literature with research on teaching and on the practical application of theory. As faculty at a professionally focused teaching university that does not have a “publish or perish” policy, we desired to contribute scholarly writing beyond the university’s expectations. This contribution became increasingly difficult to make on account of the fast-paced, innovative nature of our institution. Given this context, we formed a multi-disciplinary Intellectual Community of Practice, which we define as a group of intellectual practitioners who share a common goal, concern, or passion for learning through organized regular interactions. The goal of our group was to provide peer support for writing individually in our respective fields. In this article, we describe how we formed our group, how the group developed over time, and what positive outcomes have resulted from our interactions. We conclude the article with reflections on the process and recommendations to others for how to form an Intellectual Community of Practice.