ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the organizational setting that became closely related to the scholarship. The National Forum was established at the University of Michigan in 2000. From its inception, it was closely affiliated in direct ways with the Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education (CSHPE). The increasing importance placed on engaged scholarship in the field of higher education has revealed an additional consideration, one that may even be more fundamentally related to the traditional way in which research has been defined in the academy. The National Forum also adopted an intergenerational orientation with undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students, staff, and faculty sharing a rather constrained suite of offices. The affiliation with CSHPE and the University of Michigan School of Education meant that eager novitiates arrived year after year, often recruited by advanced students who sat on admissions committees or hosted program applicants during their visits to campus.
