Making room for the 'I' voice in scholarship.

We live by stories. Faculty and students connect best by sharing their stories. Yet in a thesis or dissertation, most students must set their stories aside in favor of "objective" quantitative or qualitative research.

There's another option for students who work with Dr. Robert J. Nash, professor in the College of Education and Social Services at the University of Vermont and author of Liberating Scholarly Writing: The Power of Personal Narrative (Teachers College Press 2004).

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Nash and three former students spoke at the ACPA/NASPA meeting in Orlando in April: Dr. Andrea Silva McManus, faculty member at the New England Culinary Institute and Champlain College in Burlington VT; Dr. Pamela K. Gardner, director of career services at the University of Vermont in Burlington; and Dr. Jacob L. Diaz, assistant VP and dean of students at Seattle University WA.

Scholarly personal narrative (SPN) is a research methodology that blends the rigor of traditional scholarship with the writer's personal experience. "It's a special way of writing and thinking about our professional practice," McManus said. Also called personal ethnography or autobiographical scholarship, SPN starts with the writer at the center and radiates outward. More than a memoir, it includes interpretation, theory and universal themes, contributing knowledge in the scholar's professional field.

Missing voices

Women's Studies and multicultural studies have been in the forefront of SPN writing. It's spreading especially among the underrepresented, whose voices have been silenced. "People with narratives that aren't out there want to write these," McManus said.