Serendipitous conversations: the 10-year journey in becoming SoTL scholars and educators

Conversations between colleagues, significant for academic development, do not always take place centre stage. In fact, these serendipitous collaborations are often brief and fleeting, but can start a dialogue that has the potential to influence lives in academia and can lead to qualitatively different conceptions of learning and teaching. This paper traces the development of a significant ten-year collaboration, ‘onstage’ and ‘backstage’, between two colleagues, from graduate school to their present positions as early career academics. We pay special attention to their identity development and academic collaboration, as well as to the events and contexts that have influenced the changes they have experienced.