And She(s) Persisted: A Tale of Tenure, Promotion, and Community Engaged Scholarship Across Two Universities

The purpose of this commentary is to enlighten other practitioners and/or researchers with examples from two CBPR scholars who successfully navigated promotion and tenure at research intensive Carnegie I state universities. The authors discuss the utility of reputable evidence-based mentoring training programs they participated in, as well as strategies used to self-advocate for building robust and respectable community-engaged programs of research in HIV to earn tenure. Concrete steps and processes taken from their respective journeys are highlighted in the narrative as a reference point for future tenure-track faculty on critical milestones to achieve and pitfalls to avoid burnout. Paying homage to one of their shared mentors, the authors offer recommendations to support emerging CBPR scholars with practical skills during very uncertain times and ever-evolving academic climates.