Motivating faculty to engage with the community requires overcoming a variety of obstacles. For many, the reluctance reflects a prevailing view that engaged work is less scholarly than traditional research. The devaluation of community-based activities can be traced to uncertainties in three areas: defining, assessing, and documenting engaged scholarship. The present paper seeks to clarify these elements in order to reduce the tension between proponents of traditional and engaged scholarship. Aided by a rich literature, universities can articulate a single set of standards applicable to all work and help faculty document the scholarly content of their activities. Judging all scholarship by the same criteria should effect significant change both internally and externally: in a university culture that views engagement as secondary to the “real” work of the institution and in a public that increasingly perceives academic interests as disconnected from societal needs.