This article explores what an uneven embrace of community engagement means for faculty as they apply for tenure and promotion. It closely examines how three faculty members (including the author) from different departments framed and discussed their engaged scholarly contributions in the presence or absence of departmental guidelines on engaged scholarship. Their experiences and success reveal the influence of departmental context on decisions to include engagement in faculty evaluation criteria and the importance of finding strategies to mitigate the absence or underdevelopment of guidelines.