Local Cosmopolitans and Cosmopolitan Locals: New Models of Professionals in the Academy

This essay critically examines the centrality of mobility to the model of being a higher education professor or a student affairs professional. Using three narratives of lower-income Latino students about their educational and professional choices, we offer a reading based on Gouldner's classic conception of cosmopolitans and locals, and on Baez's more recent discussion of critical agency and race-related service. We suggest the value of a model that rebalances cosmopolitan engagement in the national profession with knowledge of and commitment to the local community and to social change.