This is a fictional story for activists and potential activists so they can better understand what’s going on in the academic world and figure out what, if anything, they might be able to learn from it. Francine is a nurse, but her passion is helping activists be more effective. She decides to find out what activists can learn from academic work — maybe nothing! How better to do this than by recruiting some of her activist friends to join the project? Francine and her co-investigators explore how to obtain and understand scholarly articles and what it means to think theoretically and get some insight into what it’s like to be an academic. While making some progress in their quest, each one is inspired in a personal way.