Through analyses of three dissertations completed by graduates of our Carnegie Project for the Education Doctorate-influenced program, this article offers insights into both the doctoral students' inquiries into their problems of practice and their faculty advisors' roles and expectations for them. Studying student dissertations provided the faculty authors an approach by which to examine ways their mentoring of student research and writing supported their advisees' dissertation work. This examination of dissertation work also provided a "check" on consistency with the programmatic goals of our newly-revised EdD program, and highlighted aspects that need to be considered with future scholarly practitioners.