This paper explores how conversations among academics in a particular institutional context evolve, starting from the individual development of teachers and shifting in focus to institutional development. Results of our basic survey (N = 55) and semi-structured interviews with teachers (N = 13) who participated in lunch-time conversations on teaching and learning revealed that these encounters support individual academic development in several respects. Our findings also suggest that the evolution of conversations that are institutionally situated but distanced from the departmental context, may create a path to institutional change via collective learning.