Mid-career faculty comprise the largest component of the academic workforce. But what do people really know about them? What do they experience? What are their needs? In contrast to the large and growing body of empirical research on their early-career colleagues, the research on them is far from robust, offering relatively few suggestions for how best to guide them through the rest of their academic careers. To fill this gap, a group of researchers at Michigan State University conducted a study of mid-career tenured faculty and department chairs to "map the terrain" of the mid-career experience. The authors concluded that research focusing on the lengthy mid-career years would help to inform the national conversation on the evolving academic profession as well as enrich personnel policies and practices at individual institutions. This article describes the authors' efforts and summarizes key themes and contested topics for the sake of faculty, personnel committees, chairs, faculty developers, and other administrators committed to supporting their academic colleagues. (Contains 6 resources.)