Many authors have borrowed the title of Raymond Carver’s collection of short stories, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, to frame their explorations of everything from hip hop to running to games. Like Carver and those who have echoed him, we want to surface the multiple dimensions that are integral to our, as to any, complex subject. We acknowledge that the terms used to capture that complexity carry with them intended and unintended associations (such as those with Carver himself). In reference to “students as partners,” not only the explicit what and when but also the implicit why can evoke a variety of associations and reactions. A single short story among many, this editorial is one installment in a series of ongoing discussions of what we talk about when we talk about “students as partners.”