The Universities throughout the world are re-examining their mandates and their ways of achieving them. For some, this means renewing or reinvigorating their covenant to serve the public good by engaging in new ways with their students and communities.
The 15th Annual Conference of the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, titled “Engaging for Change, Changing for Engagement”, which was held on the 7th and the 8th of October’2014, and hosted by University of Alberta, brought together academics and community members to explore, discuss, debate, and demonstrate why and how both universities and communities are changing. These conversations were provocative and intense, calling on to engage in an examination of motives, rhetoric, and impacts felt. The discussions and debates revolved around what works and what doesn’t and the changes that are needed in order to be more effective. Along with this, there took place introspection on theories of change that underlies various efforts and the modes whereby which engagement is sought with the changes experienced.
