Community Engagement as Fabric in Which to Weave in Teaching/Learning and Research

Abstract

Higher education around the world struggles in the cauldron of socioeconomic and political upheavals and with the impact of the neoliberal imaginations of governments across the world; the growing influence of technology in the core activities of universities; and the impact of vast changes in the modes of industrial production globally. Thus, its purposes and roles are in transition. At one end of the spectrum, Bill Readings’ The University in Ruins (1996) invokes a rather bleak, pessimistic view about the future of the social institution of higher education. This is counterbalanced by a range of policy-provoking writings that implore national governments to invest more heavily in higher education as a necessary condition for the construction of democratic, egalitarian societies (World Bank, 2002; UNESCO, 2009). As these transitions in the purpose and roles of higher education emerge, so does that of community engagement (CE) that is currently going through a rethinking of its purpose.