To browse Academia. Dear readers, you are holding in your hands, or reading online, the inaugural issue of the first Canadian scholarly journal on collaborative and community-engaged research, teaching, and learning. The idea to create such a journal was born on the University of Saskatchewan campus in as a result of a growing realization among many people that such a journal is long overdue.
Conceived first by Dr. Keith Carlson, professor of history and then the University's Special Advisor, Outreach and Engagement, the visionary work began, carried on by a group of committed scholars who soon became the journal's advisory committee. I was invited to become the journal's convener. In its first year of operation, the group worked very hard to promote the idea of such a journal on campus and among other Canadian scholars as well as non-academic organizations.
It has been a productive year during which various consultations and forums were held on and off campus with diverse groups and CES practitioners, working across Canada and internationally, on what kind of journal the Engaged Scholar Journal should be. By April , the Journal was established. With the generous support of the office of Vice-President Advancement and Community Engagement, the Journal's office was opened, a position of a managing assistant funded and filled, and the Journal's advisory and editorial boards struck.
We then began our work in earnest towards the production of this inaugural issue as well as other issues that are already lined up for publication. In the first year of the Journal's operation, our capable advisory committee supported the expansion of the scope of the Journal beyond the regional and its establishment as a national venue for all Canadian community-engaged scholars to present their work.
We wanted to offer a shared forum for in-depth discussion of the meanings and applications of the work Canadian engaged scholars pursue with various partner communities across our nation and elsewhere. In their work, the advisory committee were guided by the following: a their own experience in community-engaged scholarly work; b the long history of community-engaged scholarship at the University of Saskatchewan; c the University's integrated plan and its emphasis on community-engaged research, teaching, and learning; and d by the vibrant national debate on the meanings and directions of community-engaged scholarship that has been unfolding in Canada for the last several years.
