ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a basis from which to understand and imagine the roles and potential that universities might wield regarding the development of a culture of civically and community engaged students – socially responsible citizens in shorthand. For the rapidly expanding postwar university sector, humanities education met a lot of needs. Humanities education also met the needs of an economy shifting from manual to intellectual labour, because it was recognized as providing useful skills. Many universities now include mission statements, recruitment language, and some system of incentives to promote efforts around civil society engagement opportunities. The development of social responsibility and civic engagement attributes are often tied very closely with the development of experiential learning processes and pedagogies at the universities. "Global competitiveness" is clearly a neoliberal term for driving efficiencies in the post-secondary educational sector and tying its products ever more closely to the immediate needs of the national economy in a global context.
