Everything old is new again: The importance of engagement to University-based Adult Education in Canada

Abstract

This paper examines the enduring, yet often underappreciated, role of civic and community engagement within Canadian university-based Adult Education. Tracing the field’s historical roots from the 19th-century British Extramural tradition to the establishment of early Canadian Extension units—such as the one pioneered by Dr. Henry Marshall Tory at the University of Alberta in 1913—this work demonstrates how public engagement was once central to the "knowledge architecture" of the modern state university. The analysis highlights an international convergence of interest on the civic purposes of higher education, while simultaneously pointing to a critical lack of scholarly attention to the practice of engagement in various cultural contexts. Ultimately, the paper reasserts that a strong commitment to public engagement is not merely a service function but a fundamental, revitalized requirement for university-based adult education to remain relevant and fulfill its original mandate of social transformation and "the uplifting of the whole people."