Volume 18(1), March 2014 of the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement has just been published. Civil discourse represents an ongoing dialogue among members of a community that promotes growth in scholarship by voicing opinions, reflecting on ideas, evaluating and improving upon current practices, and imagining new efforts for the future. The research articles, reflective essays, programs with promise, and book reviews in issue contribute to the civil discourse fundamental to the advancement of community-engaged scholarship.

It also contains two special features. In the inaugural Campus Compact presidential column, Susan Herbst, University of Connecticut, argues that an engaged university is created through the civil discourse initiated and modeled by the academic community, emphasizing the vital role civility plays in this discourse. This issue also features the first in a series of articles on Cooperative Extension, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Smith-Lever Act. Randy Stoecker’s article explores the collaboration between Extension and service-learning efforts, proposing a new model to expand this partnership.