Editorial: Leading Change for a More Civil Society

One perspective on leadership views the leader as someone who is willing to step out of his or her comfort zone to help, someone “who sees something that needs to change and takes the first steps to influence that situation” (M. Wheatley, 2008, pp. 2-3). Leadership is active, not passive, and is demonstrated by taking action to improve a situation. It involves influencing and engaging others in the process of change, in the process of making some aspect of society, community, or organizational life better. The intent behind this special issue was to provide faculty with a forum to discuss and share their efforts to effect change through the application of disciplinary knowledge to improve some aspect of society (Boyer, 2016), somewhere in the world. Our hope was to have faculty discuss how they applied their disciplinary knowledge to initiate change in a community, an organization, a governmental entity or program, or an educational institution or program in the broader community beyond the university campus. This special issue of the Journal of Scholarly Engagement (JSE) includes three examples of faculty doing just that, applying their domain knowledge to improve some aspect of society.