Purpose -The purpose of this Editorial is to introduce key themes in the area of student-community engagement (SCE) and the papers included in this special issue. Design/methodology/approach -The paper discusses dominant trends in the current context. Findings -The selection of papers in this issue represent the range of programmes that have been developed over the past five or so years and indicate what they have, and have not been able to achieve. However, the recent context indicates an acceleration of the expectations placed on higher education to develop socially responsible citizens and to create graduates who will be able to solve the complex problems of an increasingly complex world. Originality/value -The paper provides a background to SCE and the changing role and context of higher education.

Abstract:This article is about the effects of student-community engagement on the employment prospects of graduates. Its aims are to critically examine the reasons for the belief that student-community engagement enhances graduate employability and to assess the strength of the case for that belief. The article seeks to contribute to the development of a theory of how student-community engagement affects graduate employability. It offers a 'knowledge, skills and attitudes' framework for student-community engagement that can be related to graduate employability. It concludes with lessons to ensure that studentcommunity engagement contributes to the employment progression of students when they graduate.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of rising fees and the increasing privatisation of higher education on the expectations of its students. It compares experiences in Canada, Australia and the US with conversations carried out in a UK university in 2012 (after the UK fee rise). Design/methodology/approach -The research was informed by Burns Systemic Action research (2007), following emerging lines of enquiry and responding to resonance in these. It brings together conversations held with new undergraduates, second and third year students and staff tasked with introducing engagement into the curriculum. Findings -Findings indicate that student expectations are heavily influenced by secondary schooling and a target-driven consumer culture but that change has been gradual over a number of years. Alongside wanting "value for money" and "a good social life and a good degree" students are heavily motivated by experience and keen to be challenged. Research limitations/implications -Because of the research approach, the research results may lack generalisability. Practical implications -By comparing banking or transactional approaches to teaching and learning with critical pedagogy this paper hopes to highlight the importance of opening up rather than closing down opportunities for social engagement and experiential learning. Social implications -This paper makes a plea for social engagement that properly responds to the needs of communities resisting market-driven forces that treat students as consumers and expecting more rather than less from them in return. Originality/value -Lecturers are encouraged to rethink the pressures placed upon them by the current economic era and the tensions between competing agendas of employability and engagement.

While the benefits of gardening to mental health and trauma recovery are well documented, and a number of voluntary organizations have been involved in developing gardens with refugees, as yet there is no clear mandate to allow and mainstream gardening in large-scale refugee camps. This article argues for the importance of this in the planning of camps on the basis that many crises are indeed protracted, that refugees often stay in camps for tens of years rather than months and that gardening has significant environmental, psychological and social benefits, as well as contributing to food sovereignty and sustainable drainage. Drawing on interviews with residents of a refugee camp in northern Iraq, all participants in a camp-based garden competition in 2016 and 2017, this article illustrates the benefits of gardening and argues for their sustained inclusion in camp design.