This dedicated issue recognizes the growing interest in spirituality among academics, practitioners and students and we welcome the role that Critical Social Work has taken in giving recognition to this significant area of research and practice. This issue contains papers arising primarily from the Fourth Annual Canadian Conference on Spirituality and Social Work held at King’s University College, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, May 26-28, 2005.

This manuscript is the first to consider the emergence of spirituality as a topic in Canadian social work scholarship and practice. A broad overview is provided of three time periods, beginning with the origins of the profession and ending with present-day considerations. These three periods are ones in which spirituality had/has strong influence in shaping practice, research and pedagogical discourses. First, we emphasize the overwhelming significance of spirituality to the early history of social work, prior to its emergence as a secular, professional discipline taught in university contexts. Second, we examine how spirituality continued to have a place within the writings of several major social work scholars in Canada, up to 1970 at which point spirituality seems to fade from scholarly social work literature. Third, spirituality re-emerged as a Canadian topic for research in the 1990s - at the beginning of the third millennium the spirituality and social work literature has emphasized three major themes: social justice work and community organizing; social work pedagogy; and social work practice. Finally, we briefly consider barriers to, and prospects for, the continued emergence of spiritually infused social work research and practice in Canada.

Where are the boundaries between things located? When we meet another person or when we meet the tree in the forest or the sand by the shore each is changed by the other. We all know that at one level of reality we are different and yet we also know that the apparent rigidity between me and other dissolves in a constant and mutual exchange of cells, conversations and consciousness. In nature, the bridge between two points of apparent difference is a dynamic, interactive field of reciprocal engagement. Indeed, in nature, complex, reciprocal relationships are the sine qua non of ecosystems. Everything touches and is touched by everything else. It is in meeting, touching, listening and communicating with another that we discover most completely what we are and are able to express most eloquently who we are. The helping professions are increasingly seeking ways to bridge the epistemological gap between the atomistic and the ecological and cross those professional boundaries that have for too long kept helpers of every stripe separated and isolated from one another. Ironically, it is a new rediscovery of an ancient wisdom that is creating a catalyst for hope and change. Recently, those hopes to discover new linkages and a new era of collaborative professional partnerships to address pressing social and environmental problems took a small step forward. Professional helpers from a variety of disciplines including social work, psychology, nursing, education and environmental studies gathered in Calgary, Canada in May, 2009 for a first of its kind multi-disciplinary conference entitled: Building Bridges, Crossing Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Person, Planet and Professional Helping. The conference was suffused with both urgency and anticipation as professional helpers worked to better understand each other and those many ways they might cooperate across professional borders to build bridges to a more balanced and interdisciplinary view of the helping enterprise. This brief introduction provides a short sketch of the historical realities which created the ideological boundaries that the conference sought to bridge and how that has begun to change. It also provides a brief overview of each contributor’s work.

The environmental crisis is the canary in the mineshaft of modern society. Miners, in previous generations, checked the quality of air in a mine by lowering a canary in a cage into a mineshaft. If the canary came back up alive the miners would go into the mine; if the canary came back dead the miners would not proceed as the mine was dangerous and unsafe. The environmental crisis is playing a similar role for people in modern society. For example, plants and animals are becoming extinct in unprecedented numbers, the oceans’ fisheries are in decline, water is increasingly polluted, and even the air we breathe - so called ‘fresh air’ - is frequently smog (air contaminated by industrial and agricultural pollutants). Further, industrial processes have released toxins upon Earth which have altered the environment so severely that the reproductive capabilities of animals (including the human) are affected (see for example Colborn, Dumanoski and Myers, 1999). These events are informing us in quite clear terms that the generativity of Earth and the social structures dependent upon it are in peril. Through the environmental crisis the Earth is reacting to human behaviour and is warning us - perhaps beseeching us - to respond.

In recent years, there has been a burgeoning interest in mindfulness and its application to many human issues and endeavors (see, e.g., Eifert & Forsyth, 2008; Goldstein, 2013; Siegel, 2009; Stahl ...

The relationship between issues of social development, economic growth, and environmental sustainability has not yet been resolved. This chapter argues that such dismal progress toward this resolution can be attributed to the intransigence of the focus on development in sustainable development. The lack of political will trumps environmental sustainability. It critiques efforts toward sustainability and sustainable development, and then considers the notion of sustainable development as it relates to MDG7. The post-2015 'Sustainable Development Goals' (SDGs) are then discussed to explore how future iterations of global development priorities might continue to grapple with the balance between economic, social, and environmental sustainability and human development. Finally, the chapter highlights policies and actions that fit within an environmental sustainability paradigm. Toward that end, it builds a case for a new environmental paradigm that offers alternative approaches to ecological and human well-being.

This paper seeks to add to the growing literature on environmental social work education which suggests the need for a fundamental rethinking of the humanistic values and theories informing social work to embrace concerns relating to environmental degradation and climate change. For the most part, social work's interest in the environment to date relates to human needs. Of most concern here is the over-representation of people in poverty and subsistence among those impacted by deforestation and climate injustice. However, even here the emphasis is on the human experience of environmental and climate change when this is an outcome of human actions and structural inequalities. The paper begins with an overview of the theoretical terrain of environmental thought before examining issues in relation to perspective transformation and the implications for under- and post-graduate curriculum development.

This article examines the relationship between spirituality and the environment and the changing values required as we move toward a new politics of social work where commitment to social and political involvement is integral to spirituality, most notably surrounding environmental change. The ecospiritual perspective recognizes human interests are inextricably bound with planetary well-being. It serves not only to broaden social work beyond a preoccupation with the social, but also to shift professional thinking away from the pre-eminence of individualism and dualism, and the unquestioned acceptance of progress and uncontrolled growth that make it difficult for social workers to fulfil their role as agents of social and environmental justice.

This issue of Canadian Journal of Higher Education includes articles based on presentations made at International Conference on Liberal Arts: Looking Back and Moving Forward; Next 100 years of Liberal Arts: Confronting Challenges, held at St. Thomas University, September 30-October 2, 2010. The conference, which focused on challenges facing liberal and how these might be addressed, was one of events that marked centenary of St. Thomas University, an undergraduate university dedicated to liberal arts.A liberal education implies distinct purposes: breadth of awareness and appreciation, clarity and precision of thought and communication, critical analysis, honing of moral and ethical sensibilities (Shoenberg, 2009, p. 56). Liberal can cover a range of subjects and seeks to impart general knowledge and develop student's rational thought and intellectual capabilities. As George Will stated, it connotes a certain elevation above utilitarian concerns. Yet liberal education is intensely useful (as cited in Shoenberg, 2009, p. 56). The vast number of liberal programs and universities dedicated to study of liberal speaks to value of liberal education. There is a long-standing tradition in many professions (such as social work, which is my profession) of valuing a foundation in liberal education.Despite claims of its value, a liberal education is not without its critics and challenges, especially in light of attention given to financial cost and value of the arts relative to more focused study in higher education in programs such as those dedicated to business, engineering, and sciences. Further, as Schoenberg (2009) notes, a liberal education is possible only if faculty members are committed to liberal learning and not primarily to apparatus of their own disciplines (p.58).Before initiating planning for this conference, conference planning committee was aware of some of issues and challenges confronting liberal arts; however, as proposals were reviewed, it became evident that post-secondary education was changing in profound ways and that issues and challenges facing liberal were even greater than originally thought. As planning progressed, I became more aware of diverse areas where liberal are being challenged and of depth and severity of consequences. Of course, some of these challenges are faced by all university programs-shifts in demographics, cutbacks in government funding, advances in technology, and increases in costs of university education. Several of these factors impact enrolment and determine who attends universities.While there are commonly accepted observations, there is a sense of urgency now, urgency brought on by factors that more directly challenge liberal arts, such as emphasis on job-ready graduates, pressure for training rather than education, and research linked to business and job creation. As I became more cognizant of these challenges, I learned that other university faculty members were similarly unaware of seriousness of these challenges and breadth of their impact on liberal arts. The pressures of modern academia lead faculty to be very engaged in discipline-specific issues that are important for teaching, scholarship, and promotion; as a result, many are less engaged in issues surrounding impact of larger international and national structures within which liberal education operates. What perhaps is more alarming is that many academics are not aware that they are not aware, and, as a result, are not in a position to effectively argue for proper role of university in Canadian society. I hope this publication will help put issues in focus and, more importantly, move more faculty members to participate in dialogue.Of many challenges that confront universities, a number pose specific challenges to liberal programs:* The cost of education is increasing. …