This special edition of the SHIFT journal invites us to re-imagine the university's role in society. Instead of seeing universities as walled off from the “real world”, these articles call us toward the active and meaningful role that researchers are positioned to play in and with society.

Every year on Valentine's Day, we publish love letters from our community. Each year these letters find us when the coldest weeks are still upon us. The darkest days, however, have passed. Valentine's Day marks the midpoint of the transition between the winter solstice and the fall equinox, a subtle tipping point bringing longer days and the promise of spring hidden under layers of cold. A fitting moment to nourish one another with love letters.  

In the spring of 2026, we accepted pieces that examined the challenges, opportunities, and potentialities that exist within the contemporary journalism field – particularly in Montreal. Our authors considered the ways in which educational systems are supporting or failing journalism and storytelling in their continued fight to “speak truth to power” in an ever-shifting techno-cultural landscape, coming up with very different answers. 

The ways that we live, work, and gather in a city all depend on the way it was designed. Often, the failure to address community needs occurs well before shovels hit the ground: zoning, shared vs private spaces, public services, and more. At SHIFT, we fund a number of organizations working towards shaping Montreal, through reclaiming ownership of the land, building community power, and advocating for changes to urban systems. 

To reflect this interest area, we published pieces on what a more community-based form of city planning look like, what it looks like to mobilize against/for the way a city is designed, and what an equitable urban space even means.

What does a politic of queerness envision, need, and desire? 

How does it mobilize, confront, act against, or live outside of the state & institutions?

To align with Montreal’s Pride celebrations in August 2025, we published pieces that explored queer resistance, whether it be imagining alternative ways of working and living together, fostering grassroots resistance to oppressive institutional structures, building spaces for community solidarity and collective healing, or working with and within institutions to create change.