Situated in the newly emerging interdisciplinary field of “civic studies,” I center my work as a scholar and educator on the project of advancing democratic varieties of public engagement in the academic profession. Specifically, I seek to understand how academic professionals and students perceive and deal with conflicts, tensions, and dilemmas that arise when they engage with their non-academic partners in the public work of naming and framing problems, deciding what should be done about them, and acting to pursue cultural ideals and values and common and public interests. Beyond simply understanding, I seek to improve higher education's public engagement work in ways that support and enhance rather than hinder and diminish people's voices, capacities, interests, power, and agency. To this end, I seek to contribute to the project of advancing the theory and practice of public scholarship and civic professionalism in higher education. I am currently on leave to serve as Co-Director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life (http://imaginingamerica.org).