My scholarship is centered on exploring those organizational contexts and characteristics of higher education institutions that encourage individuals (students, faculty, staff) and universities (as organizational actors) to confront our collective democratic challenges which typically arise in the form of: cultural contestations, competition over sustainability of actions, disparities in natural and economic resources, human rights concerns, and deficiencies in legal or political processes. This focus has prompted me to study the campus characteristics that contribute to campus-based activism, factors shaping individual students’ acquisition of civic commitments and skills, campus administrators’ roles in creating inclusive educational environments for undocumented immigrant college students, and senior campus administrators’ displays of public advocacy for diversity and inclusion, among others. I apply an interdisciplinary perspective to these topics, drawing from the study of organizations, social movements and collective action, as well as individual identity development. While my theoretical approach is coherent, the topics I have pursued are somewhat diffuse. I submit however, that this variety of topics is revealing of the philosophy that guides my work: I aim to help colleges, and the people that comprise them, navigate real-life dilemmas that manifest on account of coexisting in a pluralistic democracy. As I often remind my students, rigorous educational research requires that it also be relevant to practice and to the context in which the research findings are likely to be applied.