American colleges and universities are facing a civic imperative. The nation is floundering, if not unwinding. Democracies are vulnerable social constructions. They flourish in eras of social consensus and economic prosperity, when citizens believe in the prospect of brighter futures. They stumble, if not decay, during times of harsh economic…

The religious dynamics of higher education are changing rapidly. College campuses have become prime sites for conflicts involving religious identity. Few issues touch more broadly or more deeply on complexity, diversity, and change in the twenty-first-century world than those related to how people who orient differently around religion interact…