A foreword and nine articles discuss issues on the role of institutions of higher education in the rebuilding of a public life involving citizens across the country. After the foreword by David Brown and Deborah Witte, the papers are: (1) "The Public and Its Colleges: Reflections on the History of American Higher Education (R. Claire Snyder), which finds that the professionalization designed to solve historical problems has also led to a gap between the public and its institutions; (2) "The Public Negotiation of Knowledge" (Robert A. Beauregard), which offers three rules by which a scholar can add value to the public discourse; (3) "A Dialoguing We Shall Go?" (Donald Roy), which uses the structure of a dialogue to argue about the monologue, professional conventions, and dialogue itself; (4) "Proles, Entrepreneurs, or Public Scholars?" (Mary B. Stanley), which urges academics to remember the democratic ideas they share with the public; (5) "Higher Education: Teaching and the Deliberative Process" (Susanna Finnell), which offers examples of how faculty have begun to engage with the public around issues in higher education; (6) "Education, Excellence, and Democracy" (Jim Knauer), which invites participation in a project examining the correct role for honors in higher education; (7) "Learning Civic Effectiveness" (Robert H. McKenzie), which weds the idea of civic learning to the practice of experiential education; (8) "Humanities Study and Public Deliberation" (Peggy W. Prenshaw), which examines how humanities in general and literature specifically parallel civic deliberation in deciding issues of public policy; and (9) "What Exactly Is 'The Public'?" (David Mathews) which explores the full range of definitions and characteristics of the word "public". (DB)