Civic engagement in higher education encompasses a diversity of goals, strategies and activities. These include particular approaches to teaching and learning--community-based or service learning--which share an explicit civic focus and combine the features of experiential learning with opportunities for engagement. A range of "orientations" towards civic engagement can be discerned amongst those associated with these initiatives, reflecting different values and priorities. These orientations inform a diversity of academic strategies and practices and have consequences for sustainability. This article draws on findings from a multi-site case study within Irish higher education, and reports how aspects of this nascent but growing phenomenon highlight some of the tensions, paradoxes and sources of ambivalence which are characteristic of contemporary higher education. The findings highlight the challenge of reconciling competing goals and values within higher education for those seeking to infuse the curriculum with a sense of the civic.