There has been rising concern about the disconnect between universities, their communities and society at large. This is of special interest to professional schools, whose missions are founded on connecting practice and theory. We argue that cooperative inquiry, an action-based methodology, can help foster connectedness and contribute to healing the university-society schism. Doing this requires more than mere replication of the methodology; it entails engaging in dialectics with practitioners, a process that is mediated both by democratic aspirations and claims of authority. We share our experience working with social change practitioners on collaborative research about leadership, highlighting the dialectics and implications for academics wishing to capitalize on cooperative inquiry for connectedness. (Contains 4 notes.)