David became executive dean of what is now The New School for Public Engagement in 2010. He is a national leader in developing innovative methods to engage institutions of higher education with communities outside the academy. He was previously director of the Harward Center at Bates College in Maine, established to bring together community-based learning and research, co-curricular work, and environmental stewardship. He is the founder and former director of the University of Michigan's Arts of Citizenship program, an initiative to integrate civic engagement and the liberal arts. He serves on the boards of Project Pericles, an organization that encourages universities to include civic engagement as an element of undergraduate education, and Bringing Theory to Practice, a project that links education as a public good with civic engagement and concern for the well-being of individual students. David's scholarship explores politics, culture, and space in 19th-century America and New York City in particular. He taught for 16 years at the University of Michigan, where he earned tenure. He holds a PhD in American studies from Yale, where he also received his BA degree, and a diploma in social anthropology from Oxford, where he studied as Rhodes Scholar.

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