The open systems model of the university defines the function of institutional research to be a cybernetic one. The internal and external reality-testing function is a vital duty and a moral charge. Though policy makers and educational practitioners can carry on for a considerable length of time with organizational intelligence of low validity, the gradual and cumulative results of low validity intelligence is organizational crisis. Therefore, the institutional researcher labors under a categorical imperative, a duty toward institutional integrity and survival. But more significantly, this categorical imperative rests as a creative opportunity upon the total university as community, no less for trustee and president than for faculty, students and the many valued service personnel. (Author)