At his inauguration people hail every neophyte college president as the institution's new leader and ring the changes of the importance of leadership. Some, however, never become leaders because of a fact not often emphasized: they cannot successfully handle the conflicts that inevitably come to their offices. Among the conflicts that every college president must mediate, those relating to the curriculum stand highest in significance and create more emotion than those in any other area of his concern except, perhaps, those having to do with academic freedom. Three curricular conflicts with which every president must deal, at one time or another, arise from the divergent claims of: (1) general and specialized education; (2) the humanities and the sciences; and (3) teaching and research. Each must be placed in its socio-historical context, even considering the colonial colleges and the changes wrought during the last half of the eighteenth century. (Author/MSE)