The role of the university in providing leadership to a changing society is discussed. It is proposed that the university has a limited but important purpose of learning and teaching, scholarship and research, and that seeking to lead or change or improve the world should be done only within the setting of education. Although individuals can act privately to change society, the university should not serve as a direct agent in this process. The university's mission is an objective search for truth and the teaching of that truth. Course offerings should involve a level of understanding and a depth of ideas appropriate to a university; the fact that society requires some skill or training does not mean automatically that the university is the institution that must serve society and offer it. Implications for the education of minority students who have an inadequate secondary education are discussed. The view that continuing and adult education is not the answer to declining enrollment in higher education is expressed. The trend toward accountability in higher education and the consequences of the growth in higher education institutions in the 1950's and l960's and the subsequent decline in enrollments are also considered. (SW)