Leaders from government and the higher education community provide a philosophical but pragmatic discussion of such topics as curriculum, admissions, research funding, and financial support. Compiled from papers presented at the 61st annual meeting of the American Council on Education, this volume offers the viewpoints of 22 institutional administrators, college presidents, government officials and other education leaders on the interaction between higher education and government. The papers are grouped into sections on living with change; who shall teach; what shall be taught; who shall study; who decides about research; who decides what to spend; who champions the institution; and agents for social change. Papers and authors include: Freedom with Responsibility (Howard G. Bowen); The Limits of Growth (Alice M. Rivlin); Academic Freedom and Retirement (Marjorie Downing Wagner); Defending the Power to Appoint (John S. Toll); Collegiality in Changing Times (Martha Friedman); Curricular Decision Making (Lawrence K. Pettit); Curriculum Development by Evolution (Alice F. Emerson); Institutional Autonomy and Curricula (Willard L. Boyd); In Support of a Social Ideal (C. Arthur Sandeen); American Federalism and Autonomy (Steven Muller); Students and the Admissions Decision (Alfred L. Moye); Federal Support for Research (Linda S. Wilson); Factors in Research Funding (Frank Press); Science and Government (Cornelius J. Pings); Federal Involvement in Spending (Robert M. Rosenzweig); State Support for Higher Education (James M. Furman); The President Speaks for the University (Jose A. Cabranes); An Uneasy Alliance? (Retha Clark King); Higher Education: Its Own Champion (Stephen Joel Trachtenberg.); The Black Experience (Herman B. Smith, Jr.); The Indian Experience (Marian M. Hersud); and Higher Education's Social Role (Charles Frankel). It is suggested that the growing interaction between government and higher education will warrant a skillful blending of higher education's autonomy and government's role in representing the will of the people. A bibliography is provided. (LC)