This article presents remarks by E. Gordon Gee, the president of the Ohio State University, at the 10th annual National Outreach Scholarship Conference. He talks about his realization that the time had come for higher education institutions to reinvigorate and expand their commitment to communities. Upon returning to Ohio State, he thought hard about first principles, about their land-grant institutions' founding ideals, and about this nation's particular moment in time. The sum of the equation was this: America's public universities, and particularly its land-grant institutions, must reach out as never before to fully understand the needs in their communities and to fully address them--as partners, together. Gee emphasizes the issues that institutions face today as they engage their larger communities and the efforts to work in partnership to resolve them. He concludes that like him, people in the academe have much to do--in their own institutions and in collaboration with one another. They must be mindful always of the sacred trust that is theirs to nurture and to pass along to those who will follow them on this earth. That, finally, is their common obligation and their common purpose. (Contains 1 endnote.)