Alvin Kernan describes with some regret the metamorphosis of the familiar research university into something fundamentally different. This new institution is buffeted by technological change and governed by market economics; it admits for reasons other than merit; it can't tell the ants from the grasshoppers; and it has abandoned its traditional mission by giving the student-customers exactly what they want: uniformly high grades and a rather hazy conception of knowledge that offers no authoritative claim to being the truth. (Contains 5 notes.)