The obligations of college teachers under current conditions in higher education and public life are considered. Detailed attention is directed to the obligations of academics to their students, colleagues, universities, and to the promotion of knowledge through teaching and research. Also considered is the teacher's fulfillment of obligations to society through teaching, research, public service, and political activities in support of or in opposition to governments. Changes in higher education that challenge the academic ethic are addressed as follows: the mass university, the service university, the political university, the governmentally-dominated university, the bureaucratized university, the financially-straitened university, the university in the eye of publicity, the research university, and the disaggregated university. It is suggested that universities still remain the major centers of learning in their respective societies. It is suggested that obligations that constitute the academic ethic are not the same as a comprehensive code of conduct for teachers. The academic ethic touches only on the acquisition and transmission of scientific and scholarly knowledge within the university and among universities and on activities using that knowledge outside the universities. (SW)