As higher education seeks to become more socially responsive, the public agenda is one form that has taken root in explicating the relation of higher education to society. In this paper, we critically analyze two different instantiations of the public agenda for higher education, placing them against the backdrop of what Michael Apple (2006a) calls the conservative modernization of education. We demonstrate how these examples fall victim to and perpetuate the conservative modernization of the academy and argue for ways of incorporating critical perspectives into the generative process of constructing the public agenda for higher education. (Contains 1 footnote.)