For more than ten years, academics of public universities in Mexico have endured modernization programs that promote individual productivity and operate as a mechanism of selection and assessment. The implementation of the programs has exposed a tension between the values implicit in the programs and the values of the academic teachers. There is a discrepancy between the current emphasis on the economic and productive role of the academics, and their teaching as a cultural and social practice. This article examines the tensions and the discrepancy through the accounts of some academics from one public university in Mexico who have experienced the modernization programs at first hand. (Contains 3 notes.)