This paper will start by observing the development of the concept of 'the service university' understood as either a university which replaces a demand led service in research and teaching by a demand led service imbued with an increasingly entrepreneurial culture or, less flatteringly, as the university which 'will do absolutely anything that someone is willing to pay it to do'. It will use Roszak's 1967 essay on The delinquent academy' to suggest alternative conceptions of the role of the university, with particular reference to Roszak's discussion of intellectual citizenship. It will suggest certain core functions of a university which risk being lost entirely to society if universities cease to offer them. These include the cultivation of academic virtue and the contribution to public debate of critical opinion based on extended research and scholarship underpinned by academic virtue. Finally it will ask whether there is a non-arbitrary way of arguing for these as core services of a university.