This article presents the first part of Professor David Eastwood's paper given as the AUA Annual Guest Lecture on October 24, 2007. He begins the article with some reflections on the distinctiveness and the self-referential self-confidence of higher education (HE) because he wants to torsion his later remarks against what he takes to be its essential distinctiveness. His central themes are actually the engagement rather than the remoteness of universities, the reality and importance of mass HE, and the impact of a wide-ranging and very public debate that has shaped the current HE sector and that will determine its future. He wants simultaneously to celebrate the distinctiveness of HE and its availability; its rarefied understanding and immediate relevance; and its global nature and local rootedness. He also discusses some reflections on the questions he thinks are settled in the debate on higher education. (Contains 5 figures and 1 footnote.)