Princeton University president Christopher L. Eisgruber sits down with David Nirenberg, director of the Institute for Advanced Study, for a conversation recorded at Wolfensohn Hall in Princeton. Drawing on Eisgruber's 2025 book Terms of Respect, the two trace how research universities became America's dominant institutional form for discovery after World War II, and what pressures now push them to adapt while holding onto that original mission. They turn partway through to the specific bond between the Institute, founded in 1930 as an independent haven for scholars, and Princeton next door, asking how physical proximity and overlapping faculty have shaped both places over nearly a century. The format stays conversational rather than a straight address, with Nirenberg pressing Eisgruber on concrete examples from Princeton's governance and funding rather than abstractions. It works as a close look at how a university president thinks about the institution's obligations to research, students, and the public at a moment of real uncertainty for higher education.