The sense in which they have their head in the sand is that the world is increasingly asking them to justify their existence more and more - which is forcing ac

The sense in which they have their head in the sand is that the world is increasingly asking them to justify their existence more and more - which is forcing academics to engage in various ways more with the external world. And naturally, they don't enjoy doing this. At top-tier research universities in the sciences, this ship long ago sailed, and many academics these days spend the majority of their time on the external world, whether it's running a biotech company on the side, or the CNN/TED/etc. interview/lecture circuit. The university is increasingly just becoming a base of operations for people's larger business/media empires. I think this generally helps funding and demonstrating impact in the short term, and deans love it. But I'm not sure it improves the production of science research; professors in this mold no longer do the classic style of blue-skies research, but have very full schedules, carefully managed labs, and an eye for low-hanging fruit (especially monetizable fruit).