For as long as the modern research university has been around, finding an ordering principle for knowledge acquisition has been one of its key goals. Though the difficulties in ordering knowledge go back to the times of Plato, the modern research university's establishment was expected to resolve them. And yet, centuries later, that ordering principle still eludes us. Instead, the patterns by which we collect and organize knowledge remain out of step with the circumstances that typify today's university environment. This article addresses the evolution and impact of that dissonance, using the field of communication as a prism through which to consider whether recognition of alternate modes of knowledge acquisition might be possible and, equally important, overdue.