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University Social Responsibility (USR) has been addressed in the academic literature and in professional educational meetings only in the last 10–15 years, but it is far from being unanimously accepted as part of a university’s mission. A university is all about serving society anyway; its mission has always been to educate people, to train professionals, and to prepare young men and women for their roles as good citizens of their countries and of the world. So, what other social role is a university to serve that it does not? This issue becomes more acute and compelling when society’s expectations of service from higher education institutions has to do with K-12 school education, as is the situation for the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapter considers the case of Al Akhawayn University (AUI) in Ifrane, Morocco (AUI), a university that has been established by the State as the first public, autonomous, non-governmental institution of higher education in the country. We describe several social roles that the university has taken on in its host region as well as nationally, most notably during the Covid-19 pandemic, and we argue that AUI has been able to do so because of its autonomy and its special legal status. We claim that non-autonomous state universities are not able to use the full potential of their sophisticated faculty and staff to contribute to the development of the country, and we call for the transformation of state universities into autonomous institutions that are able to serve their full Social Actor role and comply with their University Social Responsibility duties.

University as State Agent or Social Actor: Al Akhawayn University and Social Responsibility