Education, university and university professors, in particular, are regarded as key elements before the continuous changes society is going through. This paper attempts to reflect particularly upon the relations between society and university and to ponder about the role university professors play, their working obstacles and conditions in Latin America and Colombia. The paper mainly revises, from a critical view, the complexity of their role in order to revaluate it based on three main issues: our society and its problems; university; and, the role university professors play.