Upon returning from holidays I would like to commend the exchange under the above subject by Bill and Jerry to those who may have missed it. I think Bill is rate-breaking, not least by all that bike riding. It is with some trepidation that I observe that Bill's activities support my original description of guild relations. It is only because of guild privilege that a senior member can treat his department as a collective and as a good Marxist Bill has set out to mitigate the kind of exploitation which is characteristic of guild internal relations - the exploitation of apprentices and journeymen by senior members. I disagree with Bill's emphasis on published research but agree with his solution to the general problem. It seems to me that many perfectly intelligent and useful academics have run out of useful things to say at article length. Not having published in years can be a sign of considerable integrity. Those who do not research however - often older members of departments - should be willing to accept an increased teaching load. This more fairly distributes the work without increasing the strain on the world's paper resources - a subject which should be close to Bill's heart. By the way I don't believe the standard saw that publication improves teaching. Publication generally means extreme specialization, and even when it doesn't carries an opportunity cost. Reading widely in one's subject and increasing contact with students through writing assignments are two teaching activities whose marginal returns don't fall to the level of the initial contribution of research to teaching before exhausting a good week of the average academic's time. Research really does come at the expense of teaching though perhaps we should keep quiet about this. Terry McDonough
