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Since prestige, especially in the sciences, is most easily measured by the rate of a professor's publication, the number of Government panels he has served on, and the number of trips abroad he has made as a consultant to a struggling new nation, the topnotch professor whose reputation lured the student to the university campus in the first place is rarely there to teach him. Says a Stanford scholar in the sciences, who considers himself lucky to be teaching only three hours a week: "It's not only how many papers you publish, but how many dollars in contracts you can bring in."
There is a more relaxed atmosphere in the liberal arts college, but even there danger threatens. "The lure of dollars for scholarly research is a strong enticement, to say the least," Dean David Truman of Columbia College said last week. "Only the best-established liberal arts college can withstand such pressures, and it remains to be seen whether they can do so much longer."
Hope at Harvard. Perhaps the most promising experiment in trying to lower the pressure is currently under way at Harvard, where it is quite possible to both publish and perish. Of 180 assistant professors and instructors in the faculty of arts and sciences only about 20% will get tenure. Hoping to breed more of those uncommon Siamese twins who join eminent scholarship with inspiring teaching, Harvard's history, government and economic departments are offering fellowships that balance teaching duties with research opportunities.
Given today's bigger teaching loads and finely honed specialization of knowledge, it will be quite a feat to preserve the balance when the fellowship expires. For embattled teachers like Woody Sayre and for his faithful students, Stanford Historian David Potter probably has the best answer: "Take a look at the available small colleges."