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Well, as you know from the reading, there are some reasonable concerns about universities that blend teaching and research. There are some points I want to make today during our class that weren’t included in your reading. I think that it’s important to understand both sides of this issue. Something that people don’t always think about is how researching can make planning lessons a lot easier. If you have a teacher who is a teacher and a researcher, he or she is very up-to-date in the field, and doesn’t have to spend the same amount of time preparing for classes. The research itself is preparation. Rather than waiting for other researchers to investigate questions and publish their findings, researching professors are on the cutting edge of their field. They attend conferences and find out what other researchers are doing as they are doing it. The time they spend at these conferences is time well spent to prepare them for their teaching assignments. While it is true that researching professors may not have the practical teaching skills that other teachers have, they are passionate about their subject because what they research is what they chose to pursue for their career. One of my colleagues here in the department is famous for staying late to work on a presentation for class the next day because he is so excited to share his latest discovery with his students. His students love his lectures because they enjoy seeing the results of his research. A final point I’ll mention on this topic is that by only focusing on one thing, professors often get stuck. Teachers who don’t do research tend to use the same books and go over the same material year after year. On the other hand, teachers who research are able to continue growing because of their involvement in the field.