One law professor at B.U. does so much outside legal work, says Mr. Beermann, that he has insisted on scheduling important committee meetings at 8 a.m. so he can make a timely escape to a downtown law firm. But the meeting time is inconvenient for other faculty members, and they have complained, says Mr. Beermann. B.U. officials have told the professor he should curb his outside legal work or he may be forced to reduce his university appointment to part time, says Mr. Beermann, who refused to name the colleague. But when professors in such fields are working on university business, they almost always do it in their campus offices, as opposed to at home or in a library, for example. Scientists also spend most of their time on campus, in laboratories with graduate students and other professors.
Life is very different in other academic departments.
It's not unusual for professors in English, history, modern languages, political science, and philosophy, for example, to come to the campus only two or three days a week. That's true not only for B.U. professors, but for those at research universities across the country. After all, research universities base tenure decisions on research, and lots of humanities scholarship is done outside the office. Even the B.U. report recognizes the importance of scholarship, saying that professors whose productivity has stalled should teach more. But it fails to acknowledge that, for most professors, doing research and writing in a campus office is not an option because there are too many distractions and interruptions, and the resources academics need just aren't there.