F. W. Dupee was writing his biography of Henry James, of which it was later remarked that it was the only book about James the style of which was worthy of its subject. And Dupee read chapters of this work in progress to crowded audiences of faculty and students. Mark Van Doren was teaching his course in such books as Dante, Cervantes, Homer, the Bible, Kafka. What he said gained weight from his magnificent book on Shakespeare and the fact that he was a frequently published Pulitzer Prize winning poet. I could go on with many other names, but you get the point.
Publication can be an important fact about a professor.
Of course, at any period much academic publication is notoriously sterile and of little interest to anyone, including the author, but this probably happens less often than many suppose. Today, however, we have a peculiar situation. The books and essays of such professors as Trillin, Van Doren, Dupee and many others happened to be directly related to what they were doing in the classroom. At one point, Trilling was teaching Wordsworth, but he was also writing a famous essay about him. The students read the essay when it came out, and it formed a part of the class discussion.