<p>Monydad:</p>
<p>I would not dispute that research is more important than teaching still. But teaching does come into consideration to a degree that was not known a few decades ago. Conversely, I know someone who was denied tenure at a top LAC because she had not produced a book by the time she came up for tenure. Another assistant professor at another LAC worried about getting her manuscript published by a university press--the only publishing venue her LAC would recognize as legitimate--at a time when university presses were retrenching and were less receptive to publishing first manuscripts. LACs that compete with research universities for prestige and students do put pressure on their faculty to publish. And some of the most prolific authors teach at LACs: Joseph Ellis at Mt. Holyoke; David Blight (before he got snapped up by Yale, he was at Amherst). The list goes on. It is not an either/or situation here, either.</p>