ANTIPHONY. King Banaian at SCSU Scholars explains trading fours, then offers further commentary on my proposal that university administrators help earn the university's keep. Professor Banaian's objection, stated simply, is that many administrators might be failures as teachers, as well as failed scholars. ("And as for getting these people to have any empathy for the daily rhythm of teaching faculty? I don't think they can lay down that beat.") Or enter a fifth above, or a fifth down. (Classic O Scale and Baroque counterpoint, hard to beat that combination.) Perhaps not. Turf 'em out then, I say. I base my argument on a management insight from Admiral Daniel V. Gallery, the commander of the task force that captured the German submarine U-505 now anchored in Chicago. (And if you enjoyed The Hunt for Red October and never read U-505 (details or comparison shop) lay to the wardroom and do so.) Admiral Gallery made friends after the War with Captain Loewe, who commanded the crew of plank owners. Loewe was seconded to another submarine and he was not in command when the Admiral's task force captured U-505. One of Loewe's strategies to maintain crew morale was to stand the watch of the winner of the weekly revolution count contest. (This might strike the landlubber as dumb, to hold a contest to guess what the number on the meter counting screw revolutions would be at 1500 hours, Berlin time, each Sunday, but recall that naval warfare is long periods of boredom interspersed with minutes of sheer terror. The revolution count contest adds a break from the routine of motoring to station.) In order for Loewe to do that, he had to be sufficiently familiar with the workings of a submarine to be able to handle whatever duties that watch entailed, which might be the headphones (no active sonar on German boats) or the torpedo room or the power plant.

All I'm asking is that any administrator who comes from the ranks of the faculty be prepared to stand one kind of watch, which is to teach a section or two of an introductory class in his field. And if I were Grossadmiral, any administrator who offered some excuse or objection would be off my staff as quickly as I could arrange a hearing. Professor Banaian is correct to fear that there are some in the 8 to 4.30 set who have no ear for scholarship or teaching. That state of affairs is something that I would like to see changed.