More bad news for professors in Illinois. The Chicago Tribune (registration required) reports that the Illinois Board of Higher Education has decided to examine faculty productivity in state run universities. Now, on principle, I am inclined to be sympathetic to the state on this one. First, the state puts up the money, taken from taxpayers. Second, it is depressing how many professors have negative productivity: they do nothing except get in the way of the academics actually trying to do something. There are frauds, hustlers, cheats, and liars, and universities would do well to dispose of them. But this investigation does not look promising.

Having challenged university administrators to pare costs and increase their own productivity, board Chairman James Kaplan wants to take the same look at college faculty.

Accordingly, Kaplan has impaneled a committee that will begin early next year to review everything, from what kind of research projects faculty undertake to how much time they spend in the classroom.

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Despite studies that show college faculty routinely work more than 50 hours a week, the paucity of classroom time and the sometimes esoteric nature of their research has officials like Kaplan expressing impatience with the culture that pervades parts of academia.

"I'm a practical guy, I am not an egghead," Kaplan said. "I can't sit and do these ephemeral things."

Sometimes the "paucity of their classroom time" has its fringe benefit.

Many professors today appear to think that their lecture hall is the perfect forum to indoctrinate students with the professors' radical political thoughts. If such tenured hacks get the boot, taxpayers and the students will both benefit.