"It has become the massager of the egos of many government functionaries," said Professor of the History of Science Everett J. Mendelsohn.

"If professors can't take distractions and can't do their work, they ought to resist them," said Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, one of Harvard's more prolific professors.

Dershowitz, who handles important and controversial legal cases, often without collecting a fee, said the University should not tell him or others what to do.

"We're big boys and girls now," Dershowitz said.

"I don't think we should be issuing edicts that everyone should be back on campus at 10 o'clock at night," Government Department Chairman Robert D. Putnam said.

"Harvard is perfectly right not to do classified research. Any individual however, is in a position to do so," said James R. Schlesinger '50, who has served as secretary of defense and director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Harvard has struck a pretty good balance, but that balance changes from time to time," said Schlesinger, who attended the convocation.

"If universities had required that [scholars] publish every work, the results of nuclear research would have been public when World War II was still going on," he added.

Clarke Professor of Social Ethics Herbert C. Kelman, an international conflicts expert, said his outside activities enhance his academic work.

"I think it has enormously enriched my teaching and my students feel that way as well," Kelman said. "It brings the real world into the classroom."