Some retirees may spend their years basking in the Florida sun, while other may fine-tune their golf stroke on the greens of California. But for members of Harvard's exclusive group of professors emeriti, retirement brings a life of new opportunities free from the burdens of teaching and headaches of administration.

But freedom from instructional duties rarely translates into a life of leisure for many retired professors. Most continue to reseach, write, and publish, and some have been even more productive than they were before.

"People think that when you're retired, you have infinite leisure so they ask you to take on commitments that they'd hesitate to ask you while you were teaching," says Paul A. Freund, Loeb University Professor Emeritus. "It becomes a problem of securing the leisure you anticipated when you were teaching."

Freund, who taught at the Law School from 1939 to 1976, said he retired before the mandatory retirement age required by federal law because he wanted more free time. But editing and contributing to an upcoming history of the Supreme Court and other projects have occupied much of his anticipate leisure time.

Retired professors are also called away from quiet retirement to deliver speeches or apply their expertise. "There are always special writing and lecturing responsibilities, particularly in the bicentennial year of the Constitution," says the constitutional law expert.

Loeb University Professor Emeritus Archibald Cox '34 also finds himself with new speaking and lecturing engagements, some as a result of the Bicentennial Celebration. Coupled with his teaching responsibilities at the Law School of Boston University, additions to an already hectic schedule leave the former Watergate special prosecutor pressed for time to serve his other posts.

Cox currently serves as chairman of Common Cause, a Washington, D.C. organization, and as chairman of the board of directors of the Health Effects Institute, a non-profit foundation established and financed by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Motor Vehicle Manufactures.

"I'm still a workaholic," says Cox, who works seven days a week. "I run away from the word `retire'."

Ernst Mayr, Agassiz Professor of Zoology Emeritus at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, has also kept up a furious pace, despite his 82 years. Since his retirement in 1974, the former director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology has published 116 books and papers on evolution, biology and philosophy.

His recent books include Evolution and Philosophy, The Growth of Biological Thought and Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance.

Joining Harvard in 1953, Mayr has also accepted several visiting professorships at various universities across the country. Writing recommendations, advising students, and giving guest lectures and seminars occupy some of Mayr's days.

"My retirement has had no effect on my life except that I offer no courses," said Mayr. He still rises at 4:30 a.m. every morning, has a full-time secretary, and comes to the office everyday.

"If you're well motivated, retirement isn't a punishment," says Mayr. "It gives you a greater opportunity."

Back in his office on the top floor of Widener, Eliot Professor of Greek Literature Emeritus John H. Finley '25 has also continued to work regularly since his retirement in 1975. Amidst his cluttered desk and a collection of yellowing photographs, Finley, 83, either reads, or writes on his manual Royal typewriter, which he purchased years ago during his tenure as Eliot House Master.

In 1978, Finley published Homer's Odyssey, which won the Goodwin Prize of the American Philological Association. He has also written a family history about his parents and his years growing up in New Hampshire and Cambridge.