"They prefer a title with a more active sound to it," he says. "They think it more reflects what retirement will be for them."

"I would certainly be more comfortable with that sort of title," says Owen J. Gingerich, professor of astronomy and the history of science.

For Levin Research Professor of Literature Donald L. Fanger, the appeal was also in the name.

"I mainly took the research professor title because I liked the sound of it better than I like the sound of emeritus...and because I had a number of projects on which I was now free to work full time." he says. "Since I was going to continue to be active as a scholar, I welcomed a title which suggested that specifically in the way that emeritus does not."

Fanger says his teaching has only improved over the years, and his department would have supported him had he chosen to continue teaching.

"I don't have any reason to think that the quality of my teaching had dropped, probably quite to the contrary," says Fanger, author of Dostoyevsky and Romantic Realism.

Instead, Fanger says he wanted to pursue a research professorship that would allow him to write more before he "lost [his] marbles," he quipped.

Some administrators feel that the research professor title has allowed the University to meet two goals at once--freeing up scant tenured slots while keeping more professors in the Harvard system.