All three pairs of House masters who have resigned this year cite—at least in part—their inability to focus on their academic pursuits while taking care of their House.

Hanson says his publication rate has slowed by a third and he cut back on his lecturing outside of Harvard since he became master.

“The part that suffers is the research,” Eliot House Master Lino Pertile says. “There is little time to take part in research if you are involved in two full-time jobs.”

Pforzheimer House Master James J. McCarthy and Co-Master M. Suzanne McCarthy say while professors wear many hats as part of their job, the added reponsibility of a mastership limits the time devoted to typical academic duties.

“Every faculty member at Harvard who is on top of his/her field is effectively holding 3 to 5 half time jobs, with teaching, research, various university administrative responsibilities, and national and international service to one’s profession,” the McCarthys write in an e-mail. “When one is a House master one simply does less of some of these other things.”

The responsibility of being a master is unique from these other administrative positions because they must be on their toes, day and night, masters say.

“It’s a 24-hour job, which means that you have to be available during the night if there are emergencies and there are occasionally,” Hanson says.

Dingman says masters should capitalize on the House staff, including the senior tutor and resident tutors, to ease their administrative burden.

“When masters utilize all of that help, they find the overall responsibilities doable,” he says.

But even with this additional help, masters say they find themselves juggling tasks in an effort to make the House run smoothly.

“It is like being the mayor of a small town,” Ware says. “You are involved in every aspect of the house, from the dining hall to the nomination of Rhodes scholars.”

While Loader says she and Quincy House Master Robert P. Kirshner ’70 have so far been able to keep up with their academic research, she can understand why the masters who are slated to leave at the end of this year felt the need to step down.

And few masters say they expected the job to take up so much of their time and energy when they signed on to run a House.

“The job was more work and took more time than we had imagined possible,” the McCarthys write. “We had over 300 students and 20 tutors to get to know, every day was different, and most were very long.”

Hanson says as he got older it became harder to handle the added burden of the mastership.