[noelwelsh]

The idea is that the experts pass on their knowledge, gained from research, to the students. Sure there are a large number of people who can teach, say, Calculus 1, but there are dramatically fewer who can teach the higher level courses. This is one of the attractions of top universities -- you have the leading experts in the fields teaching their specialities. Thus it isn't clear to me that teaching and research should be separated at the highest level. At the University of Phoenix level, yes, it makes sense.