The mania for faculty research in American universities reminds me of Hermann Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game, where some of the smartest people in society devote most of their time to an extremely complicated but pointless game. (I read it a very long time ago; if anyone wants to correct my recollection, please do.) In this week’s Pope Center Clarion Call, I comment on Prof. Mark Bauerlein’s recent American Enterprise paper in which he argues that the benefits of faculty research are dwarfed by the costs, especially the neglect of undergraduate teaching.