To the editor:

To measure the worthiness of all Kansas Board of Regents universities by the same criterion, namely, whether they are teaching more or fewer students, is unwise. Two of the regents universities are research universities; their faculty have substantially different duties than faculty at the other regents universities, where teaching is more central to the mission than research.

Moreover, research itself is an economic boon to Kansas. At the research center that my wife and I cofounded and codirect, The Beach Center on Disability, each state dollar spent on faculty and staff salaries earns another eight to ten federal dollars, annually. Other research entities produce similar yields.

Rud Turnbull,

Lawrence