That depends on who you assign the professor to teach. If they're teaching and training new PhDs and researchers that need to know the latest knowledge in the f

That depends on who you assign the professor to teach. If they're teaching and training new PhDs and researchers that need to know the latest knowledge in the field, then that's a reasonable use of the professor's research time. It could be this professor is one of dozens of people around the world actually qualified to teach and interpret the results of ongoing research. If they're being assigned to teach undergrads Chem 101 than that's a waste of valuable time. Universities should be bifurcated into research organizations and public education organizations. Research organizations should still teach, but to an audience of trainee researchers. Public education organizations can focus their time teaching the majority of students using polished pedagogical skills and collating key results from research organizations into more accessible formats.