There has never been widespread acceptance in the USA of the notion that research institutes should somehow be separated from teaching institutions. In America, there is nothing similar to the Max Planck Institute or France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Most of researchers in the US must also teach students and, in my opinion, that remains a strength of the American educational system (an exception must be made for the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study or the RAND Corporation — but I don’t necessarily think that they perform their functions better than universities as such)...