All of vertigo's Comments + Replies

One reason for having researchers teach is that in specialized subjects, it's hard to find people who know the field well enough to teach it that are willing to be full-time teachers instead of actually doing work in the field (and keeping up with new developments, etc.). This probably matters more at the Master's degree level than the bachelor's degree level, though; there are a lot of people who aren't Richard Feynman who can teach undergraduate students how to solve the Schrodinger equation for the hydrogen atom, but the number of people who can teach string theory to physics graduate students is a lot smaller.

Something like this exists in the French classe préparatoire system. Basically imagine highschool, but for the first two years of college education, and super hard, competitive and elitist (and without tuition fees). The point is the teachers are full time teachers and in my experience both as a student and a teacher it is way better than what universities can offer. It is however quite expensive due to a huge teacher/student ratio, and can be hard for the mental health of students due to the tremenduous work charge. I really don't know how the overall cost/benefits analysis work out, but all else being equal it is evidence for the "full time teachers better than half teacher/half researcher" idea.