Liberal arts colleges are option that falls close to the 75% hard/25% soft option described by Rafa in his advice for folks on the job market. At these schools the teaching load may be even a little heavier than schools like Berkeley/Duke; the students will usually be exclusively undergraduates. Examples of this kind of place are Pomona College, Carleton College, Grinnell College, etc. The teaching load is the focus at places like this, but research plays an increasingly major role for academic faculty. In a recent Nature editorial, Amy Cheng Vollmer produces an interesting analogy for the differences in responsibilities.
“It’s like comparing the winter Olympics to the summer Olympics,” says Vollmer, who frequently gives talks on career issues. “It’s not easier, it’s different”