"Whither the Looniversity?" - A Podcast on the Miserable State of the American University

Harry Crane is a professor of statistics at Rutgers University and Co-Founder of Researchers.One, an online platform for scholarly publishing that restores the process of peer review to its proper function. We discuss the problems of the peer review process as it currently exists and how it has been infiltrated by ideological interests. In addition, we speculate on how much longer the legacy print model of scholarly publication can endure, how wokeness is manifested in STEM disciplines, and how/whether the proper functions of the university can be restored.

Dr. Wood has nearly four decades working in and around academia. He has been a tenured professor, a Provost, and he has served in a variety of other administration positions within the university. He is now President of the National Association of Scholars, a group that advocates on behalf of faculty whose rights have been ignored by their institutions, in addition to advocating for policy reform in higher education. His most recent book is Wrath: America Enraged, and a new edition of his book 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project will be published shortly. In addition to his scholarly work, his writing has appeared in many of the highest-profile publications covering politics and culture in the country.

Dr. Robinson holds a PhD in political science, but seeing the decay of the American academy, she opted to devote her energies to restoring a culture of excellence in our universities, rather than taking on a professorship. As President of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, she advocates for institutional and cultural reforms that will ensure that higher education in America is able to perform its vital functions for the nation. We discuss academic standard, tuition costs, the student loan racket, and the problem of accreditation.

Prof. Smith is an expert in the field of rhetoric. He also happens to be a black man. When he challenged the assumptions of self-professed “anti-racists” in a forum for academics and intellectuals in his field, the mob turned on him – calling him a racist and a proponent of white supremacy. This affair was an experience that eventually led to him helping to form Free Black Thought – an online outlet showcasing the work of heterodox black thinkers.

Prof. Staddon is one of the most prominent researchers in the modern history of American and British behavioral science. Never afraid to speak up to ideological chauvinists, his most recent dust-up occurred when he was removed from the message board of the American Psychological Association for challenging pseudo-scientific claims about sex and gender.

Prof. Negy has never shied away from controversy, and in the summer of 2020 he made some posts on his personal social media account that were critical of the BLM riots. Soon thereafter, the University of Central Florida set in motion a coordinated attack on his career that would culminate in their firing of a tenured professor. Negy tells us about how he fought this unfair termination, fresh off of being reinstated to his position after his victory in arbitration. Further we discuss the dysfunction of the American university, and how it might be fixed.