Where are academe's big thinkers?

A retiring professor ponders the rise of academic professionalism/careerism and the parallel decline in public discourse from our campuses.

Alan Wolfe, late of Boston College, writes, "The modern research university has unfortunately become increasingly susceptible to value monism, the belief that there is only one right way to advance, only one correct form of knowledge. The graduate school takeover, I hasten to add, is not the reason for my retirement: I simply felt that I had reached the age when it was proper to pass the responsibilities on to others. I just hope that whatever form the university of tomorrow takes, it leaves a place for those social scientists who resist the trend toward greater disciplinary professionalization. The liberal arts should be liberal enough to make a place for many kinds of teaching and learning."

Enroute to this conclusion he not only decries the triumph of professionalism over public intellectualism, but also the decline in teaching workloads.

Though it's not often said, the two go hand in hand.  A friend at Temple University has told me that, so long as he cranks out a new book every couple of years, the dean will keep his teaching load at a course or two a year.  

Thus,  neither in the classroom nor on the bully pulpit do such academics speak to the common woman and man.  Where are the leaders of the academy in this presidential election year, when a demigod (who most likely despises and disdains us) threatens to grab national power?

Is it possible that higher education is being so badly battered --- by an intrusive and over-reaching Department of Education; by conservative governors and legislators; by litigious alumni, students, parents and their legal advocates --- because in  the Market Place of Ideas, we academics have abandoned the field to our adversaries and critics?