Faculty voices on civic pressure points.
Fordham Conversations is a university-centered interview show built around careful questions and specialist guests. Available conversations focus on American democracy, impeachment, bipartisanship, voting rights, statehood, and debates over summer schooling.
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Fordham Conversations presents faculty and guest interviews as public-facing civic education. The available episodes show a program most interested in how institutions work, where they fail, and what reforms might make them more accountable. Several conversations return to John Davenport, identified in the excerpts as a Fordham philosophy professor. His appearances center on American democracy: impeachment, bipartisanship, voting rights, DC statehood, Puerto Rico, open primaries, the filibuster, and broader constitutional reform. The show gives those subjects room to breathe. It does not reduce them to partisan slogans. Instead, an interviewer sets the news context, asks for a general reading, then follows the guest into the mechanics of process and incentive. That produces a sober but energetic kind of interview. The stakes are high, yet the mode is explanation rather than outrage. Another episode turns to education policy through Nicholas Tampeo, professor of political science at Fordham University. The subject there is summer school after coronavirus disruption, including the case for play, teacher rest, heat, school calendars, and the limits of catch-up thinking. That conversation shows the program's larger pattern: current public debates are treated as questions with history, tradeoffs, and institutional consequences. Fordham Conversations is not especially flashy in the excerpts. It is structured, topical, and faculty-driven. The interviews often begin from a concrete event, such as a presidential address, an impeachment trial, or a school reopening proposal. From there, they move toward the deeper argument underneath the news. The show suits listeners looking for public issues explained by people who are used to teaching and arguing carefully. Its best fit is a listener who wants civic vocabulary, policy context, and a steadier pace than the usual political back-and-forth.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants public affairs and education policy explained through careful academic conversation. It fits someone looking for institutional context rather than headline reaction alone.
What sets it apart: Fordham Conversations stands apart by anchoring current debates in university interviews, with guests reasoning through reforms, tradeoffs, and democratic process. The available episodes make politics and school policy feel connected to civic structure, not only daily controversy.
An exploration of the worlds of literature, science, politics, and the arts with faculty, visiting scholars and outside guests
Summer school becomes an AC argument; you'll feel the policy before you weigh it.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
John Davenport weighs Biden-era reform proposals against democratic strategy, persuasion, and constitutional reform.
John Davenport reads Biden's first 100 days through the linked questions of democratic reform and political strategy. His treatment of the joint-session speech sets the administration's infrastructure and jobs agenda beside the political damage he sees in proposals to add…
A grounded school-calendar debate centered on classroom heat, teacher fatigue, and children's need for play.
Fordham Conversations treats the push to extend school through the summer as a policy idea that has to survive contact with actual classrooms.
Oklahoma policy, framed as executive action.
Singapore markets, policy, and daily dilemmas.
Jewish ideas with cultural nerve.
School choice policy, close to the ground.
Fordham Conversations examines President Biden's first 100 days, the American Rescue Plan, and the limits of a 50-50 Senate.
Fordham professor John Davenport says Senate impeachment trials face partisan pressure because senators must answer to voters.
John Davenport says 78% public approval for the American rescue package did not guarantee bipartisan passage in Congress.
John Davenport, a Fordham philosophy professor, reacts to President Biden’s 100-day address and says the infrastructure and jobs message landed well, even if the foreign policy section got muddier.
Fordham University political science professor Nicholas Tampeo argues against Mike Bloomberg’s push for universal summer school, saying kids need play, movement, and time outdoors instead of “sit[ting] inside this summer.” He says the federal response to COVID-era “learning loss” is built around standardized tests, cites McKinsey, Brookings, and the Learning Recovery Act, and calls the evidence-based framing a way to funnel money into test prep.
John Davenport compares Donald Trump's two impeachments with Andrew Johnson's near-conviction and Bill Clinton's Senate trial.
Fordham Conversations examines why bipartisan legislation stalls as John Davenport proposes changes to primaries, congressional rules, and district maps.