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In high school I was president of the Student Council, and I ended up doing a lot of speeches. After you do a few in front of different schools, you get really comfortable talking in front of an audience.

I'm a tenured professor. But I'd get rid of tenure.

If the academic community gets its way, we will soon all be speaking with a single voice.

When I give speeches at college, I don't tell stories, I talk about what it is to live your dreams and take the path less traveled.

'Nutty Professor' was me going, 'Say what you want to say, but I can do this, and you can't, and nobody else in the town can do this.'

I was at college doing performing arts, and just spending all my time mucking about, and the lecturers thought I would be pretty good at stand-up, so I gave it a whirl.

There are moments as a teacher when I'm conscious that I'm trotting out the same exact phrase my professor used with me years ago. It's an eerie feeling, as if my old mentor is not just in the room, but in my shoes, using me as his mouthpiece.

I had to make a choice - recede into the academic world, or wade into politics.