A professor who is regarded as an intellectual in his/her respective field for his/her theoretical applications to various cultural/political issues. While the professor can state his/her argument with great confidence and linguistic ability, he/she can't seem to take a position, much less differentiate between right or wrong, left or right, pro or con, black or white; turning everything into grey-matter. This phenomenon can be attributed to covering his/her own ass, academically speaking.
My professor is such a muddlehead; when asked to take a stance on abortion he said, "both."
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. Penguin Books,1992. p. 38)