Quotes & Sayings About Tenure

Every actor hopes that the character that they're playing continues to be a challenge throughout their tenure of their show. — Reshma Shetty

You know who has tenure? The pope has tenure. The Queen of England has tenure. So does Fidel and the communists - because they represent the people, of course (scoff). Federal judges have tenure as well - no federal judge has ever successfully been removed. And then there's the college professors. Me. How do you like that? — Ira Carmen

Dad had turned conservative, but not in the way of the demonologists who sold us out for tenure and crumbs. More like a man who spurns the false talk of revolution for the humbler mission of resurrecting one soul at a time. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I put myself up for full professor, an act of such unprecedented and unmitigated arrogance that the committee approved it, thus effectively rooting me to the scene of the crime, too weighed down by tenure, rank, and salary to be marketable ever again. — Richard Russo

Before my tenure, people didn't seem to think that citizens had a right to limit the size of their government. — William Weld

Baseball has changed dramatically since I began my tenure with the Yankees. — Joe Torre

Tenure was originally invented to protect radical professors, those who challenged the accepted order. But we don't have such people anymore at the universities, and the reason is tenure. When the time comes to grant it nowadays, the radicals get screened out. That's its principal function. It's a very good system, really - keeps academic life at a decent level of tranquility. — John Kenneth Galbraith

But the real reasons why scientists promote accommodationism are more self-serving. To a large extent, American scientists depend for their support on the American public, which is largely religious, and on the U.S. Congress, which is equally religious. (It's a given that it's nearly impossible for an open atheist to be elected to Congress, and at election time candidates vie with one another to parade their religious belief.) Most researchers are supported by federal grants from agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, whose budgets are set annually by Congress. To a working scientist, such grants are a lifeline, for research is expensive, and if you don't do it you could lose tenure, promotions, or raises. Any claim that science is somehow in conflict with religion might lead to cuts in the science budget, or so scientists believe, thus endangering their professional welfare. — Jerry A. Coyne

Now go and brag of thy present happiness, whosoever thou art, brag of thy temperature, of thy good parts, insult, triumph, and boast; thou seest in what a brittle state thou art, how soon thou mayst be dejected, how many several ways, by bad diet, bad air, a small loss, a little sorrow or discontent, an ague, &c.; how many sudden accidents may procure thy ruin, what a small tenure of happiness thou hast in this life, how weak and silly a creature thou art. — Robert Burton

The obstacles facing academic economists are formidable, for tenure and professional advancement still depend to a large extent on a willingness to comply with and to work within the tenets of orthodox theory. — Paul Ormerod

As far as I'm concerned, the first business leader who was able to establish a cult of personality around his tenure was Lee Iacocca. — Tom Peters

Datum: At least one-third of ancient rulers' seers and magicians were in fact fired or killed early in their tenure because it emerged that the bulk of what they foresaw or intuited was irrelevant. Not incorrect, just irrelevant, pointless. — David Foster Wallace

It is the unco-ordinated activity of large-scale production that leads to those periodical crises and depressions which inflict such untold hardship upon the working masses of the people in industrialized countries. Small-scale production carried on by individuals who own the instruments with which they personally work is not subject to periodical slumps. Furthermore, the ownership of the means of small-scale, personal production has none of the disastrous political, economic and psychological consequences of large-scale production-loss of independence, enslavement to an employer, insecurity of the tenure of employment. — Aldous Huxley

Many conservatives see higher education as a threat to their reactionary and corporate oriented interests and would like to defund higher education, privatize it, eliminate tenure, and define the working conditions of faculty to something resembling the labor practices of Walmart workers. — Henry Giroux

You don't have to,' I say. 'You are normal. You have a job with tenure. You have Lucia and this house.' I cannot say the rest that I think, that he is easy in his body, that he sees and hears and tastes and feels what others do, so his reality matches theirs. — Elizabeth Moon

The rationale for tenure is still valid. But the system has turned the academy into one of the most conservative and costly institutions in the country. Yes, conservative: Economists joke that their discipline advances one funeral at a time, but many fields must wait for wholesale generational turnover before new approaches take hold. — Francis Fukuyama

Somehow, all the talk about tenure and anthropology had given her visions of a thick-walled, libraried adobe, the kind of place that was covered with kilim rugs and fertility sculptures. The white stucco in front of her looked only slightly more substantial than a roadside weigh station. — Mira Jacob

University departments wanted to hire sober, rational researchers and teachers. You were allowed revelatory, apocalyptic experiences only after you had tenure. — Richard Tillotson

In the end I created a career of my own, concentrating on my writing and lecturing, reaching larger audiences than I would had I ended up with tenure and a full teaching load. It was Virginia Woolf who said that it is terrible to be frozen out of a sacred tradition-but even more terrible to be frozen into it. — Michael Parenti

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

Nobody cares about feminist academic writing. That's careerism. These poor women in academia have to talk this silly language that nobody can understand in order to be accepted ... But I recognize the fact that we have this ridiculous system of tenure, that the whole thrust of academia is one that values education, in my opinion, in inverse ratio to its usefulness - and what you write in inverse relationship to its understandability. [ ... ] Academics are forced to write in language no one can understand so that they get tenure. They have to say 'discourse', not 'talk'. Knowledge that is not accessible is not helpful. — Gloria Steinem

How many cities of forty thousand, which is the population of Burlington, have a foreign policy? Well, we did. During my tenure as mayor we made the point that excessive spending on the military and unnecessary wars meant fewer resources to address the needs of ordinary people. Somewhere in the Reagan Library, or wherever these things are kept, there is a letter from the mayor of Burlington opposing the U.S. funding of contras in Nicaragua. The letter stated, "Stop the war against the people of Nicaragua. Use our tax dollars to feed the hungry and house the homeless. Stop killing the innocent people of Nicaragua." As — Bernie Sanders

I went back to graduate school because I wanted to avoid being a professional, to try to piece together a life that would let me avoid the tenure race and full-time teaching. — Garth Greenwell

DAILY WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ASSISTENCE TO WORLD NEEDY BY MONEY DONATION AND PROVIDING FOOD,CLOTHES AND SHELTER. AS A HUMAN AND TAKE SOUL BLESSINGS FROM ALL OF THEM AFTER THEIR MENTAL PLEASING SATISFACTION.GOD WILL PROVIDE A LOT MORE THAN OUR WANTS AND REQUIRES AS WE DREAM AND DESIRED TILL ALL OUR LIFE TENURE END WITHOUT ANY HINDRENCES.GOD BLESS YOU ALL MY GLOBAL CITIZENS — Various

I've often heard academics disparage non-academic writing in terms that suggest it could be a negative in the tenure process, irrespective of the quality of academic work under review. — Daniel Drezner

Certainly, if we believe in democracy and democratic systems, when [Benazir Bhutto] failed to pass any legislation, really, at all in her first two years in government during her first term and in fact had a tenure that was marked not only by gross corruption but by human rights abuses, that should have been a time for people to say, "Well, OK, we've given you an opportunity and you haven't bettered the institutions, you haven't strengthened the democratic cause - we may not vote you back." — Fatima Bhutto

To become a token woman
whether you win the Nobel Prize or merely get tenure at the cost of denying your sisters
is to become something less than a mansince men are loyal at least to their own world-view, their laws of brotherhood and self-interest. — Adrienne Rich

I didn't want to become a professor or get tenure or teach or anything. All I wanted to do was get a degree because Louis Leakey said I needed one, which was right, and once I succeeded I could get back to the field. — Jane Goodall

In 1975, I quit my tenure, and we moved from Ann Arbor to New Hampshire. It was daunting to pay for groceries and the mortgage by freelance writing - but it worked, and I loved doing it. — Donald Hall

It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor. — Henry David Thoreau

As Robert Bly laments in Iron John, Some women want a passive man if they want a man at all; the church wants a tamed man - they are called priests; the university wants a domesticated man - they are called tenure-track people; the corporation wants a ... sanitized, hairless, shallow man. — John Eldredge

Note to academics: Aristarchus' track record of astronomical research would probably have guaranteed him tenure somewhere, if tenure had been invented. His stack of reprints included measuring the distances of the Moon and Sun. — Seth Shostak

My tenure in the Senate was really as an independent and whichever, regardless of party label. — Arlen Specter

Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the beggar's robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure, his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show himself in public. — Charles Lamb

The whole purpose of annual reviews is to keep you abreast of whether or not you are fulfilling the requirements of tenure. — Norman Finkelstein

Republics exist only on tenure of being agitated. — Wendell Phillips

Now things have changed for the better. Our reforms end seniority and tenure so we can hire and fire based on merit and pay based on performance. That means we can put the best and the brightest in our classrooms - and we can keep them there. — Scott Walker

I left the White House in 2007. You know, I knew when I went there that it would be for a limited period of time. I was grateful that the average tenure of a white house senior aide is 18 to 20 months. I was there for nearly seven years. — Karl Rove

These days, to be seven years in one spot in any pro sport is a pretty long tenure. — Andrew Bogut

His father had never planted an orchard. No growing thing was graceless, but that scowling, snarling man, Hiram Linden, had seemed purposely to avoid all crops that flowered in beauty. All were utilitarian, sown with surliness and harvested with oaths. Ase was the first Linden of three generations to consider the earth and its bounty with reverence and affection, to long to adorn it as best he might during his tenure. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Republics exist only on the tenure of being constantly agitated ... There is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust. — Wendell Phillips

The tenure of a literary reputation is the most uncertain and fluctuating of all. — Charles Dudley Warner

...but the tenure of friendships has never been governed by the passage of time. — Amor Towles

I'm always pleased that I managed to stay out of jail throughout my tenure in Chicago. — Nick Offerman

You wouldn't go to a hospital, you wouldn't go to a law firm where the doctors and lawyers were not retained on merit: where they all had tenure regardless of competence. Parents feel the same way about schools that they send their children to. — David Boies

To achieve a Green Revolution, African farmers, must have access to land and security of tenure. They also need access to markets, technology and improved infrastructure. — Ban Ki-moon

Work hard. I got tenure a year early. Junior faculty members used to say to me: 'Wow, what's your secret?' I said: 'It's pretty simple. Call me any Friday night in my office at 10 o'clock, and I'll tell you.' — Randy Pausch

To Annawadians, a difficult-to-raze house increased the odds that a family's tenure on airport land would be acknowledged by the relocation authorities. And so they put their money into what would be destroyed. — Katherine Boo

IT TAKES SOME OF US a long time to find out what the price is of being in nature, and what the facts are about your tenure. How long it takes depends on how swiftly the social sugars dissolve. But when at last they do dissolve there's a different taste in your mouth, bringing different news which registers with dark astonishment and fills your eyes. And this different news is that from vast existence in some way you rise up and at any moment you may go back. Any moment; the very next, maybe. — Saul Bellow

The political status legislation which emerged in Congress in 1990 and 1991 did not receive the support needed for enactment into law during my tenure as Attorney General. — Dick Thornburgh

Too often what are called "educated" people are simply people who have been sheltered from reality for years in ivy-covered buildings. Those whose whole careers have been spent in ivy-covered buildings, insulated by tenure, can remain adolescents on into their golden retirement years. — Thomas Sowell

Designer Marc Jacobs ended his sixteen-year tenure at Louis Vuitton with a spring 2014 collection that celebrated fashion in its purest and least complicated form - as majestic, superficial beauty. — Robin Givhan

Organizational structures that allow divisions and departments to own their turf and people with long tenure to take root creates the same hardened group distinctions as Congressional redistricting to produce homogeneous voting blocs - all of which makes it easier to resist compromise, let alone collaboration. — Rosabeth Moss Kanter

I propose that a teacher's pay be tied to merit, not tenure. And I propose that a teacher's employment be tied to performance, not just showing up. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Televisa is the largest media company in the Spanish-speaking world, and the steps we have taken, which extend the tenure of our exclusive access to Televisa's premium Spanish-language telenovelas, sports, sitcoms, reality series, news programs and feature films, put Univision in a stronger competitive position. — Randy Falco

There was only really one time that I had a substantive interaction with the president [Barak Obama] directly, and that was in 2013 when we were deciding whether to file a brief in the first gay marriage case, the Perry against Hollingsworth case. That was a weighty decision about whether the United States government was going to come in and say that heightened scrutiny ought to apply and some state bans on same-sex marriage ought to be unconstitutional. And that was the one time in my tenure where I thought I ought not make this decision without talking to the president. — Donald Verrilli Jr.

Like so many others of my tenure and temperament - stubborn ancients, I suppose - web reporting is anathema to everything I love about newspapering: getting a tip, developing leads, fleshing-out the details, then telling the story. Now it stops with the tip. Just verify (hopefully!) and post it. I didn't write stories anymore; I 'produced content. — Chris Rose

tenure at Treasury was not as successful as his career at Alcoa. Almost immediately after taking office he began focusing on a couple of key issues, including worker safety, job creation, executive accountability, and fighting African poverty, among other initiatives. However, O'Neill's politics did not line up with those of President Bush, and he launched an internal fight opposing Bush's proposed tax cuts. He was asked to resign at the end of 2002. "What I thought was the right thing for economic policy was the opposite of what the White House wanted," O'Neill told me. "That's not good for a treasury secretary, so I got fired. — Charles Duhigg

I left the University of Chicago's creative writing program for a tenure-track job at DePauw University in Indiana, then left DePauw in 2010 for Los Angeles. — Nic Pizzolatto

The average prison term for a convicted murderer in America is 6.5 years. The average tenure for a member of Congress is 13 years. We've got it backwards. We are giving early release to the wrong criminal class. — Pat Robertson

A man has a very insecure tenure of a property which another can carry away with his eyes. A few months reduced me to the cruel necessity either of destroying my machine, or of giving it to the public. To destroy it, I could not think of; to give up that for which I had laboured so long, was cruel. I had no patent, nor the means of purchasing one. In preference to destroying, I gave it to the public.
[On his inability to keep for himself a profitable income from his invention of the Spinning Mule.] — Samuel Crompton

For all the tenure of humans on Earth, the night sky had been a companion and an inspiration. The stars were comforting. They seemed to demonstrate that the heavens were created for the benefit and instruction of humans. This pathetic conceit became the conventional wisdom worldwide. No culture was free of it. Some people found in the skies an aperture to the religious sensibility. Many were awestruck and humbled by the glory and scale of the cosmos. Others were stimulated to the most extravagant flights of fancy. — Carl Sagan

Christine Bass was my high school music teacher. She took a program on its last legs and within a few years turned into one of the best programs in the country. Our high school dominated national choir competitions all through her 20-plus year tenure. — Aaron Lazar

After much deliberation and research, we have defi ned employee engagement as: The degree to which a person commits to an organization and the impact that commitment has on how profoundly they perform and their length of tenure . It is important to note that engagement is not an on/off switch. It is a continuum, and we will have employees who fall in various places on the continuum. The key to engagement is to move employees further along that continuum over time, as seen in Figure 1.7 . — Anonymous

Let the Common School be expanded to its capabilities, let it be worked with the efficiency of which it is susceptible, and nine tenths of the crimes in the penal code would become obsolete; the long catalogue of human ills would be abridged; men would walk more safely by day; every pillow would be more inviolate by night; property, life, and character held by a stronger tenure; all rational hopes respecting the future brightened. — Horace Mann

There are several things that can create an alpha - stock buybacks are one. High dividend yields are another, especially nowadays because the stock market yields more than the banks and the tenure treasury. But by and large, it tends to be companies with a strong cash flow, rising sales, accelerated earnings, a profit margin expansion. — Louis Navellier

The act of writing itself isn't outrageous. And the institution subtly and insidiously works on you in such a way that though you seem to have freedom you become a servant. Your main issue is to get promoted to the next thing. Or get invited to a picnic. Or get tenure. Or get laid. — Gerald Stern

In the current environment, attributing low student performance to teacher tenure is one of the great unproven causal links out there. The relationship just hasn't been examined very carefully, but we should all recognize that in higher education the strongest institutions generally have the most robust tenure systems, and in elementary and secondary, the states with the strongest teacher unions (and tenure systems) tend to have the highest student performance. — Nicholas Lemann

How funny is it that so many professors labeled Tea Partiers as terrorists, while kissing the asses of real, bona fide terrorists? It's not funny, really. But it's the result of a simple equation: One is cool, and the other isn't. Own a gun and keep it by your bed in your remote farmhouse? You're a redneck. Purchase guns that end up killing a judge? Priceless. As long as you cling to cool, progressive beliefs that deem America evil, whatever you do is cool. And if you do it under a big fuzzy 'fro? Even cooler. Hell, if you 'fro is big enough, you could nuke an orphanage and still get tenure. — Greg Gutfeld

I never graduated high school; they had to change the Ivy League rules. During my tenure at Brown, I helped them become the number one Ivy League school. — Robert Evans

Thy Banners gleam a little, and are furled; Against thy turrets surge His phantom tow'rs; Drugged with his Opiates the nations nod, Refusing still the beauty of thine hours; And fragile is thy tenure of this world Still haunted by the monstrous ghost of God. — George Sterling

Obama prefers to look forward, not back, as he has stated. So at least during his tenure, there will be no reliable record compiled as a cautionary tale for lawmakers and presidents in future times of crisis. This is the historical Obama. — David K. Shipler

Derek Jeter has been a great representative of what the Yankees have stood for over the years. He has been a team player who has only cared about winning. He has also been a fine example both on and off the field over his long tenure as a Yankee. It has been a real pleasure to manage him and play alongside him. — Joe Girardi

I do detest all offices - all, at least, that are held on a political tenure. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

The very concept of an Iranian university is an oxymoron. There are no free and open places of learning in that repressive theocracy. Dissenters are not given tenure; they are murdered, after first being tortured. Blasphemy, which is broadly defined, is punished. Gays are not only excluded from Iranian universities, but are imprisoned and killed. — Alan Dershowitz

Over my tenure as governor, I have come not only to respect the political muscle of the Federation; I've come to respect the brains. All of us depend on your efforts and energies. — George W. Bush

A significant number of people believe tribal people still live and dress as they did 300 years ago. During my tenure as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, national news agencies requesting interviews sometimes asked if they could film a tribal dance or if I would wear traditional tribal clothing for the interview. I doubt they asked the president of the United States to dress like a pilgrim for an interview. — Wilma Mankiller

The truth is, that, even with the most secure tenure of office, during good behavior, the danger is not, that the judges will be too firm in resisting public opinion, and in defence of private rights or public liberties; but, that they will be ready to yield themselves to the passions, and politics, and prejudices of the day. — Joseph Story

Adolescence is a relatively recent thing in human history
a period of years between the constraints of childhood and the responsibilities of adulthood. This irresponsible period of adolescence is artificially extended by long years of education, much of it wasted on frivolities. Tenure extends adolescence even further for teachers and professors. — Thomas Sowell

People had their image of what a cowboy was, ... A lot of it was perpetuated by the media presentations of the cowboys in fiction and old Westerns. And because of the tenure of the times, African-Americans were left out. As a result, reality was distorted. — Philip Roberts

Each citizen contributes to the revenues of the State a portion of his property in order that his tenure of the rest may be secure. — Baron De Montesquieu

While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men. — John Quincy Adams

Historically, professors have defended tenure as a way to protect their individualistic thought. But tenure can also be used as a club to wield against the powerless. — Ben Shapiro

General manager Frank Lane made his mark on the club by making several unpopular or unsuccessful trades. Among the guys he traded to other teams are Rocky Colavito, Roger Maris, Norm Cash, and ... manager Joe Gordon? Uh, yes. Lane and Detroit GM Bill DeWitt traded managers - Joe Gordon for Jimmy Dykes. Lane's tenure ended shortly thereafter, long before the damage he caused. — Tucker Elliot

It was also during my tenure of office that the Japanese Government agreed to the conclusion of a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and signed it, pursuing a policy in harmony with the avowed desire of the people. — Eisaku Sato

I think the problem with schools is not too many incentives but too few. Because of tenure, teachers' unions, and the fact that teachers generally aren't observed in their classrooms, they can do whatever they want in class. — Steven Levitt

The loss of a much-prized treasure is only half felt when we have not regarded its tenure as secure. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

When it comes to brains, size matters. It's not all that matters, of course. Whales and dolphins have brains that are larger than humans', but few of the flippered and fluked set win tenure at Stanford. Our brains are the largest in proportion to body size, and they're also highly sophisticated. — Seth Shostak

Only the strongest are put through the fire,' Josiah said. 'And the forge creates things of great strength and beauty.'
'Then I shall be truly glorious by the time my tenure ends. — Sharon Shinn

My mom and dad are second-generation Greek-Americans who instilled in our middle-class family the values of hard work, self-reliance, and service, exemplified by my father's tenure as a U.S. Marine who was stationed at Camp David under President Truman. — James Costos

When Obama took office, Republican appointees controlled ten of the thirteen circuit courts of appeals; Democratic appointees now constitute a majority in nine circuits. Because federal judges have life tenure, nearly all of Obama's judges will continue serving well after he leaves office. — Jeffrey Toobin

Because finally, 'the equal right of every citizen to the free exercise of his religion according to the dictates of conscience' is held by the same tenure with all his other rights. If we recur to its origin, it is equally the gift of nature; if we weigh its importance, it cannot be less dear to us; if we consider the 'Declaration of those rights which pertain to the good people of Virginia, as the basis and foundation of government,' it is enumerated with equal solemnity, or rather studied emphasis. — James Madison

I did love 'Dirty Sexy Money' quite a lot. I loved my tenure at 'Scrubs' quite a lot. 'ER' might have been my favorite guest star thing. 'We Were Soldiers' meant a lot to me. — Bellamy Young

It is a common happening that those in power, as their tenure of office continues, find themselves less and less able to contemplate relinquishing it. — Anthony Eden

Secondly, the proper counsel and intention of God in sending his Son into the world to die was, that thereby he might confirm and ratify the new covenant to his elect, and purchase for them all the good things which are contained in the tenure of that covenant, - to wit, grace and glory; that by his death he might bring many (yet some certain) children to glory, obtaining for them that were given unto him by his Father (that is, his whole church) reconciliation with God, remission of sins, faith, righteousness, sanctification, and life eternal. — John Owen

Kennedy was president for only 1,037 days, but during his short tenure, he achieved much. At the Cold War's most dangerous hour, he preserved the peace. He improved relations with the Soviet Union and replaced tension over Berlin with a limited test ban treaty. — Gretchen Rubin

My neighbour is the very famous Johnny Depp, who looks away should I ever appear. When my seven-year tenure at Sweetzer ends, Johnny Depp will buy the house for use as a guest annex. — Morrissey

To be a housewife is to be a member of a very peculiar occupation, one with characteristics like no other. The nature of the duties to be performed, the method of payment, the form of supervision, the tenure system, the market in which the workers find jobs, and the physical hazzards are all very different from the way things are in other occupations. — Barbara Bergmann

When I found out that I had won the MacArthur Fellowship, I had been a professor at Carnegie Mellon for a week. I probably shouldn't be saying this on TV, but I stopped worrying about tenure. — Luis Von Ahn

I was deeply disturbed by the meeting. If I couldn't do what I thought was necessary to take care of the troops, I didn't see how I could remain as secretary. I was in a quandary. I shared Obama's concerns about an open-ended conflict, and while I wanted to fulfill the troop requests of the commanders, I knew they always would want more - just like all their predecessors throughout history. How did you scale the size of the commitment to the goal? How did you measure risk? But I was deeply uneasy with the Obama White House's lack of appreciation - from the top down - of the uncertainties and inherent unpredictability of war. "They all seem to think it's a science," I wrote in a note to myself. I came closer to resigning that day than at any other time in my tenure, though no one knew it. During — Robert M. Gates