For example, earlier this century, when other schools had tenured women on their faculties, Harvard dallied for decades before awarding tenure to such renowned scientists as variable star expert Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and biologist Ruth Turner.
Dr. Davis was awarded tenure the following year.
His career was meteoric: he was awarded tenure at Princeton at 32.
While state law outlines the general procedures for awarding tenure to teachers, the details are left to individual districts.
Nearly all teachers whose students improved significantly received tenure, while principals awarded tenure to fewer than half of those whose students lost ground on the state tests.
And when a faculty committee is looking to hire or award tenure, political ideology seems to make a difference, according to a "collegiality survey" conducted by George Yancey.
"The current system of awarding tenure devalues great teachers by treating teachers as if they are widgets on an assembly line," said John White, a deputy chancellor for strategy.
Awarding tenure is a sacred trust, which one must always contemplate through the prism of how it will affect each child, each class and the hundreds of pupils throughout the years.
After being awarded tenure, Laura has a panic attack about how she is wasting her life in East Lansing, when what she really wants to do is write pop-history books about America's First Ladies.
After Roy earned a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning, she joined Berkeley's faculty in 1999, was awarded tenure in 2006, won prestigious teaching awards — and, in the spring of 2009, got into her first scrap with the administration, resigning her associate deanship in International and Area Studies after the division lost its dean to budget cuts.
