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.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I had left teaching, which I enjoyed, because I realized I couldn't get tenure at a research university.
To be told you've won a MacArthur fellowship is very flattering and gratifying personally.
I could have been a Rhodes Scholar, except for my grades.
I worked at Sir-Tech, and then when I got old enough to go to college, I went to college but continued to work at Sir-Tech to put myself through college.
I became a member of the faculty at Northwestern University in 1965 but did not complete my thesis until two years later at a graduate ceremony at which Carnegie Institute of Technology became Carnegie-Mellon University. At Northwestern, I was mentored by the 'three Bobs:' Robert Eisner, Robert Strotz and Robert Clower.
It is not my wish to lounge about the college and fatten on a fellowship all my days. I am always trying to look upon a college life as a medium not an end.
I was very fortunate to be elected to the Society of Fellows at Harvard, which is, in effect, a small research center where you are given three years to do whatever work you want.
I have been a Professor Emeritus since 1958, and have continued my scientific studies.
I'm a tenured professor. But I'd get rid of tenure.
Every summer, I regret that I didn't become a college teacher. Such a sweet life! With all that vacation time! You'll never get me to believe that being a tenured professor at a good college is anything but Heaven on earth.