The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (March 2012)

Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.

History in the U.S.[link]

19th century[link]

In the 19th century, university professors largely served at the pleasure of the board of trustees of the university. Sometimes, major donors could successfully remove professors or prohibit the hiring of certain individuals; nonetheless, a de facto tenure system existed. Usually professors were only fired for interfering with the religious principles of a college, and most boards were reluctant to discipline professors. The courts rarely intervened in dismissals.

In one debate of the Cornell Board of Trustees, in the 1870s, a businessman trustee argued against the prevailing system of de facto tenure, but lost the argument. Despite the power retained in the board, academic freedom prevailed. Another example is the 1894 case of Richard Ely, a University of Wisconsin–Madison professor who advocated labor strikes and labor law reform. Though the Wisconsin legislature and business interests pressed for his dismissal, the board of trustees of the university passed a resolution committing itself to academic freedom, and to retaining him (without tenure):

"In all lines of academic investigation it is of the utmost importance that the investigator should be absolutely free to follow the indications of truth wherever they may lead. Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere we believe the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found."^[1]

The notorious case of the dismissal of G. B. Halsted by the University of Texas in 1903 after nineteen years of service may have accelerated the adoption of the tenure concept.

From 1900 to 1940[link]

In 1900, the presidents of Harvard University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago each made clear that no donor could any longer dictate faculty decisions; such a donor’s contribution would be unwelcome. In 1915, this was followed by the American Association of University Professors' (AAUP) declaration of principles—the traditional justification for academic freedom and tenure.

The AAUP's declaration of principles recommended that:

• Trustees raise faculty salaries, but not bind their consciences with restrictions.
• Only committees of other faculty can judge a member of the faculty. This would also insulate higher administration from external accountability decisions.
• Faculty appointments be made by other faculty and chairpersons, with three elements:
  • (i) Clear employment contracts
  • (ii) formal academic tenure, and
  • (iii) clearly stated grounds for dismissal.

While the AAUP pushed reform, tenure battles were a campus non-issue. In 1910, a survey of 22 universities showed that most professors held their positions with "presumptive permanence". At a third of colleges, assistant professor appointments were considered permanent, while at most colleges multi-year appointments were subject to renewal. Only at one university did a governing board ratify a president’s decisions on granting tenure. Finally, there were approximately 20 complaints filed in 1928 with the AAUP, and only one merited investigation. Colleges slowly adopted the AAUP’s resolution; de facto tenure reigned; usually reappointments were permanent.

Tenure is also offered in many states to public schoolteachers. Louisiana, under state education superintendent T. H. Harris, led the move to establish a teacher protection policy in the 1930s because of past political considerations in hiring and dismissal of educators.

From 1940 to 1972[link]

In 1940, the AAUP recommended that the academic tenure probationary period be seven years—still the current norm. It also suggested that a tenured professor could not be dismissed without adequate cause, except "under extraordinary circumstances, because of financial emergencies." Also, the statement recommended that the professor be given the written reasons for dismissal and an opportunity to be heard in self-defense. Another purpose of the academic tenure probationary period was raising the performance standards of the faculty by pressing new professors to perform to the standard of the school's established faculty.

The most significant adoption of academic tenure occurred after 1945, when the influx of returning GIs returning to school led to quickly expanding universities with severe professorial faculty shortages. These shortages dogged the Academy for ten years, and that is when the majority of universities started offering formal tenure as a side benefit. The rate of tenure (percent of tenured university faculty) increased to 52 percent. In fact, the demand for professors was so high in the 1950s that the American Council of Learned Societies held a conference in Cuba noting the too-few doctoral candidates to fill positions in English departments. During the McCarthy era, loyalty oaths were required of many state employees, and neither formal academic tenure nor the Constitutional principles of freedom of speech and association were protection from dismissal. Some professors were dismissed for their political affiliations, but of these, some likely were veiled dismissals for professional incompetence.^{[citation needed]} During the 1960s, many professors supported the anti-war movement against the war with Vietnam, and more than 20 state legislatures passed resolutions calling for specific professorial dismissals and a change to the academic tenure system.^{[citation needed]}

From 1972 to the present[link]

Two landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases changed tenure in 1972: (i) Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 US 564; and (ii) Perry v. Sindermann, 408 US 593. These two cases held that a professor’s claim to entitlement must be more than a subjective expectancy of continued employment. Rather, there must be a contractual relationship or a reference in a contract to a specific tenure policy or agreement. Further, the court held that a tenured professor who is discharged from a public college has been deprived of a property interest, and so due process applies, requiring certain procedural safeguards (the right to personally appear in a hearing, the right to examine evidence and respond to accusations, the right to have advisory counsel).

Later cases specified other bases for dismissal: (i) if a professor’s conduct were incompatible with his duties (Trotman v. Bd. of Trustees of Lincoln Univ., 635 F.2d 216 (2d Cir.1980)); (ii) if the discharge decision is based on an objective rule (Johnson v. Bd. of Regents of U. Wisc. Sys., 377 F. Supp 277, (W.D. Wisc. 1974)). After these cases were judged, the number of reported cases in the matter of academic tenure increased fourfold: from 36 cases filed during the decade 1965–1975, to 81 cases filed during the lustrum 1980–1985.

During the 1980s there were no notable tenure battles, but three were outstanding in the 1990s. In 1995, the Florida Board of Regents tried to re-evaluate academic tenure, but managed only to institute a weak, post-tenure performance review. Likewise, in 1996 the Arizona Board of Regents attempted to re-evaluate tenure, fearing that few full-time professors actually taught university undergraduate students, mainly because the processes of achieving academic tenure underweighted teaching. However, faculty and administrators defended themselves and the board of trustees dropped its review. Finally, the University of Minnesota Regents tried from 1995 to 1996 to enact 13 proposals, including these policy changes: to allow the regents to cut faculty base- salaries for reasons other than a university financial emergency, and included poor performance, and firing tenured professors if their programs were eliminated or restructured and the university was unable to retrain or reassign them. In the Minnesota system, 87 percent of university faculty were either tenured or on the tenure track, and the professors vehemently defended themselves. Eventually, the president of the system opposed these changes, and weakened a compromise plan by the Dean of the law school that failed. The board chairman resigned later that year.

The period since 1972 has seen a steady decline in the percentage of college and university teaching positions in the US that are either tenured or tenure-track. United States Department of Education statistics put the combined tenured/tenure-track rate at 56% for 1975, 46.8% for 1989, and 31.9% for 2005. That is to say, by the year 2005, 68.1% of US college teachers were neither tenured nor eligible for tenure; a full 48% of teachers that year were part-time employees.

Academic tenure[link]

Under the tenure systems adopted as internal policy^{[citation needed]} by many universities and colleges, especially in the United States and Canada, tenure is associated with more senior job titles such as Professor and Associate Professor. A junior professor will not be promoted to such a tenured position without meeting the goals of the institution, often (though not always including) demonstrating a strong record of published research and academic visibility, teaching, and administrative service, with emphasis different across institutions (though often focused on research in universities). Typical systems (such as the Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure)^[2] allow only a limited period to establish such a record, by limiting the number of years that any employee can hold a junior title such as Assistant Professor. (An institution may also offer other academic titles that are not time-limited, such as Lecturer, Adjunct Professor, or Research Professor, but these positions do not carry the possibility of tenure and are said to be "off the tenure track.")

Academic tenure is primarily intended to guarantee the right to academic freedom: it protects teachers and researchers when they dissent from prevailing opinion, openly disagree with authorities of any sort, or spend time on unfashionable topics. Thus academic tenure is similar to the lifetime tenure that protects some judges from external pressure.^{[citation needed]} Without job security, the scholarly community as a whole might favor "safe" lines of inquiry. The intent of tenure is to allow original ideas to be more likely to arise, by giving scholars the intellectual autonomy to investigate the problems and solutions about which they are most passionate, and to report their honest conclusions.^[3] In economies where higher education is provided by the private sector, tenure also has the effect of helping to ensure the integrity of the grading system. Without tenure, professors could be pressured by administrators to issue higher grades for attracting and keeping a greater number of students.^{[citation needed]}

Universities also have economic rationales for adopting tenure systems. First, job security and the accompanying autonomy are significant employee benefits; without them, universities might have to pay higher salaries or take other measures to attract and retain talented or well-known scholars. Second, junior faculty are driven to establish themselves by the high stakes of the tenure decision (i.e., lifetime tenure vs. job loss), arguably helping to create a culture of excellence within the university. Finally, tenured faculty may be more likely to invest time in improving the universities where they expect to remain for life; they may also be more willing to hire, mentor and promote talented junior colleagues who could otherwise threaten their positions. Many of these rationales resemble those for senior partner positions in law and accounting firms.

One cost of a tenure system is that some tenured professors may not use their freedom for the common good. Tenure has been criticized for allowing senior professors to become unproductive, shoddy, or irrelevant. Universities themselves bear this risk: they pay dearly whenever they guarantee lifetime employment to an individual who proves unworthy of it. Universities therefore exercise great care in offering tenured positions, first requiring an intensive formal review of the candidate's record of research, teaching, and service. This review typically takes several months and may include the solicitation of confidential letters of assessment from highly regarded scholars in the candidate's research area. Some colleges and universities also solicit letters from students about the candidate's teaching. A tenured position is offered only if the tenure-granting groups on campus (often a mixture of both senior faculty and senior administrators) judge that the candidate is likely to remain a productive scholar and teacher for life.

In North American universities and colleges, the tenure track has long been a defining feature of employment. However, it is becoming less than universal.^[4][5] In North American universities, positions that carry tenure, or the opportunity to attain tenure, have grown more slowly than non-tenure-track positions, leading to a large "academic underclass".^[6] For example, most U.S. universities currently supplement the work of tenured professors with the services of non-tenured adjunct professors, academics who teach classes for lower wages and fewer employment benefits under relatively short-term contracts.

For these, and other reasons, academic tenure was officially restructured in public universities in the United Kingdom by the Thatcher government in the 1980s. It is no longer offered in Australia, New Zealand and in most of Europe.^{[citation needed]} Note that most European university systems do not allow any teaching by young researchers, postgraduates, post doctoral fellows, or residents.^{[citation needed]} This is especially the case in Germany, where practice in universities (but not advanced technical colleges) often differs from theory. In principle, teaching duties in German universities are restricted to tenured faculty and a few non-tenured staff members paid for research and teaching. In reality, much teaching is done by non-tenured research students and adjunct faculty. In France, tenure is granted early in academic ranks as well as to CNRS and other researchers. In Italy tenure is granted in early academic ranks as well as to Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche researchers.

Outside the United States and Canada, it is still common to offer a long contract to candidates who pass a less stringent review or confirmation, but with somewhat less job security than in lifetime tenure systems. Moreover, tenure is under attack in state universities in the United States. New Zealand offers "Confirmation" which is similar in effect to tenure, except that all university lecturers in New Zealand have a duty, enshrined in law, to act as a critic and conscience of society, whether their position is permanent or not.

Revocation[link]

Tenure can only be revoked for cause, normally only following severe misconduct by the professor. Revocation is usually a lengthy^{[citation needed]} procedure.

In 1994, a study in The Chronicle of Higher Education found that "about 50 tenured professors [in the US] are dismissed each year for cause."^[7] A study in the Wall Street Journal published January 10, 2005 estimated that 50 to 75 tenured professors (out of about 280,000) lose their tenure each year.^{[citation needed]}

While tenure protects the occupant of an academic position, it does not protect against the elimination of that position. For example, a university that is under financial stress may take the drastic step of eliminating or downsizing some departments.

See also the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) website.^[8]

Criticisms of the tenure process[link]

The AAUP (American Association of University Professors) has handled hundreds of cases where it alleges that tenure candidates were treated unfairly. The AAUP has censured many major and minor universities and colleges for such alleged tenure abuses.^[9][10]

Tenure at many universities depends solely on research publications and research grants although the universities' official policies are that tenure depends on research, teaching and service.^[11] Even articles in refereed teaching journals and teaching grants may not count towards tenure at such universities.

At some universities the department chairperson sends forward the department recommendation on tenure. There have been cases, such as one case at The University of Texas at San Antonio (2008), where the faculty voted unanimously to tenure an individual but the chairperson sent forward a recommendation not to grant tenure despite the faculty support.^{[citation needed]}

Tenure decisions can result in fierce political battles. In one tenure battle at Indiana University, an untenured professor was accused of threatening violence against those who opposed his promotion, his wife briefly went on a hunger strike, and many called for the entire department to be disbanded.^[12] In another instance in February 2010, Dr. Amy Bishop with the University of Alabama at Huntsville reportedly shot and killed colleagues after losing her appeal for tenure.^[13]

Since the 1970s^[14] philosopher John Searle has called for major changes to tenure systems, calling the practice "without adequate justification." Searle suggests that to reduce publish or perish pressures that can hamper their classroom teaching, capable professors be given tenure much sooner than the standard four-to-six years. However, Searle also argued that tenured professors be reviewed every seven years to help eliminate "incompetent" teachers who can otherwise find refuge in the tenure system.

It has also been suggested that tenure may have the effect of diminishing political and academic freedom among those seeking it - that they must appear to conform to the political or academic views of the field or the institution where they seek tenure. For example, in The Trouble with Physics, the theoretical physicist, Lee Smolin says "... it is practically career suicide for young theoretical physicists not to join the field of string theory. ...". It is certainly possible to view the tenure track as a long-term demonstration of the candidate's political and academic conformity. Patrick J. Michaels, a controversial part-time research professor at the University of Virginia, wrote: "...tenure has had the exact opposite effect as to its stated goal of diversifying free expression. Instead, it stifles free speech in the formative years of a scientist's academic career, and all but requires a track record in support of paradigms that might have outgrown their usefulness."^[15]

Other criticisms include the publish or perish pressures creating trivial junk research, a caste system treating those without tenure poorly, and indolence after having achieved tenure. The tenured faculty can resist necessary reforms by administrators who they generally outlast. The tenured faculty also usually can control appointments which contributes to political correctness and groupthink.^[16]

As more academics publish research in Internet and multimedia formats, organizations such as the American Council of Learned Societies and Modern Language Association have recommended changes to promotion and tenure criteria, and some university departments have made such changes to reflect the increasing importance of networked scholarship.^[17]

After the Ward Churchill controversy, a poll by the American Association of University Professors found that 82 percent of Americans wanted to "modify or eliminate tenure". Another poll found that 65% believed that "non-tenured professors are more motivated to do a good job in the classroom".^[18]

See also[link]

• Habilitation
• Publish or perish
• A Tenured Professor, a novel by John Kenneth Galbraith
• School and university in literature

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Amacher, Ryan C. Faulty Towers: Tenure and the Structure of Higher Education. Oakland: Independent Institute, 2004.
• Chait, Richard P. (Ed.). The Questions of Tenure. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2002.
• Joughlin, Louis (Ed.). Academic Freedom and Tenure. Madison: U. of Wisc. Press, 1969.
• Rudolph, Frederick. American College and University: A History (Reissue Edition). Athens: Univ. of Ga. Press, 1990.
• Haworth, Karla. "Florida Regents Approve Post-Tenure Reviews for All Professors." The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 11, 1996, A15.
• Magner, Denise K. "Minnesota Regents' Proposals Stir Controversy With Faculty." The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 20, 1996, A11.
• Leatherman, Courtney. "Alleged Death Threats, a Hunger Strike, and a Department at Risk." The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 4, 2000, A12.
• Wilson, Robin. "A Higher Bar for Earning Tenure." The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 5, 2001, A12.
• Wilson, Robin. "Northeastern Proposal for Post-Tenure Review Goes Too Far, Critics Say." The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 11, 2001, A14.
• Whiting, B.J. Delegate to the ACLS of the Medieval Academy of America, in 1953 (Speculum 28[1953] 633–34). The Council was alarmed at the thought that a national academic faculty of 50,000 would have to grow to 90,000 by the year 1965 in order to keep up with the demographic demand. This news was reported as staggering. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports [1] that "Postsecondary teachers held nearly 1.6 million jobs in 2004", at least a quarter million of them undeniably humanistic.
• Wilson, Robin. "Working Half Time on the Tenure Track." The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 25, 2002, A10.
• Fogg, Piper. "Presidents Favor Scrapping Tenure." The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 4, 2005, A31.
• Duke University (2005) News and Communications. "How Tenure Lines Brought Change to Women's Studies: Faculty see structural, intellectual change in program".
• Gonzales, Evelina Garza, "External Funding and Tenure at Texas State University-San Marcos" (2009). Applied Research Projects. Texas State University. Paper 315. http://ecommons.txstate.edu/arp/315

External links[link]

Look up tenure in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Statements, recommendations and resources on tenure from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
• University administrations censured by the AAUP for violating academic freedom
• Current Tenure Articles at the Chronicle of Higher Education
• Post-Tenure Faculty Evaluation
• Teacher Tenure
• Thoughts on Academic Tenure
• Tenure, Promotion, and Reappointment: Legal and Administrative Implications
• Enhancing Promotion, Tenure and Beyond: Faculty Socialization as a Cultural Process
• Tenure: Will It Survive? Academe May-June 2000, Volume 86, Number 3
• Publish or Perish calculates various statistics, including the h-index and the g-index using Google Scholar data
• Tenure Denied, report from the American Association of University Women (AAUW)
• Comparison of tenure tracks between US and Europe (Finland)

Matt Damon
Damon in 2009
Born	Matthew Paige Damon (1970-10-08) October 8, 1970 (age 41) Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma mater	Harvard University (Dropped out)
Occupation	Actor, screenwriter, producer
Years active	1988–present
Spouse	Luciana Barroso (m. 2005–present)
Children	4
Awards	Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay

Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon (born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting (1997) from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck. The pair won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and a Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay for their work. Damon alone received multiple Best Actor nominations, including an Academy Award for his lead performance in the film.

Damon has since starred in commercially successful films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), the Ocean's trilogy, and the Bourne series, while also gaining critical acclaim for his performances in dramas such as Syriana (2005), The Good Shepherd (2006), and The Departed (2006). He garnered a Golden Globe nomination for portraying the title character in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Invictus (2009). He is one of the top 40 highest grossing actors of all time. In 2007, Damon received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. Damon has been actively involved in charitable work, including the ONE Campaign, H2O Africa Foundation, and Water.org.

Early life[link]

Matt Damon was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Kent Telfer Damon, a stockbroker, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education professor at Lesley University.^[1][2] Damon is of Scottish, English, Finnish, and Swedish ancestry.^[3] He has a brother, Kyle, who is an accomplished sculptor and artist.^[2][4] He and his family moved to Newton and lived there for two years. After his parents divorced, Damon and his brother moved with their mother back to Cambridge,^[2][5] where they lived in a six-family communal house.^[6][7] Damon grew up near actor Ben Affleck, a close friend since childhood and collaborator on several films. (Damon is Affleck's tenth cousin, once removed, through a common New England ancestor.)^[8] Another neighbor of Damon's was historian and author Howard Zinn,^[9] whose biographical film You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train and audio version of A People's History of the United States Damon later narrated.^[7]

Damon took to role-playing as a child partly because his mother raised him "by the book,"^[6] which made him feel as though "you couldn’t define yourself, because you already had been defined by her."^[6] He attended Cambridge Alternative School (now Graham & Parks) and then Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, where he was a disciplined student^[10] but had a "terrifying" first two years due to his short height at the time.^[11] As a lonely adolescent, Damon has described feeling "such pain in wanting to belong somewhere and not belonging."^[6] Damon performed as an actor in several high school theater productions;^[2] he has credited his drama teacher at Rindge and Latin, Gerry Speca, as an important artistic influence, even though Damon recalls that, "Mr. Speca always seemed to trust Ben [Affleck] with the biggest roles and longest speeches."^[10]

Damon attended Harvard University from 1988 to 1992 but did not graduate.^[12] While at Harvard, he studied English and lived in Lowell House. He took part in student theater,^[13] appearing in plays such as Burn This in Winthrop House and A... My Name is Alice (in one of the three male roles usually performed by women).^[14] Damon dropped out of the university to pursue his acting career in Los Angeles because he mistakenly expected Geronimo: An American Legend to become a big success.^[15] "By the time I figured out I had made the wrong decision, it was too late. I was living out here with a bunch of actors, and we were all scrambling to make ends meet," Damon has said.^[16]

Acting career[link]

Early years[link]

Damon made his film debut in 1988 when he was eighteen, with a single line of dialogue in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza.^[17] As a student at Harvard University, he continued to pursue acting and performed small roles in projects such as the TNT original film Rising Son and the ensemble prep-school drama School Ties.^[18] In 1992, he landed a big part in Geronimo: An American Legend with Gene Hackman and Jason Patric.^[18] Four years later, he auditioned for a small role in Cutthroat Island, but was turned away.^[19] Damon next appeared as an opiate-addicted soldier in 1996's Courage Under Fire. He was required to lose 40 pounds (18 kg) in 100 days (for only two days of filming).^[20][21] After following a self-prescribed diet and fitness regimen to lose the weight, Damon was told after filming that he was fortunate his heart did not shrink. He took medication for several years afterwards to correct the stress inflicted on his adrenal gland. Courage Under Fire gained him some critical notice, as The Washington Post labeled his performance "impressive";^[22] Damon has stated that it was worthwhile to risk his health in order to properly portray his character and show the industry how committed he was to his work as an actor.^[17][21]

Breakthrough[link]

During the early 1990s, Damon and Affleck wrote a screenplay about a young math genius, which they then pitched around Hollywood for a long time. Receiving advice from director Rob Reiner, screenwriter William Goldman, and their friend writer/director Kevin Smith, the two made changes to the script.^[15] The script eventually became Good Will Hunting (1997), and received nine Academy Awards nominations, earning Damon and Affleck Oscars for Best Original Screenplay.^[23][24] Damon was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for the same film, which also netted an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for co-star Robin Williams.^[23] He and Affleck were each paid salaries of $600,000, while the film grossed over $225 million at the worldwide box office.^[25][26] The two later parodied their roles from the film in Kevin Smith's 2001 movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Also in 1997, Damon was the lead in the critically acclaimed drama The Rainmaker, where he was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as "a talented young actor on the brink of stardom."^[27] After meeting Damon on the set of Good Will Hunting, director Steven Spielberg cast Damon as the titular character in the 1998 World War II film Saving Private Ryan.^[15]

Hollywood star[link]

Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Damon, Andy García, Julia Roberts (the cast of Ocean's Eleven), with director Steven Soderbergh in December 2001

Damon has become known for choosing a wide variety of film roles,^[28] from his portrayal of Patricia Highsmith's anti-hero Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)^[17] to a fallen angel who discusses pop culture as intellectual subject matter with Affleck in Dogma (1999); from a conjoined twin in Stuck on You (2003), which got a mixed critical reception,^[29] to the low budget experimental film Gerry (2002), which he co-wrote with Casey Affleck and Gus Van Sant. Damon garnered generally positive critical reaction for his Golden Globe-nominated^[30] portrayal of Ripley, with Variety stating, "Damon outstandingly conveys his character's slide from innocent enthusiasm into cold calculation."^[31]

Damon's attempts at essaying leading characters in romantic dramas such as 2000's All the Pretty Horses and The Legend of Bagger Vance were commercially and critically unsuccessful.^[25] Variety said of his work in All the Pretty Horses: "[Damon] just doesn't quite seem like a young man who's spent his life amidst the dust and dung of a Texas cattle ranch. Nor does he strike any sparks with [Penelope] Cruz."^[32] He was similarly deemed "uncomfortable being the center" of Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance.^[33]

From 2001 to 2007, Damon gained wider international recognition as part of two major film franchises. He co-starred as thief Linus Caldwell, alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts, in Steven Soderbergh's 2001 remake of the Rat Pack's 1960 caper film Ocean's 11; the successful crime dramedy spawned two sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).^[17] He played amnesiac assassin Jason Bourne in the hit action thrillers The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).^[17] Entertainment Weekly placed Damon as an "action star" on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "When he first signed on as the ass-kicking amnesiac Jason Bourne in 2002, no one would've predicted that Damon would become the decade's best mixer of brawn and brains. Shows what we know."^[34] In August 2007, financial magazine Forbes created a list of actors who generated the best box office performance related to their salaries; the list placed Damon as the most bankable star of the actors reviewed, revealing that Damon had averaged USD29 at the box office for every dollar he earned for his last three films.^[35][36]

Damon with Robert De Niro in Berlin in February 2007 for the premiere of The Good Shepherd

Damon played a fictionalized version of Wilhelm Grimm in Terry Gilliam's fantasy adventure The Brothers Grimm (2005), which was a critically panned commercial failure;^[25] The Washington Post concluded, "Damon, constantly flashing his newscaster's teeth and flaunting a fake, 'Masterpiece Theatre' dialect, comes across like someone who got lost on the way to an audition for a high school production of 'The Pirates of Penzance.'"^[37] Later that year, he appeared as an energy analyst in Syriana.^[38] In 2006, Damon joined Robert De Niro in The Good Shepherd as a career CIA officer, and played an undercover mobster working for the Massachusetts State Police in Martin Scorsese's The Departed, a remake of the Hong Kong police thriller Infernal Affairs.^[17] Assessing his work in the two films, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote that Damon "does what few stars with his kind of billing do: he disappears."^[28] The Departed was a success amongst critics and audiences alike.^[25][39]

Damon had an uncredited cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth (2007) and another cameo in the 2008 Che Guevara biopic Che. He lent his voice to the English version of the animated film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, which was released in the United States in August 2009.^[40] He also made a guest appearance in 2009 on the sixth season finale of Entourage as himself, where he tries to pressure Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) into donating to his charity OneXOne — a real foundation for which Damon is an ambassador — and gets increasingly irritated when Chase does not seem to comply.^[41][42]

Damon next appeared in Steven Soderbergh's dark comedy, The Informant! (2009),^[43] in which his Golden Globe-nominated work was described by Entertainment Weekly as such: "The star – who has quietly and steadily turned into a great Everyman actor – is in nimble control as he reveals his character's deep crazies."^[44] Also in 2009, Damon portrayed South Africa national rugby union team captain François Pienaar in the Clint Eastwood-directed film Invictus, which is based on the 2008 John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation and features Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela.^[45] Invictus earned Damon an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The New Republic observed, "It is not a demanding role, but the ever-more-actorly Damon brings it off with low-key charm and integrity."^[46]

Handprints and footprints of Damon in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theatre

In 2010, Damon re-teamed with director Paul Greengrass, who directed him in the Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum, for the action thriller Green Zone, which flopped commercially^[47] and received ambivalent reception from critics.^[48]

In motion pictures that feature him either as a leading actor or as a supporting co-star, his films have grossed a total of U.S.$1.94^[49] to U.S.$2.42 billion^[50] (based on counting his roles as strictly lead or including supporting roles, respectively) at the North American box office, placing him in the top forty grossing actors of all time.

He has appeared as a guest star in an episode of Arthur, titled "The Making of Arthur", as himself.^[51] During Season 5 of 30 Rock, he appeared as guest star in the role of Liz Lemon's boyfriend in the episodes "I Do I Do", "The Fabian Strategy", "Live Show", and "Double Edged Sword".

Damon's 2010 projects included Clint Eastwood's Hereafter and the Coen Brothers' remake of the 1969 John Wayne-starring Western True Grit; the latter movie started filming in March 2010 and was released in December of that year.^[52]

In 2011, he starred in The Adjustment Bureau, Contagion, and We Bought a Zoo.

Upcoming films[link]

Damon will next work with frequent collaborator Steven Soderbergh on a project as Liberace's longtime partner, Scott Thorsen, opposite Michael Douglas in an upcoming film centered on the pianist's life.^[53] He will also star in Elysium. He will shoot Promised Land, directed by Gus Van Sant, in April 2012, which he co-wrote with John Krasinski.^[54]

Producing career[link]

Along with Affleck and producers Chris Moore and Sean Bailey, Damon founded the production company LivePlanet, through which the four created the documentary series Project Greenlight to find and fund worthwhile film projects from novice filmmakers.^[55] The company produced and founded the short-lived mystery-hybrid series Push, Nevada, among other projects. Project Greenlight was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Program in 2002, 2004, and 2005.^[15]

In March 2010, Damon and Affleck teamed up again to sign a first-look production deal with Warner Bros.^[56]

Humanitarian work[link]

Damon volunteering in Haiti as part of the United Nations Stabilization Mission

Damon was the founder of H2O Africa Foundation, the charitable arm of the Running the Sahara expedition,^[15][57] which merged with WaterPartners to create Water.org in July 2009.^[58] He, along with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, and Jerry Weintraub, is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur.^[59] Damon supports the ONE Campaign, which is aimed at fighting AIDS and poverty in Third World countries. He has appeared in their print and television advertising. Damon is also an ambassador for OneXOne, a non-profit foundation committed to supporting, preserving and improving the lives of children at home in Canada, the United States, and around the world.^[60] Damon is also a spokesperson for Feeding America, the largest USA-focused hunger-relief organization, and a member of their Entertainment Council, participating in their Ad Council PSAs.

Damon is a board member of Tonic Mailstopper (formerly GreenDimes), a company that attempts to halt junk mail delivered to American homes each day.^[61] Appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show on April 20, 2007, Damon promoted the organization's efforts to prevent the trees used for junk mail letters and envelopes from being chopped down. Damon stated: "For an estimated dime a day they can stop 70 percent of the junk mail that comes to your house. It's very simple, easy to do, great gift to give, I've actually signed up my entire family. It was a gift given to me this past holiday season and I was so impressed that I'm now on the board of the company."^[62]

In 2011, the documentary which he narrated, American Teacher, opened in New York prior to national screening.^[63]

In the media[link]

Kimmel and Damon[link]

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel at some point started stating near the end of his ABC television show Jimmy Kimmel Live!, "My apologies to Matt Damon; we ran out of time." The line is a gag lampooning instances where shows cannot feature their last guest due to time constraints. On September 12, 2006, after a segment highlighting the running gag and a lengthy introduction by Kimmel, Damon finally appeared on the show, only for Kimmel to apologetically cut his interview and head to credits, as Damon cursed him. This encounter was entirely planned by Kimmel and Damon.^[64]

Kimmel's girlfriend at the time, comedian Sarah Silverman, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on January 31, 2008 and aired a clip where she is singing a song entitled "I'm Fucking Matt Damon." Damon appeared in the song with Silverman.^[65] Kimmel responded by airing his own music video in which he announced, through song, that he is "fucking Ben Affleck." The video aired on February 24, 2008, and featured Affleck along with a host of celebrities, including Don Cheadle, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, and Robin Williams.

Later on, Kimmel's sidekick, Guillermo, appeared in a spoof of The Bourne Ultimatum, which starred Damon. He was then chased down by Damon as he cursed about Kimmel being behind all this.

The most recent encounter was titled "The Handsome Men's Club" which featured Kimmel, along with other "Handsome Men" including Matthew McConaughey, Rob Lowe and Lenny Kravitz. At the end of the skit Kimmel has a door slammed in his face by Damon stating that they had run out of time and then Damon continues with a sinister laugh.^[66]

Political views[link]

Damon appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews in December 2006 and, while discussing the ongoing war in Iraq, he stated: "It seems like we have a fighting class in our country that's comprised of people who have to go for financial reasons... I don't think that that is fair. If you're gonna send people to war... then that needs to be shared by everybody, you know, and if the president has daughters who are of age then maybe they should go too."^[67]

On September 10, 2008, a video was released on YouTube by the Associated Press in which Damon commented on the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom he viewed unready to lead the country in case John McCain were to not make it through his first term. Damon referred to Palin as a "...bad Disney movie... 'I'm just a hockey mom from Alaska here to take on the White House,'" and added, "It's absurd ... I need to know if she really thinks dinosaurs were here 4,000 years ago. Because she’s gonna have the nuclear codes."^[68]

Damon narrated the audiobook version of historian Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, published in 2003.^[69] Zinn had been his next-door neighbor growing up in Cambridge.

Advertizing[link]

In January 2012 it was announced that Damon had signed a multi-year deal to be the voice of TD Ameritrade advertisements, replacing Sam Waterston as the discount brokerage's spokesman. Damon provides all fees from the advertisements to charity.^[70]

Personal life[link]

Damon with wife Luciana Bozán Barroso at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival

Damon dated his Good Will Hunting co-star Minnie Driver.^[71] He later had a two-year relationship with actress Winona Ryder.^[17] From 2001 to 2003, he dated Odessa Whitmire, a former personal assistant of Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck.^[17] While filming Stuck on You in 2003,^[72] Damon met Argentine-born Luciana Bozán Barroso (born 1976) in Miami, where she was working as a bartender.^[73] They married in a private civil ceremony on December 9, 2005, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau near New York City Hall.^[73] Damon became stepfather to Barroso's young daughter, Alexia, from her previous marriage. The couple's first child together, daughter Isabella, was born on June 11, 2006.^[74] On August 20, 2008, Barroso gave birth to the couple's second child, Gia Zavala Damon, both girls born in Miami, Florida.^[75] On October 20, 2010, Barroso gave birth to their third daughter, Stella Zavala Damon, in New York.^[76] As of 2011, Damon and his family reside in Manhattan.^[56]

Damon is a fan of the Boston Red Sox.^[77] After the team won the 2007 World Series, he narrated the commemorative DVD release of the event.^[78]

Damon enjoys playing poker and has competed in several World Series of Poker (WSOP) events^[79][80] including the 2010 World Series of Poker main event.^[81] He dropped $25,000 at the WSOP while researching his role as a professional poker player in Rounders (1998)^[82] and after filming the movie Damon was busted out of the 1998 WSOP by poker professional Doyle Brunson.^[83]

Awards and honors[link]

Matt Damon's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

• Damon won multiple awards for Good Will Hunting, a film he co-wrote with Ben Affleck. He was nominated for the Academy Award as "Best Actor in a Leading Role" and won for "Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen".^[23][24]
• On July 25, 2007, Damon became the 2,343rd person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[84] He reacted to the award by stating: "A few times in my life I've had these experiences that are just kind of too big to process and this looks like it's going to be one of those times."^[85]
• Damon has been nominated for four Screen Actors Guild awards and seven MTV Movie Awards for various films. Additionally, he has three Emmy nominations for his work as producer on three seasons of Project Greenlight.^[86]
• Damon was named People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive for 2007.^[87]
• Damon won 'Best Ass-Kicker' and 'Guy of the Year' at the Spike Guys' Choice Awards of 2008.^[88]
• On March 27, 2010, Damon received the 24th Annual American Cinematheque Award, which was presented to him by Ben Affleck at a ceremony comprising roasts from Damon's colleagues and friends in the entertainment industry.^[89]

Filmography[link]

References[link]