Institutional Culture Quotes

As a former college president, I am well aware that every university is a complicated ecosystem, not a linear widget factory.

There is an old story about the boy at Eton who committed suicide. The other boys in his house were gathered together and asked if any of them could suggest a reason for the tragedy. After a long silence a small boy in the front put up his hand: 'Could it have been the food, sir?

Dartmouth is such a special college with its rich history, dedicated student body, and, as I've been learning more recently, colorful customs.

The Office of the Solicitor General has a deeply ingrained fundamental institutional culture that has stood the test of time for decades. I went because I wanted to do public service and do an appellate practice at the very highest levels I could.

What is true is that if we do not change the culture of Washington, D.C., the United States of America will cease.

I wrote a letter to Harvard, explaining that I was having difficulty deciding between it and the University of Pennsylvania. Could I come and visit? Years later, the dean of students at Harvard told me that my letter had been posted in the dean’s office for the amusement of the staff. Thus did I learn the measure of institutional arrogance.

One out of four hundred and thirty-five members of the House is not going to transform the culture of the institution, but we've got to start somewhere.

While it's true that Washington would benefit from more civility, the Senate, behind the scenes, is an extraordinarily collegial institution.

The Senate is the last primitive society in the world. We still worship the elders of the tribe and honor the territorial imperative.

I learned a lot of different things from different schools. MIT is a very good place…. It has developed for itself a spirit, so that every member of the whole place thinks that it’s the most wonderful place in the world—it’s the center, somehow, of scientific and technological development in the United States, if not the world … and while you don’t get a good sense of proportion there, you do get an excellent sense of being with it and in it, and having motivation and desire to keep on

It is the culture at the Fed [Federal Reserve Board] to seek consensus as distinct from merely recording one's vote.... Unless the chairman has everyone behind him, he can't go very far.

No important institution is ever merely what the law makes it. It accumulates about itself traditions, conventions, ways of behavior, which ... are not less formidable in their influence.

By their very nature bureaucracies have no conscience, no memory, and no mind.

A cardinal rule of bureaucracy is that it is better to extend an error than to admit a mistake.

[Independent Federal] agencies, like other bureaucracies don’t like being transformed.. They have cultures and they want to preserve those cultures.

The atmosphere of officialdom would kill anything that breathes the air of human endeavour, would extinguish hope and fear alike in the supremacy of paper and ink.

The database hugging in public institutions is hampering innovation.

The Senate is not the sort of place where instant gratification, I should say, is very likely.

At boarding schools of every description, the relaxation of the junior boys is mischief; and of the senior, vice.

What will become compellingly important is absolute clarity of shared purpose and set of principles of conduct sort of institutional genetic code that every member of the organization understands in a common way, and with deep conviction.

I think it'd be useful for parents to know kind of what is the culture of an institution.

By law and institutional culture, FDA seeks to apply a single tool to its approach to regulation - the requirement for pre-market approval. The agency is accustomed to compelling innovators to submit evidence to FDA and seek permission for marketing.

Organization and method mean much, but contagious human characters mean more in a university.