Talk:Benno C. Schmidt Jr.

A news item involving Benno C. Schmidt Jr. was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 15 July 2023.

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The article completely avoids the fact that Benno Schmidt was not a good president of Yale who resigned in 1992.

HE WAS NOT POPULAR:

Schmidt, who had been dean of the Columbia Law School before becoming Yale’s president, incurred the faculty’s disfavor through his initiatives to rein in the University’s ballooning budget deficit. With Yale in financial turmoil, Schmidt and then-Provost Frank Turner made plans to cut the size of the faculty by more than 10 percent. The “restructuring” would have eliminated several whole departments — including linguistics — and severely diminished the Faculty of Engineering.

Source: Yale Daily News 27 February 2007 http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/20159—Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.36.48.100 (talk) 20:06, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The previous item of discussion

Given wikipedia's policy of signed posts, it was mortifying to find an unsigned post that was one-sided and more than unfair to the Yale presidency of Benno Schmidt. If one can "agree to disagree" debate occurs. The opinions of students aren't inconsequential, but, come on, boy, actual achievements, and Schmidt had many at Yale, are more important.SLY111 (talk) 20:21, 26 February 2008 (UTC)SLY111[reply]

Birthdate/birthplace?

One item of missing information is year of birth. The following information was in the lead, but was deleted on 7 July due to the uncertainty it conveyed:

Born 1942 -- reference cited is Library of Congress Name Authority File (the Library of Congress lists his birthdate as 1942)
Or born circa 1945 -- reference cited is The odd couple, by Harold Evans, BBC News Magazine, 26 September 2005 (the article says he was 38 in 1945)

In addition, http://www.edisonschools.com/edison-schools/about-us/executive-team/benno-c-schmidt says he was 29 in 1973, implying a birthdate in 1943 or 1944. Maybe these sources will help someone sort out this detail. --Orlady (talk) 14:44, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The New York Times print edition of July 11, 2023 names Washington D.C. as Schmidt's place of birth. Can someone verify/confirm which is correct? Johannes der Taucher (talk) 18:28, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Authorial Bias

There are elements of this article, such as highly subjective language, that indicate authorial bias, especially material sourced from bibliography entry #4. Some of it could be characterized as propagandistic and it is easy to surmise that this article was primarily written by someone with an interest in increasing Schmidt's positive visibility. Examples:

- "He raised over a billion dollars for Yale,[6] and the endowment grew faster than at any other university.[4]" -- Vague detail about the criteria for this growth. The imprecise language also suggests that Schmidt raised the money single-handedly. It might be more accurate to describe the fundraising as "taking place under his leadership."

-"Today, EP&E is one of the most popular majors at Yale." -- No citation; "most popular" is unqualified by qualitative or quantitative measurement.

-"Schmidt questioned the existence of certain academic programs at Yale, causing controversy, and his proposal for an 11 percent reduction in the size of the faculty was not well received.[6]" -- This criticism is token and the section which includes it is disorganized. Again, vague.

-"Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's Task Force on CUNY was led by Schmidt, and in 1999 Schmidt authored a report that provided CUNY's present and successful blueprint.[4]" -- 'Successful' according to whom? Vague and without qualification.

I recommend that the page be flagged for editing and/or removal. 24.186.240.178 (talk) 04:21, 1 August 2013 (UTC)Timothy G.[reply]

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