Talk:George Wythe University/Archive 1

Speedy Deletion

There is an article about George Wythe, but THIS article is about George Wythe COLLEGE. It is a very basic, very bare-bones overview of George Wythe College. I don't know a LOT about it, so I put down what I know, hopefully somebody else will fill in the rest.

Having previously been hijacked into an attack page that "exists primarily to disparage its subject," I'm concerned whether this article is truly salvageable. I'm glad to see it being brought into Wikiproject Universities. Perhaps there's hope. Time will tell.--Arationalguy (talk) 22:50, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Dude, enough with the self-righteousness. --TrustTruth (talk) 23:44, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I neither claim credit, nor am I entirely hopeful.--Arationalguy (talk) 23:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not even close to what I meant. First of all, this article was never hijacked into an attack page. Secondly, whatever you think is wrong with the article, change it. You are an editor. Make the changes you think would make the difference. If what troubles you is the checkered history of the school, then take that up with the school. This article can't help what the school has done in the past; it serves only to document the history from a neutral point of view. --TrustTruth (talk) 00:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

True, I'm no expert on this school's "checkered history." Although you clearly are, and could probably teach us a few things, is this our real job as WP editors?--Arationalguy (talk) 01:28, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Our real job is studying out the facts and presenting them from a neutral point of view. --TrustTruth (talk) 01:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

You earlier asked "You do realize this is not a real "university" right?" -- and now you want us to believe you're here for NPOV?--Arationalguy (talk) 04:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I am being honest with my bias. There is nothing wrong with that. You can find this all over Wikipedia. One can have a bias and still achieve npov edits. I AM BEING HONEST WITH YOU ABOUT MY BIAS. ARE YOU BEING HONEST WITH ME? --TrustTruth (talk) 13:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I feel a duty to give our subject benefit of the doubt.--Arationalguy (talk) 15:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

For-profit

Is GWC a for-profit institution? Just wondering, because the Alumni section lists Shanon Brooks as "CEO of George Wythe College." If so, something should be included in the article. --Eustress (talk) 00:36, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I found a statement on their website that indicates they're a 501(c)3. Not sure why they need a CEO. According to The First 15 Years, the college was transferred from Coral Ridge Baptist University to the George Wythe Foundation on 1/1/2002. --TrustTruth (talk) 02:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Even in a non-profit you still have a board of directors and a CEO. The office of a CEO does not solely apply to for-profit corporations but non-profit corporations as well. Just like a credit union is a non-profit corporation and has a board and a CEO. Gruntsmith (talk) 07:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Understood, but in academia, most university leaders of non-profit institutions go by more traditional titles (president, chancellor, provost, etc.); hence the inquiry. Thank you TrustTruth for investigating. —Eustress ^talk 17:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I know of universities with admin vp's, financial vp's, etc. Not sure how this is significant. GW makes hay out of the fact that the executives deal with admin only and don't tinker w/academic programs. I think this is attributable to that policy/philosophy. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 13:52, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Massive vandalism

A new editor, "Gruntsmith", recently made massive deletions to the article with no prior discussion here at the talk page. Please bring up any issues here before deleting large chunks of the article. Thanks. --TrustTruth (talk) 15:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It appears that Gruntsmith was a new editor merely attempting to correct the tendentious editing abuses that "TrustTruth" had engaged in while biasing the overall content in the first place through a subtle yet extensive POV pushing campaign. Evidence points to an elaborate collection of supporting articles created with the sole purpose of grinding a personal axe against this institution. A record of TrustTruth vigilantly protecting "his cause" permeates the edit history. Despite Gruntsmith's naivete for not using the talk page, and deleting large sections of biased information, he did offer valid explanations for his edits. It's hard to blame Gruntsmith for wanting to correct a more longstanding sustained massive vandalism in its own right. In this case, the edit history speaks for itself and TrustTruth's accusations of vandalism are a clear case of "turf protecting" of this article as his personal WP soapbox -- the pot calling the kettle black -- and the technical difference only being TrustTruth's slow, methodical approach. I suggest an objective investigation of Gruntsmith's edits to see which ones would actually help restore a NPOV to this article.

I also suggest that a record of TrustTruth's long, subtle yet extraordinarily effective pattern of disruptive editing be documented and presented to WP administration for review. A careful review of these edits should shed light on how to restore a NPOV to this article.--Arationalguy (talk) 23:00, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Bring it on. My edits speak for themselves. I have been trying to be nothing but patient with you. I will continue to do so. I would appreciate you returning the favor and assuming good faith. Your comments are becoming nasty. --TrustTruth (talk) 00:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Allow me to repeat the impersonal purpose of my comments for you. "A careful review of these edits should shed light on how to restore a NPOV to this article."--Arationalguy (talk) 03:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Allow me then to repeat some of your comments attacking me personally: "TrustTruth's long, subtle yet extraordinarily effective pattern of disruptive editing"; "I'm finding it rather difficult to [assume good faith] with a straight face"; "The bias by this editor is also demonstrated by his assumption as judge and jury over the institution"; "it is clearly part of the negative campaign being waged by the editor who placed it here"; "other institutions...not suffering at the hand of tendentious editors seeking to undermine them"; "the "padding" added with the intent to color the accreditation issue"; "your attempt to still cast a shadow...reflects yet another bad faith edit"; "you're doing this under the guise of neutrality while offering token compromises that only allow you to protect 'your' pet WP article". Seriously, enough with the personal attacks. Let's focus on issues related to the article, assume good faith and drop the nastiness. --TrustTruth (talk) 05:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure you're a great person in many ways, but your edit history speaks for itself and I can't see any other way of interpreting it while being honest. The evidence of tendentious editing is so overwhelming that I feel a little intimidated myself. But especially in such a unique and serious case as this I feel that my greatest obligation should be toward the principle of NPOV. I realize this is awkward and I'm sorry it makes you uncomfortable. I do wish you the best.--Arationalguy (talk) 06:27, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

My friend, personal attacks are never warranted on Wikipedia. --TrustTruth (talk) 14:08, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, I'm sorry you feel attacked. It's just such a long history... I don't know what I can do.--Arationalguy (talk) 00:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry about my feelings, for the good of the article please leave the ad hominem elements of your arguments out in the future. Your accusation above that I somehow hijacked the article and turned it into an attack page -- what are you trying to accomplish by saying things like that? --TrustTruth (talk) 00:31, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

You already said you don't believe it's a real university, and your edit history of several months is consistent with that belief.--Arationalguy (talk) 05:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

You are right -- I have made my opinion clear. The important thing is that I strive for npov edits, and I have no conflict of interest with the article subject. --TrustTruth (talk) 06:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The evidence begs to differ. Also, I am neither an employee nor student. But you maintain a tabloid attack blog on this school (which you admit) that you attempt to mirror here. That seems both a form of COI as well as placing you in a position with an agenda rather than NPOV.--Arationalguy (talk) 19:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Fact Verification - Ann Tracy

A reading of the cited case and footnote do not substantiate that "Her degree was discredited by the Arkansas state board of appeals . . . " The court of appeals opinion says, "The court noted that Dr. Tracy's methodology in conducting studies and reaching her conclusions were suspect and did not follow any accepted scientific method. The court further stated that Dr. Tracy's proffered testimony displayed prejudice toward an entire series of drugs or classification of drugs, and that Dr. Tracy appeared to be on a crusade to eliminate the use of certain drugs, including Paxil. The court concluded that Dr. Tracy's testimony would not be reliable or relevant and that even if the evidence were relevant, the testimony would mislead and confuse the jury." Ann Tracy's research did not meet the court's criteria and evidently her zeal didn't either. The court still referenced Ms Tracy as "Dr.", which if they had "discredited" (Webster: "to reject as untrue") her "degree" they probably would not have called her by a title that was rejected. 2ewrap (talk) 03:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Point taken. I might add, however, that if the defense had produced her resume in a more timely manner, the state would have had an opportunity to do an evaluation of her degree and its issuing school; any attorney worth his weight would have pounced on the results of even a perfunctory evaluation. It appears that in this case, however, the fruits of the education spoke for themselves. --TrustTruth (talk) 05:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the fruits of education do speak for themselves. I believe that spelling, grammar and punctuation are taught in primary school, not in a PhD program. It has been my experience that if a person does not have these skills by the time she leaves high school she is rather unlikely to get them. Consequently (IMHO), references to these very basic errors should more appropriately be attributed to whatever source of education Ann did or did not get prior to 18. Overall, a discussion of Ann Tracy beyond the sentence which ends "doctorate in psychology based on "life experience"" does not contribute to the discussion of GWU in a constructive manner, but is instead a commentary on Ann Tracy and is currently addressed in her Wikipedia entry. I will be making a few edits as a reading of the Deseret News article does not state that GWU faculty praised her book as being more than a dissertation, only that somebody praised it that way. For now I will leave the paragraph beyond the first two sentences because I would like to discuss such a significant deletion, but as I said before, I believe it to be redundant and misplaced as Ann's own entry is the place to voice these concerns. 2ewrap (talk) 01:04, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I just cleaned up the Life Experience section based on the GWU student handbook and the discussion here on the talk page about life experience credit. Now as I look at the section it just seems strange that there is so much about Ann Tracy. I think 2ewrap's points above need to be revisited. The DN article only quotes Ann Tracy boasting about herself which doesn't confirm anything at all about GW's opinion concerning the quality of her work. It has no relevance to this article unless someone from GW said it.

Secondly, other than what Ann Tracy claims, is there any source demonstrating she received more than 30 credit hours for life experience? That's not enough to get any kind of degree. This section seems like it's giving undue weight to an odd case who's claims don't even seem verifiable.--4by40 (talk) 03:33, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Tracy's account is from a reliable third-party source (the Deseret News), and it quotes her directly. I don't know how much more clear you can get than that, other than asking GWU to clarify what she did for her degree, but then that would be original research. I modified the section slightly to show that the current handbook says 30 hours, because it appears things were a little looser back in Ann Tracy's time. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:40, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the DN article quotes her directly, but it's not clear that she didn't do other coursework for credit as well--only that she specifically received credit for her book (her final 30 credits?) which the article also says was 424 pages long including many pages of references. Even with some errors, that might be worth 30 credits. The problem is, this whole topic requires a leap of faith and we don't have solid evidence. What we do know is what the current handbook states. Even if things were looser back in Ann Tracy's time, we can't verify it with the DN article. I think that's what 2ewrap was saying too. We're just not in a position to guess, and so in all fairness we can't say much.

But if we do decide to keep this section, then to balance the narrative I wonder if we should add something like following quotations from the DN article to show both sides: "Tracy has served as an expert witness in a dozen criminal cases — most recently a Maryland case against a teenage boy who fatally laced his best friend's soda with cyanide — and has been hired as a consultant in several civil cases against drug companies" and perhaps "Dr. Donald Marks, an internal medicine physician from Alabama who was director of research at two large drug companies and now often testifies as an expert witness against the drugs, calls Tracy 'in many ways a visionary.' She 'has observed a phenomenon that is now being validated.'" These seem like the most obvious ways to bring NPOV to this section. The only problem I see with doing that is that it would make the section even longer, giving even more undue weight overall. This is a wiki article about GW not Ann Tracy. My first inclination is to just have it all covered on Ann Tracy's page but it seems to have been deleted due to it's "unbalanced" nature. Hmmm, sounds sort of like this section :) --4by40 (talk) 03:33, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

The DN article makes it explicitly clear that she was awarded the degree based solely on life experience: "Tracy explains that the Ph.D. was awarded for 'lifetime experience,' specifically for the writing of 'Prozac: Panacea or Pandora?' which she says she has been told is the equivalent of, or 'far beyond,' a dissertation. Self-published, the book contains spelling and punctuation errors and incomplete sentences (although Tracy says an edited version will be published in the next few weeks). It also contains page after page of references to studies that seem to cast a cloud over the safety of antidepressants." I'm not opposed to including the fact that she has successfully served as an expert witness in other trials. I do think the Arkansas trial is the only one worthy of a summary, since it dovetails with the fact she got her degree from what was then effectively a diploma mill. The reason her article was deleted was that she herself contacted Wikipedia and threatened a libel suit. Wikipedia is extremely sensitive to that charge on biographies of living persons, and the article was deleted with almost no discussion. It was not necessarily "deleted due to its unbalanced nature". --TrustTruth (talk) 06:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I found this note today elsewhere marking deletion of a similar Ann Tracy reference: "Tracy material removed by OTRS as BLP violation cannot be inserted here either. BLP applies to all articles" I have since followed the administrator's example and removed it from this article.--Arationalguy (talk) 22:01, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Single-purpose editors

What is it with all the single-purpose editors making changes to this article? Gycklmr, 2ewrap, Penelope231, Gruntsmith, etc. make edits to GW-related articles and pretty much nothing else, and the edits are have a pro-GW bent. Are these sock puppets? --TrustTruth (talk) 05:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

{{geodata-check}} The current coordinates are incorrect; they place GWU on BYU's campus. I have been unable to locate GWU using its street address.Super Rad! 01:23, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe I've fixed the coordinates to map to the Cedar City main campus. —Eustress ^talk 16:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Article Introduction

The introductory paragraph for this article mingles too much history with current facts, making it difficult to tell what is currently relevant. I've been reading a lot of university and college articles on WP. More often than not, the introductory paragraph on an institution of higher learning simply states what the institution is at present, e.g. non-profit or for-profit, private or public, liberal-arts, religious bent, specialty or emphasis, size, location, etc. This seems to be the more logical, standard and appropriate way of doing it. In addition, most universities were at one point colleges but their previous college status is only mentioned in the history section. I'm recommending that the introduction be cleaned up a bit by moving the historical elements to the history section and fleshing the introduction out with current facts about this institution. --4by40 (talk) 05:31, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

You do realize this is not a real "university" right? They were still calling themselves a "college" in August 2008, and grant degrees based on life experience. The change to "university" was an online dba filing. --TrustTruth (talk) 06:14, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for replying so quickly, TrustTruth. Forgive me, but I'm not exactly sure what your comment has to do with my question. Are you saying that because of the items you stated, this school may be a diploma mill and therefore the article doesn't need to take on the same formatting as other universities?--4by40 (talk) 15:35, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

You make some pretty strong allegations, TrustTruth, and so I thought it worthy of a little research. It appears that quite a few fully accredited universities (both private and public) offer limited amounts of "Life-Experience" credit with various criteria. This article from the New York Times is rather enlightening [1]. I browsed the current Student Handbook for George Wythe, and they only allow 30 credits through life-experience. In the mere 15 minutes I spent looking, the sampling of universities I found with this option offered a range from 6 to 45 credits, which places the 30 credits from George somewhere in the middle, and not at all out of the ordinary. (Antioch University of Seattle-48, Fordham University-32, Kentucky State University (doesn't state how many), University of Wisconsin-6, Texas State University-24, St. Thomas University-27, University of Indianapolis-30, etc.)[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]

From the George Wythe Student Handbook it also appears that the limited amount of life experience credit offered is based on screening criteria similar to those used at other universities.

As for the dba issue you brought up, according to their website, George Wythe is a 501(c)(3) non-profit with a Board of Trustees. Under this structure, changing from college to university status would have surely required a formal decision from the board as well, and not just a change of their dba by itself. The move to university status also appears mostly based on their changing to a multiple campus model, which makes sense. From what I can tell, they have not posted the minutes to their board meetings online so I can't verify this. Changing their dba doesn't seem out of the ordinary or incriminating in any way, but do you have a reference that states that this is all that they did?

Either way, I'm still not seeing a reason for the clumsy and irrelevant formatting of the introductory paragraph. --4by40 (talk) 17:05, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

You can find the dba designation at the Utah Department of Commerce entity lookup (https://secure.utah.gov/bes/action/index). Search for George Wythe. My point in bringing up the fact that GW is not a "real" university was that, therefore, Wikipedia articles on universities may not be the only guide to turn to. I'm not at all opposed to improving the intro paragraph. Be bold, but please don't remove relevant, cited sources. I concede the point that respectable institutions give out credit for (vetted) life experience. I wasn't aware of this. I wonder how well GW vets this life experience however, as GW gave Ann Blake Tracy a doctorate in psychology for writing a book the Deseret News pointed out "contains spelling and punctuation errors and incomplete sentences".

I agree the George Wythe Foundation board would have approved the dba designation. That doesn't show the change from "college" to "university" really means anything. Aren't they back to one president and one campus now anyway? And even that campus is shrinking / laying people off? --TrustTruth (talk) 17:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I restructured the introductory paragraph by adding basic program descriptions from the school's website and moving distracting historical data to it's proper section. Due to redundancies in this information, much of it was able to be deleted while preserving the references.

Also, the last sentence of the introduction seems strange by listing sources of revenue. I can't find a single college or university WP article that lists their revenue sources in the introduction or anywhere else in the article, frankly. I don't see how it has any bearing since most universities have multiple revenue sources anyway (bookstore sales, attire, athletics, patents, etc.) It just seems out of place.--4by40 (talk) 06:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I made some minor changes to the intro and moved the revenue sources list to a renamed finances section (was fundraising). --TrustTruth (talk) 14:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with some of your edits. But I believe that mentioning Adler is not only distracting, it's inaccurate. The great books article already goes into the discussion of who revived the concept (let's not forget Erskine & Hutchins) - so it's irrelevant here. Also, I reverted back to the language "Western Civilization" which you deleted because it was not only cited, it also aligns with the typical way WP articles describe the curriculum for other schools with Great Books programs, so I think it's more appropriate to be consistent.

I don't understand the need for quotation marks around mentors but I don't have a problem with it. Moving the revenue sources to the finance section was a good idea although that section is now filled with redundancies. Perhaps a single introductory line would suffice, if that's even neccessary.--4by40 (talk) 19:52, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason for the quotations is that the way the school uses the term has different connotations than general usage. A solution to this would be to define this term early in the article. That would make the quotation marks unnecessary later on. --TrustTruth (talk) 00:09, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

After reading through the GWU website and examining its academic programs, I concur with 4by40 and see no reason to treat this institution any differently than any other private liberal arts school with a Great Books program. What I'm seeing happen on this page is rather curious. I'm now going to review the edit history to gain some perspective on what's been going on. --Arationalguy (talk) 21:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I recommend you get an editor on here with an actual edit history, so we can be sure Arationalguy is not a sockpuppet for 4by40. --TrustTruth (talk) 21:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

So, within an hour of posting here I'm accused of being a sock puppet? I suggest you review the guidelines on civility and assuming good faith.--Arationalguy (talk) 22:17, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Woah, just noticed this. Nice welcome, eh? I wonder if that's why Gycklmr, 2ewrap, Penelope231, Gruntsmith, don't edit on this article any more. It takes away all the enjoyment of participating on WP when you are wrongfully accused of being a sockpuppet. --4by40 (talk) 22:37, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Youth For America seminars

I reverted back the changes on Youth For America seminar topics and location. When I updated it the day before, I cited the specific seminar topics directly from the YFA website, so this should not have been undone. Also, there was no seminar called U.S. Constitution on their program outline, nor could I find it in their text list. In addition, I don't see the need for including any outdated previous locations of the Youth For America seminars since they moved it in 2007. It's not relevant and it seems trivial. Are we going to start listing all previous locations of every organization's events on WP? --4by40 (talk) 20:13, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I note below in my suggestions for improving the article that while YFA is a nice project for a university, it seems rather to fit into a category of "Community Outreach", into which several other endeavors might also be included. Please see below. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 13:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Recent reversions

Please explain recent reversions of cited material here before reverting again. Thanks. --TrustTruth (talk) 21:42, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, TrustTruth. I wondered where I should put my reasoning for that last reversion on Youth for America and so I just made a new section. The organization of the page is much better this way. Since you have more experience on WP, would it be best to delete the Youth for America section and just place my reasoning here for clarity of the talk page or leave it as is? --4by40 (talk) 22:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Holy sarcasm Batman! I see it now thanks. My reasoning on including the U.S. Constitution in the Youth for America section is based on this Deseret News article, which is cited: http://archive.deseretnews.com/archive/366287/EX-DEVOTEES-WANT-TO-KNOW-WHERE-DID-THE-MONEY-GO.html. As far as changing the intro, if it's a Great Books school it's a Great Books school. That means you're using Adler's curriculum (for a base at least). If it's not a Great Books school then let's not call it that. If it's not, and you're stating Great Books of Western Civilization as if everyone knows what that means (and it should be capitalized), then you'll have to define your terms. And based on our previous discussions you prefer as snippy an intro as possible, so the best thing to do in that case may be to drop the mention altogether. I'm open to that. --TrustTruth (talk) 23:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

On page 105 of DeMille's Leadership Education, he mentions Adler's Great Books program. I also found GWC on a list of Great Books programs at Temple University (http://astro.temple.edu/~szelnick/actc/ListofGreatBooksPrograms2.htm). These are tenuous connections. I don't see anything official from GWC/U, so I say let's take the Great Books mention out altogether and replace it with something along the lines of this: "GWU's curriculum places an emphasis on classic literature with a de-emphasis on textbooks. Classes are discussion-based and facilitated by 'mentors'." --TrustTruth (talk) 23:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

I would oppose this change. Just today I saw two explicit statements on the GWU website that they use a Great Books approach. http://www.gw.edu/academics/ and http://www.gw.edu/academics/ba/ I also read through the curriculum, and that's precisely what it is. And I saw no mention of Adler anywhere. I'm also quite familiar with liberal arts schools, and narrowing their identity down to Adler is not how they describe themselves. Generally, they do include the words "of Western Civilization" and capitalized. This is customary among such schools and is no different on the GWU website, just like St, Johns, Hillsdale, etc.. This descriptive approach is absolutely appropriate, accepted practice and neutral.--Arationalguy (talk) 23:48, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean Great Books of the Western World? Or is this something else? Incidentally, you may want to read the Great Books wikipedia article, which makes a clear connection with Adler. If that article is wrong, it will need some attention as well. --TrustTruth (talk) 00:30, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

"Great Books" programs are commonly referred to as Great Books of Western Civilization or Great Books of the Western Tradition, etc. when such schools describe them. And Adler was only one proponent, not the only one. If you want to bother adding Adler to the GWU Great Books description, then I will insist that you add it to every single WP entry for a school with a Great Books program. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arationalguy (talk • contribs) 01:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Calm down my friend. --TrustTruth (talk) 05:02, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Arationalguy - mentioning "Adler" only serves to narrow the Great Books curriculum. It's usually a generic term since each Great Books school typically expands and customizes the list to fit their course structure and institutional mission. Besides, I haven't seen a reference to Adler on GW's website anyway. Also, "Great Books of Western Civilization" or "Western Tradition" seem to be the standard, customary ways of saying the term and I haven't seen a good enough argument to break this precedent for this school--especially since that's the way GW describes themselves on one of those pages Arationalguy cited above. So I'm going to revert it back. --4by40 (talk) 04:49, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds fine to me. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

My goodness TrustTruth, you've been busy. I see you reverted the intro back again and you claimed I didn't post anything here about my justification for my reversion. Maybe you didn't read this discussion page very well before writing that because I did explain my reasoning up above (since it was before this section was created). And frankly the reasoning I gave was adequate to justify reversion. What you put in about Adler was inaccurate and I provided citations that covered the spectrum of my changes. I don't appreciate being bullied.--4by40 (talk) 22:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

NPOV and Assuming Ownership of this article

I've taken some time to review the edit history of this article and I see some alarming trends. I would prefer to assume good faith on the part of all WP editors, but in this case I'm finding it rather difficult to do so with a straight face. Evidence points to at least one editor treating this article as his personal hobby and assuming ownership over it. While it's common for WP entries about institutions to tend toward an overly promotional bias, this article takes the exact opposite slant of giving undue weight toward negative bias. Attempts over time by random editors to restore balance have been vigorously fended off with tendentious editing, sometimes labeled as vandalism, and intimidated away.

Indeed, this is already happening on my first day posting on this page, by my being accused of being a sock puppet within an hour of my very first post here which happens to disagree with this editor. The bias by this editor is also demonstrated by his assumption as judge and jury over the institution, which we as WP editors are not. His statement to another editor just two days ago: "You do realize this is not a real 'university' right?" reveals his bias and agenda. I'm reminded of cases in which disgruntled employees abuse WP, assuming it's their own personal forum to use as a weapon. This undermines the integrity of WP, which is not a format for such agendas.

With no fear of intimidation from disruptive editors, let's use this section to discuss ways we can balance this article with the same fair treatment granted to other liberal arts colleges and universities. This would mean representing more than just a minority POV opposing the school, but current relevant facts from a truly NPOV. For example, I know of no other WP entry with a section on past degrees no longer offered. I would like to see this balanced with what the current coursework looks like, current requirements for graduation, etc, and other items that are relevant, timely and in context.--Arationalguy (talk) 23:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Exhibit A. The Accreditation section includes a discussion about a 12 month suspension allegedly imposed on AALE, the accreditation agency with whom GWU is an applicant. If this were somehow relevant to GWU for the WP article, it would be equally relevant to every institution accredited by AALE (St. John's, Thomas Aquinas, Southern Virginia University, etc.) and should be mentioned on each of their WP entries. Since this is not the case, it is clearly part of the negative campaign being waged by the editor who placed it here. Attacking via "guilt by association" is egregious behavior and damages the integrity of WP. Unless someone provides solid rationale for keeping it, I will delete it.

Furthermore, the entire accreditation section reeks of negative bias with quotes selected with the sole intent to cast a shadow. By comparison, other institutions of higher learning who are not yet accredited--but also not suffering at the hand of tendentious editors seeking to undermine them--only contain generic neutral information like this one:

Gutenberg College is a candidate for accreditation by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, an accrediting organization recognized by the Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.

I recommend that the "padding" added with the intent to color the accreditation issue for GWU be deleted and replaced with minimal, neutral content comparable to the precedent established by the WP entry for Gutenberg College.

You know my bias, but I think from a neutral point of view the suspension is relevant since it was imposed shortly after GWC submitted its application. Gutenberg's TRACS application is different because that body appears to have resolved its issues back in the 1990s. I cleaned up the paragraph though and tried to use as neutral language as possible. --TrustTruth (talk) 13:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

You are assuming, then, that AALE's suspension occurred as a result of GWU's application submission, despite there being no evidence of this. I checked your own citation for AALE's suspension, and it simply refers to a change that occurred in the quantitative criteria the Department of Education used for authorizing accrediting agencies, and that the inherent emphasis on qualitative assessment used by liberal arts programs is what caused the temporary problem. Furthermore, once the issue was cleared up, it was if nothing happened and AALE was again approved for the maximum period. Again, your attempt to still cast a shadow on GWU for this irrelevant issue related to liberal arts schools in general reflects yet another bad faith edit--even worse this time because you are a very experienced editor and you're doing this under the guise of neutrality while offering token compromises that only allow you to protect 'your' pet WP article. --Arationalguy (talk) 15:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not assuming that at all. That thought has never crossed my mind. And the article doesn't imply that. I think the present wording is reasonable and reflects a neutral point of view. --TrustTruth (talk) 18:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I still can't see how AALE's former suspension is relevant. TrustTruth, you admit yourself that it has nothing to do with GW, so why is it still there? In addition, I just went to the AALE website and I count 12 colleges accredited by AALE in the U.S. and six outside the U.S. for a total of 18. Right now this section says they accredit only 8 colleges. Frankly the number of colleges currently accredited by AALE is just as irrelevant as is the mention of Southern Virgina University. I think all three items should be removed.--4by40 (talk) 07:38, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I said I didn't think the suspension was related to GWC's application. But inclusion of AALE's suspension IS relevant because GWC was applying to an accrediting body that soon after was suspended by the US Dept of Education. And then denied reinstatement 6 months later. Any neutral observer would agree that is relevant to GWC, because it shows that GWC wasn't necessarily applying to the accreditation body with the highest standards. As far as the number of colleges it accredits, if the article is wrong then update it. If you want to drop the Southern Virginia University reference, go for it. I think it adds context to AALE and shows that the body isn't so bad (if it accredits SVU, which has a decent reputation), but I wouldn't oppose removing the reference. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:22, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I just read through the reference on AALE's suspension. I reviewed the opening statement a few times to make sure I wasn't missing something. It seems pretty clear that AALE did not have to make any changes to be in compliance. After being suspended, AALE began making the case that they were already "in full compliance with the criteria for recognition, particularly those centered on student/institutional success." It looks like the matter was under consideration for a year. Then they report, "the Assistant Secretary agrees that the Academy is in full compliance." I don't see how this proves that GWU was applying for accreditation with a agency without high standards. Further, I believe this demonstrates that this particular segment about AALE is irrelevant to the GW article. --4by40 (talk) 23:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Since I haven't heard any more on this, I'm going to go ahead and delete the AALE suspension text. I'm also suggesting that we go with Arationalguy's proposal of mimicking the neutral language concerning accreditation as found in the Gutenberg College article.--4by40 (talk) 03:58, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with this edit. AALE's standing with the US Dept of Education at the time of GWC's application is certainly relevant. I do not see how removing it strikes a neutral point of view. Gutenberg's accrediting body resolved its issues with the USDOE back in the 1990s, about a decade before it submitted its application; GW's body was having its issues right when GW submitted its application. It's an apples and oranges comparison. --TrustTruth (talk) 04:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

TrustTruth, did you read the post I made just above that one? I read the source. AALE had always been in compliance - they just had to spend a year proving it, which means it had no bearing on their quality as an accrediting agency which you implied. AALE had the same standards before the suspension as they had after. It has no relevance to this article.--4by40 (talk) 05:45, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about which source you're referring to? Can you provide the link? --TrustTruth (talk) 05:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

This is really quite simple and Gutenberg need not even be mentioned. The bottom line is that GWU initiated the accreditation process which typically is very slow, often taking years to complete, and they're still in that process. In the interim, AALE had a disagreement over a change in the Dept of Education's standards, and AALE eventually prevailed -- all while the GWU application process carried on undisturbed. There's no story here. No bearing whatsoever. Unless we're just hoping for a shadow to cast.--Arationalguy (talk) 06:27, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Please provide a reference to justify this conclusion. Let me add that while this could never go into the article because it would be original research, I was in contact with AALE a couple months ago and they have no idea what George Wythe University's status is. At this point they have only taken the first step and are an "applicant"; they have yet to even come before the board and ask for the application to be considered. Essentially, the ball is in GW's court and they appear to be doing nothing. Anyway, please give me a reference or link or something so I can read what you're reading regarding the USDOE decision on AALE. --TrustTruth (talk) 06:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry TrustTruth, I should have included the article citation the first time I referred to it: http://www.aale.org/pdf/NotetomembersMarch2008.pdf. --4by40 (talk) 14:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

While that source (directly from AALE) does make the case, I found a reliable third-party publication that evaluated the process: [9]. Based on this it appears the AALE's suspension was based on a difference of interpretation, particularly from one member of Naciqi. I see no need to mention this in the GWU article. While it still warrants a mention in the AALE article, it should probably be placed in better context there. --TrustTruth (talk) 14:28, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Great. This is what I've been saying all along.--4by40 (talk) 05:13, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Exhibit B. Under the Campus - Monticello section, is the statement: "One of the GW founders, William Doughty, sought to build a similar community in Mammoth Valley, Utah, in the late 1980s and early 1990s under the auspices of his Meadeau View Institute." The implication is that the new Monticello campus has some kind of relationship or similarity to Doughty's stigmatized Meadeau View Institute. This is pure unsubstantiated conjecture with clear malicious intent to create another negative association in the mind of the reader. Unless solid evidence is provided to warrant keeping it, I will delete it.--Arationalguy (talk) 05:03, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your point and don't oppose removing the Doughty reference. --TrustTruth (talk) 13:54, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

If you agree with my point, then you are also agreeing that it was posted with malicious intent. We should check to see who the original poster was.--Arationalguy (talk) 15:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree that it was posted with malicious intent. --TrustTruth (talk) 18:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Comanity / Course Credit

The reference on students getting credit for working for Comanity is a dead link. It looks like it was an "about" page from the Comanity website which no longer exists and I couldn't find it on the Way Back Machine. I did a Google search and found a GW.edu page that detailed what Comanity is and their connection to it, but it didn't mention anything about students receiving credit. Does anyone know a verifiable source showing that students received credit? I did find this about the GW policy on field experience:

Each undergraduate student must complete a minimum of three field-experiences in order to graduate. Practica may include substantive jobs, internships, volunteer work, etc. The field-experience must be approved in advance by the Graduation Committee.

Most field experiences range from two to four months. After completion, students submit a comprehensive 10-30 page report detailing setbacks, accomplishments, principles applied, lessons learned, and how the experience gained will be applied in their continued studies.[10]

If it is true that students received field experience credit by working for Comanity, it looks like they still would have had to do academic work for the credit to be awarded. That isn't mentioned at all in the section on Comanity. The way the Comanity section is currently written makes the field experience credit look illegitimate, but I'm not seeing any evidence to support that. I wonder if it should be removed until we have a reference?--4by40 (talk) 06:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I see what you're saying. Maybe the section should be updated to say that working for Comanity may qualify as a field experience (internship) upon approval of the Graduation Committee. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Since it seems students can do field experience in a variety of areas (it's not limited to Comanity), I felt it would be best to delete this sentence here and add the field experience requirement a new section under Academics entitled Methodology. For the last week or so I have been thinking that this article really lacked curriculum and methodology sections so I spent some time tonight throwing something together from their website. From the looks of their pdf catalog, the information is also in there but it seemed harder to locate so I just referenced the website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4by40 (talk • contribs) 04:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think I disagree with keeping the Comanity section altogether. If it's just a way for students to raise money, then it's rather tangential to this article anyway. If instead it's one of the options for field experience credit, then we should stop calling it "course credit" and just lump it in a list of the other options for field experience credit (assuming it's even truly applicable for credit). Either way, it doesn't seem to deserve it's own subject heading for this kind of article.--Arationalguy (talk) 05:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

See my comments below on Comanity on the section on suggested improvements for the article. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 13:55, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

History - using Wiki models

Having joined the Wikiproject Universities, I’ve discovered they offer a great list of “featured articles” which provide excellent models for us to follow. These have been awarded top honors for style, objectivity, content, etc. which should be very helpful in providing a standard to guide us as WP editors. That said, I’ve gone through the source document already cited for the GW History section entitled “The First Fifteen Years” (a tedious read I must admit) in order to connect the dots into a summary narrative. The most appropriate model for style, content and structure I could find in the “featured articles” list was Dartmouth, which is at the top of their list. At least up through 2005, here’s how the GW History would read if we follow Dartmouth’s arrangement of information and narrative style combined with headings like they do at Texas A&M: See User:Arationalguy/test history and comment back on this page. Thanks.--Arationalguy (talk) 04:48, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Looks pretty good! One thing, I'd be leary of relying solely on the accuracy of the Brooks history. One glaring example is that he describes DeMille getting a B.A. with that school in May 1992, when from all accounts I can find, DeMille didn't begin mentioning that degree until 2005 (the same year as the history was written). Before that time he made it appear that his sole B.A. was from BYU, and that he had received it before going on his search for a quality education. See DeMille, Oliver (2000), A Thomas Jefferson Education, Cedar City: George Wythe College Press, p. 22; see also DeMille, Oliver (2001), Oliver Van DeMille Curriculum Vitae, George Wythe College, retrieved 2008-09-24 {{citation}}: |archive-date= requires |archive-url= (help). Therefore it appears that these people you earlier described as having been put out to pasture may have been fudging the history. It would be really nice if we could corroborate what The First Fifteen Years says with another source. Or, if that's not possible, at least make it clear which parts of the account come from this source alone. --TrustTruth (talk) 14:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow! I agree, that looks like a great start. Let's get it up. The refs already point to the history pdf, so I can't see any other way of making it clear that is the main source without cluttering it up. Other sources can be added as they are found.--4by40 (talk) 16:47, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

We need to make it clear that the history is coming from Brooks's account. This can be done without cluttering the article up, and would be necessary for striking a npov. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:10, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I added the history details for now. However, after looking at the Methodology section 4by40 added, something seems odd. I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it needs tightening up? I'll look at it again tomorrow.--Arationalguy (talk) 09:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Your adding of the history adds credence to the idea that GWU's history is inextricably linked to DeMille's own educational history. Hence the focus his education warrants in his own article. --TrustTruth (talk) 13:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I just finished connecting the relevant dots in the history section to bring it up to date, as far as I can tell--minus redundancies. The narrative reads very similar to Dartmouth and others now. I did my best with available references and limited time.--Arationalguy (talk) 21:04, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Best Practices - Conforming to Wikiproject Universities Standards

I propose we use the best of Wikipedia's "featured articles" for universities as a standards guide from now on. This will require some restructuring and editing of this article so that it conforms appropriately and consistently with its category. The current outline would basically remain, but with a few significant changes. Below is one proposal for the outline, based on the norms I'm finding customized to fit a liberal arts school since they tend to explain their curriculum (sort of like what 4by40 posted earlier).

This one was modeled after Georgetown University, a "featured article" and a couple of liberal arts colleges. I haven't found a "Financial" section among these model articles, so its subsections would be absorbed into the other sections where relevant. Anything else currently given it a heading in the current GWU article would also need justification in order to be plugged into one of these standard categories, or it's possible it could be added into the section for Notes. I think it would be nice to get this article into compliance and rated higher.

   * 1 History
         1.1 Beginnings
         1.2 Founding
         1.3 Independence and expansion
   * 2 Academics
         2.1 Curriculum
               2.1.1 Methodology
         2.2 Faculty
         2.3 Accreditation
   * 3 Campuses
         3.1 Cedar City campus
         3.2 Additional campuses
         3.3 Extension and Seminar programs
         3.4 Distance Studies
   * 4 Student life
         4.1 Student groups
         4.2 Activism
   * 5 Alumni
   * 6 Notes?
   * 7 References
   * 8 External links

Any thoughts on this? --Arationalguy (talk) 07:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Do they even have an athletics program??? I haven't seen anything mentioned on their website.--4by40 (talk) 21:47, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Glad to take it off. One less thing to bother with. Meanwhile, I just deleted the section called "Degrees no longer offered." I couldn't find a precedent in the featured articles. Seems it was just another attempt to disparage anyway, and since those degrees were only offered while it was under the defunct CRBU... it seems a moot point. Next I'm going to try to figure out what to do with Youth Programs, which don't seem to fit into academics since they aren't worth credit -- and then try to tackle the pieces of the Finances section, which none of the featured articles has.--Arationalguy (talk) 22:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

It goes in the history. It represents a change in thinking,and can be see as something positive and realistic. DGG (talk) 23:35, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Right....that makes sense. I'll go back and plug it in tonight after I finish organizing the rest of this. It might look funny putting a table in the history, so I'll see if there's another way I can arrange it in that section. The table might be just fine though -- I'll experiment with it first.--Arationalguy (talk) 00:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I just consolidated the course credit issues into a cohesive place and created a notes section for holding things until we figure out their most appropriate locations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arationalguy (talk • contribs) 00:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I've now moved the items previously under "Finances" to the Notes section -- at least for now. It appears three of the sections basically repeat the same thing, so I placed them at the bottom. Perhaps those three could be consolidated and then dissected before finding out where the information is relevant and consistent with the examples of the featured articles. Also, I haven't given much thought about what to do with the Seminars and Youth Programs. If relevant and consistent with the types of information included in the featured articles, we'll need to decide that too. Any ideas? Meanwhile, I'm off to dinner.--Arationalguy (talk) 00:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Former degrees are now in the history section, and I cleaned up the Monticello section to the relevant issues the references actually talked about -- that is, how GWU would deal with the economic recession at hand.--Arationalguy (talk) 22:33, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I just researched out the Cedar City campus and filled in relevant details. The selective mentioning of the library use issue was from a 5 year old source that left a false impression that GWU students had been left unable to use it. It appears that in reality the two universities actually have an active library use agreement. The section makes sense now and lacks sensationalism, as one should expect.--Arationalguy (talk) 23:57, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the accreditation section is better now without the issues between AALE and the Dept. of Ed., but it still should be handled more plainly and neutrally like the Gutenberg school does, even more boring than that. I checked the references and the first two links are dead, as is the fourth. What they refer to seems redundant anyway. I see no reason for it to be anything but a dry, tight summary like any other of its kind. I'll give it a shot.--Arationalguy (talk) 00:43, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I've finished editing the Accreditation section for NPOV and redundancies with available info.--Arationalguy (talk) 04:12, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I just reverted the reversion by TrustTruth. He claims his references were removed, when in fact I had actually fixed them since they were broken, and then distilled the content to which they linked. The only verifiable facts are that the school had a site visit from AALE that lasted a week in October of 2008, and that the AALE website lists the school as an applicant for accreditation. I referenced each item. He also reverted to language in the second paragraph that was designed to cast a shadow with regard to graduates being admitted into other graduate programs (an unknowable number) wherein I had neutralized the language to just bare facts, boring as they may be. WP is not the place for innuendo.--Arationalguy (talk) 18:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The facts you removed were that it made its application with AALE in September 2006, and that the school has said it will learn whether it has been successful by Spring 2009. I have re-added these without reverting your edits. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

The first edit is fine, but your last sentence "The school expects to know whether or not its attempt has been successful by Spring of 2009" carried a subtle "staging" that wasn't part of the actual quote in the reference. All they said was that they "anticipated a decision." Period. Framing it as whether the "attempt" was "successful" carries a different tone, and unduly sets up absolute expectations of a firm timetable and additional vulnerability to criticism if there's a delay. The actual quote itself is more neutral. I must say, you're a skill rhetorician, and you plan ahead.--Arationalguy (talk) 20:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Article whitewash

This article is reading more and more like a promotional brochure for George Wythe University, and less like a balanced article on the subject. All mention of the school's past diploma mill-type tendencies has been removed, including myriad cited sources. Prime example: throughout the 1990s, this school was awarding degrees based on life experience. References to this practice have been removed wholesale. The article has been taken over by sustained, tendentious editing by 4by40 and Arationalguy, two (?) editors who coincidentally appeared around the same time in the last couple weeks and have edited virtually nothing but GWU-related articles. This appears to be an organized effort by individuals with close ties to the school. I am calling this a whitewash, and will add a pov tag to the article. In addition, I have placed a request for additional feedback at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities page. I am very interested to see the comments of editors with a diverse edit history. --TrustTruth (talk) 06:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm actually glad you added the POV tag, since that's what I was originally going to do when I discovered this article originally, since it appeared to be an attack page that needed neutralizing. So, the irony is rather thick. I'm confident that any neutral editor will see the pattern in the history diffs. Unsubstantiated, out of context allegations may be fine in a blog, not on WP. As for requesting additional feedback from Wikiproject Universities, that's also incredibly welcome (and ironic) since that is precisely why I joined that project a week ago at the invitation of 4by40. As for reading like a promotional brochure, I beg to differ. Perhaps you should read a few of the WP featured university articles for comparison. Removing negative bias hardly constitutes promotion. The whole point is to conform this article to the established standards (boring as they may be) of university articles in NPOV, structure, tone, style, relevant content, etc. WP is a platform for neither promotion nor soapboxing.--Arationalguy (talk) 20:10, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

cleanup

I removed a variety of irrelevant and borderline relevant material, much of which seems to have been designed as attack, some very dubious with respect to BLP. The material on Tracy is irrelevant to the university. I will regard reinsertion of this material in particular as a BLP violation. If anyone wants to try to write an article on her, they are welcome, but I do not think she is notable enough for the purpose. Tuition details are considered promotional and will not be included. DGG (talk) 04:03, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

DGG, this doesn't have to be about Tracy. She is quoted in a reliable third-party publication (the Deseret News) saying that GWC gave her a doctorate based on life experience. We don't even have to include her name, but this is clear evidence the school was giving out whole degrees for life experience at one time. Tracy can go on her merry way -- it doesn't have to reflect on her or be a BLP issue at all. Indeed, she's the one that brought it up to the reporter, which makes it appear she has no problem with people knowing that's how she got the degree. --TrustTruth (talk) 05:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Tracy would still be identified in the reference. Further, to reference a reporter citing an unnamed source would be nothing but tabloid journalism. By contrast, WP needs to remain encyclopedic.--Arationalguy (talk) 19:16, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Diploma Mill Allegations

If there is evidence that this institution was once a diploma mill I believe that information should be included in this post, perhaps in a "Contreversies" section. A university that has been tagged with the diploma mill label should expect to have this information as part of their history, unlike a university that has never been tagged with such a label. WP should be a vehicle for documenting the factual good, bad, and ugly. In other words, the diploma mill evidence should be allowed because it is factual and should not be seen as necessarily biased. It seems that this point is critical to the question of inclusion/exclusion of the information that has been so hotly debated here. The evidences that I see as relevant to the diploma mill allegations, are that, while being unaccredited, the institution apparently awarded terminal degrees based on life experience only, the institution awarded terminal degrees in areas that they were completely unqualified to award (i.e. they certainly did not have the faculty necessary to award doctoral degrees in subjects already listed here), the institution was awarding degrees to its own faculty members, the institution never seems to make information available about the award dates of their early degrees, and the doctoral degrees are awarded without dissertations being made public for external review. This seems to be part of their past and should be allowed. Perhaps other WP diploma mill entries could be examined for guidance.

That being said, I also think it is important that the current practices of the institution should also be included and made primary. I think many of the recent changes do seem to illuminate how the institution has evolved. However, their checkered past cannot simply be ignored. It does not seem to represent a NPOV to only embrace the positive historical foundations while ignoring the more unseemly past practices. I don't think it is right to have it both ways in this article. I think it is important that the overseeing WP editors understand that this university has some skeletons and that the exclusion of these skeletons is certainly a NPOV issue. All facts need to be presented. Drbhh (talk) 22:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Drbhh, would you explain what you mean by "tagged" when you mentioned universities being tagged with a diploma mill label. Is that a WP marking? --4by40 (talk) 01:27, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

No, definitely not a WP tag. It was just a colloquial use of the word based on all of the discussions contained here in the Talk section of the GWU entry and the Oliver DeMille entry. --Drbhh (talk) 04:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I find it curious that you know so much intimate detail specifically about the items that were edited from this article over the last week while you "weren't here yet." Hmmmm......--Arationalguy (talk) 23:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I know what you're thinking. Drbhh is not my sockpuppet. He does, however, make a reasoned argument. --TrustTruth (talk) 23:28, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I know so much about the details because I have done a significant amount of research on the topic, both via the internet (including Trusttruth's opinions) and via personal face-to-face discussions with real people who are involved with GW. When you are done insinuating conspiracy I would like to hear your thoughts on my argument (even though I can guess what they will be.) However, my comment was written more for the WP higher-ups (DGG?) because I felt like they were treating GWU as if it did not have a checkered past. I am concerned that this past is being scrubbed away quickly in the WP entry, in the "official" history of the institution, and throughout the internet in general. Perhaps the institution has moved away from this past and I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt even though some significant changes still need to be made IMO. I like some of the changes made to the WP entry but I think it is a mistake to not admit there is some pretty unsettling evidence from the early days. Drbhh (talk) 23:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Not only "reasoned" by your POV, but even your vocabulary. "Checkered past?"--Arationalguy (talk) 23:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I share the general concerns expressed above that the recent "cleanup" seems to have gone too far in removing the controversial history of the institution. --ElKevbo (talk) 00:52, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

The cleanup was done by using precedent, objective standards, verifiability and encyclopedic tone. I suggest you read the entire discussion above. Prior to cleanup, this article read like a thinly veiled tabloid by a sophisticated editor with an admitted axe to grind. He had created and or controlled most of the related and interlinked WP articles solely to support his agenda as well -- which simply mirrors his own attack blog http://www.themakingofauniversity.blogspot.com/ . All of this is now verifiable too, since he has finally admitted this is his blog. This is not the purpose of WP.--Arationalguy (talk) 03:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I do agree that much of the cleanup was needed and makes for a stronger document. I like much of what I see. However, I think that some of the deleted or missing items (specifically the five evidences that I provided in my original post) need to be in the post to paint a more complete picture. I believe there are several valid reasons for including these points in one way or another: (1) in the academic and professional world credentials matter - if the institution has awarded degrees for which it was not qualified or has awarded degrees without appropriate levels of student work then that demonstrates a disregard for academic rigor; (2) by not publishing the dates when degrees were awarded or by not making doctoral research more widely available to the public the institution is, at the best, not exhibiting best practices related to academic transparency or, at the worst, seeming to be hiding something; (3) the institution uses vastly different approaches from the traditional approaches in higher education, therefore, these approaches require additional scrutiny which evaluates the methodology and the outcomes; lastly, (4) all of these past and current practices may speak directly to the issue of non-accreditation - by including these points in the article it may provide the reader with insight into the accreditation process currently being undertaken by GWU. In fact, the WP article on "Diploma Mill" actually refers to these types of practices as indicators of an institution being a Diploma Mill, although I am certainly not suggesting the words "Diploma Mill" appear anywhere in the article.

All that being said, when the information is added I think it is important to frame the evidences simply as historical and/or current controversies and not as proof (whether weak or strong) of GWU being a diploma mill. --Drbhh (talk) 03:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

From a NPOV perspective, I don't imagine any problem with creating a "controversies" section like many WP articles have. Naturally, anything we place there should still require the same standards for inclusion as the rest of WP according to the rules for encyclopedic quality. I'd want to read the guidelines on those kinds of sections, which I haven't done. Having no experience with it, I'd also want us to consider following precedent from a few "good faith" articles on schools that are similarly in the accreditation process with a legitimate accrediting agency like this school is. I think that would be fair.

Also, I think that in any discussion about this we need to be careful in our assumptions. What we presume to be universal standards aren't always the case with liberal arts schools, so we should also be sure our precedents match genre. For example, I personally went to BYU and have more of a science background with a bent for quantitative analysis, so my first reaction to liberal arts schools a few years ago was pretty harsh. I realize today that there are many valid pedagogic approaches, and even testing standards that I previously discounted. That said, when assuming "universal" standards, let's keep in mind any potential practices that might be unique to the liberal arts and see what the norms are at those schools.--Arationalguy (talk) 05:10, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Very good points. Your comment on assumptions of universal standards will give me something to think about tonight. It does seem (please enlighten me if I am wrong) that liberal arts institutions that offer doctoral degrees are few and far between and so it is difficult to determine if GWU is the exception or the rule. Regardless, I don't think it is inappropriate to expect that doctoral students at any type of institution should be taught by qualified faculty members and should produce some original academic work which contributes to the body of literature in their field of study.

As for creating a "controversies" section, here are a couple ways we could proceed (or if anyone has a better approach I think it should be mentioned): (1) I did some searching through the WP to find some precedents that might be useful. It seems that a common approach used to handle university controversies (just do a quick WP search using "university controversies") seems to be to create a separate article for the controversy. This approach has the advantage of not cluttering up the institution's main article and, hopefully, it makes it clear (with an appropriate title) that the content of the article may not be agreeable to everyone and represents a significant, although uncomfortable, issue related to the institution. However, the disadvantage is that the article may appear to some readers to be biased because it deals solely with the controversy. Careful creation of the article would be needed so as not to create an attack piece. Or (2) create a "Controversies" or "Criticisms" section within the main GWU article and include, in relatively short fashion, the five (or whatever we conclude) evidences I have already mentioned. This has the advantage of not requiring a new article within WP and allowing the reader to have quick access to both the positives and negatives related to the subject. I am partial to the brevity of this approach. The disadvantage is that it could be potentially seen as clutter. Awaiting your thoughts... Drbhh (talk) 06:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

My instinct for laziness leans toward keeping it in this article. Could be that it's Sunday. Meanwhile, I still need to read up on it and my kids are insisting otherwise. Anyone else want to chime in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arationalguy (talk • contribs) 20:03, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe that a section within the article for controversies seems to fit better than an entire article in itself. I could see having an independent article if the school was larger and more established like a Harvard or UCLA type but it seems strange for a school without any disambiguated articles already.

I think I’m going to need to understand the nature of the controversies first, though, and how verifiable they are. For example, the lack of evidence for something is not a case for a claim. Not posting dissertations online does seem strange in 2009, but I did a quick google search and found plenty of other universities that only make dissertations available in their libraries, or only to students and faculty. [11] and [12] among others. Not making them available online doesn’t seem exactly a controversy. Do we have a reference demonstrating that GWU doesn't make them available in one form or another?

As for life-experience being awarded by the school for credit, all I’ve seen are two references. One is the DN news article on Ann Tracy and the other is the current student handbook. Here are both:

George Wythe College may award Life Experience credit for practical work of exceptional quality which has academic value. This credit is awarded on a case-by-case basis, and is supported by thorough documentation of time invested and quality of academic work. . . . Life experience credits earned may not exceed 30 credit hours.

Tracy explains that the Ph.D. was awarded for "lifetime experience," specifically for the writing of "Prozac: Panacea or Pandora?" which she says she has been told is the equivalent of, or "far beyond," a dissertation.

From the article, I can see it being read both ways. TrustTruth has argued that the quotation means that the degree was awarded solely for life-experience. But I read it as the book she wrote was accepted as life-experience credit -- possibly filling the dissertation requirement – which could then very well have been equal to 30 credits or less of life-experience. I don’t see the quotation precluding any other course credit for requirement for graduation. Using this single newspaper article and conjecturing that GW awarded terminal degrees based solely on life-experience credit as a standard practice seems far fetched at best for an encyclopedia article. I believe we would have to have more references to infer any such sustained action.

As for other proposed controversies, not having the enough faculty for each degree offered, from the looks of the history (I haven’t read the Brooks history entirely just the references in the article) that allegation looks like a possible starting point, but again, it also feels like we’re making inferences based on lack of evidence rather than actual evidence. Perhaps someone should enumerate the items to be proposed for the controversy section here in the discussion page along with the verifiable evidence for each, so we can at least begin a discussion on them.--4by40 (talk) 00:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It would be wrong to state that granting degrees based on life experience was a general practice because there is simply a lack of evidence for or against. The school has always been very small. It has had virtually no coverage in the news media during its entire history. Any rational person can see that was probably the case (reading Tracy's account, then seeing a smattering of the range of degrees granted in the 1990s), but making conclusions amounts to OR. So we can't say this in the article. It would be appropriate, however, to mention Tracy's account. It shows that at least in one case, GW granted a terminal degree based on life experience (I'm sorry 4by40 but I don't read her account the same way you do). --TrustTruth (talk) 02:40, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

“Lack of evidence” is precisely the root of the controversy and criticism. It is very difficult to evaluate the rigor/validity of their doctoral degrees (which is the main overall criticism) because nothing seems to be available to examine. This institution is awarding “big boy” degrees (doctoral degrees and, to a lesser extent, masters degrees) but doesn’t seem to make it possible for outsiders to use or even look at the work. If one could look at Tracy’s dissertation (if it even exists in dissertation form) then the whole “life experience” controversy might go away (as it is it seems like it would have been more appropriate to award her an honorary doctorate instead of the real thing); if one could look at the dissertations from the students who earned Ph.D.s during the early days of the institution then it would be possible to determine if qualified faculty served on the doctoral committees and oversaw the work; if one had the dates of awarding for the degrees then it would be possible to evaluate whether faculty members were basically awarding degrees to themselves. This lack of available information seems to raise a red flag to me, especially given that “diploma mills” are notorious for not making dissertations available for evaluation (see the WP entry). And while I agree that not every dissertation from every institution for all time is available through the currently accepted avenues (e.g. UMI Digital Dissertations or even Digital Abstracts) we are likely only talking about a few dozen dissertations from GW that could have been scanned in and uploaded in only a week or so if the institution wanted to follow protocol. The institution doesn’t even seem to indicate whether bound copies of the dissertations are available in their own library. Why wasn’t this done? Why hasn’t this been done? I'll write a summary of what I think would be a starting point and post here for everyone's review. -- Drbhh (talk) 19:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

A possible starting point?

I think that the main controversy could be summed up (and perhaps written up) this way:

George Wythe University is one of the few liberal arts institutions which offers a Ph.D. degree. Controversy exists because it is difficult to evaluate the rigor and validity of GWC/U doctoral degrees due to past and current practices. Evidence indicates that doctoral degrees were awarded early in the school’s history in a wide variety of topics during a period when the faculty body consisted of only one or two members who were, based on their documented areas of academic specialty, likely not qualified in the areas in which the degrees were awarded. (Insert table or paragraph of early degrees here). Additionally, at least one case exists where a doctoral degree may have been awarded for “life experience” and the self-publication of a scholarly book (a situation more likely to merit an honorary doctorate degree) rather than after significant coursework followed by a committee-refereed dissertation. This particular case is troubling because the degree has been used by the recipient in order to achieve expert witness status for various court hearings.

It may be possible to add some clarity to these controversies if the institution followed the accepted practice of making doctoral dissertations available for public review. Access to these dissertations would allow external evaluation of the quality of scholarship and the quality of faculty supervision of past and current doctoral students. As of April 2009, searches of standard digital dissertation and dissertation abstract clearinghouses result in zero dissertations associated with GWC or GWU. While it is understandable that institutions with long histories of awarding many doctoral degrees may not have the resources or motivation to make all of their dissertations available in digital format through the established, web-based clearinghouses, it seems confusing that GWC/U has not made the effort to convert their relatively small number of dissertations for digital dispersion. Additionally, it is not clear whether hard-copies of the past or present dissertations are available in their own library. --Drbhh (talk) 19:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

You sum it up pretty well, but we have to be very careful not to draw conclusions in the article, as that would be WP:OR. For example, your statement "As of April 2009, searches of standard digital dissertation and dissertation abstract clearinghouses result in zero dissertations associated with GWC or GWU" could be modified to say "As of April 2009, neither GWC or GWU have entries in either XYZ or ABC dissertation clearinghouses." --TrustTruth (talk) 21:20, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I like that language better. Does anyone else have any other suggestions? I'd like to have some discussion on this possible writeup before adding it to the article. --Drbhh (talk) 01:06, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously I'm coming in late to this discussion, but from what I've seen from other articles the controversy section is most often at the end of the article. This controversy section is right near the top giving it the feel of an obvious bias. Other articles that show my point are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenpeace, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy. I think this should be considered since bias should not be a part of Wikipedia articles. --Truecolors (talk) 22:30, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

"George Wythe University is one of the few liberal arts institutions which offers a Ph.D. degree." This needs to be explained. Harvard is fundamentally a liberal Arts institution that awards a PhD. i've even personally taught at an overwhelmingly liberal; arts institution that awards a few PhDs (Long Island University). Historically, essentially all 19th c. american phds except from Johns Hopkins were from such schools. As for few, what other schools of the same size do so? If what you intend to do is deprecate the quality of the degree, find a reliable secondary source that makes an appropriate comment--don;t do it by unsourced inneundo which crosses the border into SYN and OR. DGG (talk) 23:35, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

It makes sense to remove that phrase. "George Wythe University is one of the few liberal arts institutions which offers a Ph.D. degree. Controversy exists because it is difficult to evaluate the rigor and validity of GWC/U doctoral degrees due to past and current practices." This could be changed to: "Past and current practices, including failure to make doctoral dissertations available for public review, makes it difficult to evaluate the rigor and validity of GWC/U doctoral degrees." --TrustTruth (talk) 00:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

No one has commented on what I wrote concerning the controversy section. There are many articles--only a few of which I mentioned--that have this section at the end. If no one's averse to it, I can move it. I believe it's important to stick with an acceptable format.--Truecolors (talk) 16:41, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable, Truecolors. I moved it towards the bottom with Alumni at the bottom of the article, similar to University FAs. Ideally, the criticism section would be woven into the History section better, but that would be difficult at present without any supporting citations. —Eustress ^talk 19:09, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Former degrees list

I don't understand what value is added by listing the former programs (degrees) under CRBU. I think it should be removed as irrelevant or tangential to the article. GA criterion #3b states that a good article "stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail." —Eustress ^talk 16:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the "under CRBU" was added to the table title, but for several years the school awarded degrees on a wide range of subjects, even though it only had a handful of faculty. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

If that's the case, that would be interesting to note, but I'm not sure a table is needed to highlight degrees the school used to award. Thanks for your input. —Eustress ^talk 17:16, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

It seemed like a tidy way of presenting a lot of information, but I'm definitely not opposed to expressing it in paragraph form. By the way, since the time those items were added, some of the links have gone dead. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:26, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it is probably out of place where it is currently located. I think it belongs more appropriately in the contreversies and criticisms section that we are discussing because it provides key information regarding the contreversy of quality doctoral degrees earned in the early years of the institution. A quick examination of the current faculty at GWU shows that the institution could not even offer Ph.D.s in these areas today, much less back in the early years when they only had 1, 2, or 3 faculty members. --Drbhh (talk) 19:49, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Ideas for improving the article

It would be helpful to go through and check every source to be sure that links are still live, and that they say what the article says they say.

1. For example, #72 is an irrelevant link; looks like it might have had relevance previously, but now seems the domain has expired.

Somebody can find it in the web.archive.org.

To what end? Is this not OR? --Ibinthinkin (talk) 13:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

2. "Community Outreach"?: #58 doesn't say what the article says it says (that the school took over YFA when MVI collapsed). YFA has been around for a long time--seems like there should be a better citation for it. Or maybe it should be listed in a Community Outreach section with other things GWU has involvement in, like Rotaract, overseas educational philanthropy, hosting conferences for homeschoolers, summer seminars, etc.

3. "WeSquared": The reference to WeSquared is a little tenuous and insignificant. Why is it even listed as a significant part of the article on GWU? It appears from available information that this is a business that donates a portion of its proceeds to GWU. I'm trying to imagine an article on University of Pennsylvania listing businesses that donate to it. It seems out of place in the article on the university, and in any case, the link provided is to a business entity search engine. Not particularly encyclopedic.

4. "Comanity": again, this seems extremely peripheral to the description of the university. We might as well chronicle the summer jobs selling pest control or security systems or hauling hay, as it were. The link is dead. The commentary is unsourced. Recommend removal of this section.

Comanity is okay because it is a major source of funding to GWC students and is the topic of newsletters. Trms (talk) 12:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

In addition, the GWC website has had (in the past) links to Comanity. Trms (talk) 20:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

There are many things that are topics of newsletters that do not have a section here. There are many sources of funding that do not have a section here, and it is not demonstrable in any case that Comanity is a "major" one. I restate my opinion that this is a peripheral detail, and I would prefer to see a weightier argument for its relevance to a description of the university as an institution. I again note that the Comanity link is dead. What may have had passing significance for a few students' ability to pay tuition does not seem generally relevant to an article on the university, any more than would the existence and subsequent demise of a nearby fast-food joint that commonly employed GW students. (sorry, I forgot to sign this post earlier)--Ibinthinkin (talk) 18:01, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I just looked up quite a few universities on Wikipedia and not one of them mentioned any sources of funding for the school or its students. I would like to see this section removed. Let's focus on the school itself. --Truecolors (talk) 05:03, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Nearly every university article talks about the endowment, tuition, etc. For example, the Brigham Young University article -- right in the intro -- says "About 70% of student tuition is funded by LDS Church tithing funds, making tuition relatively less expensive than at similar private universities." The article then discusses the school's endowment as well. From Georgetown University: "In its early years, Georgetown College suffered from considerable financial strain, relying on private sources of funding and the limited profits from local Jesuit-owned lands." From Harvard University: "the 1824 defeat of the federalist party in Massachusetts allowed the renascent Democratic-Republicans to block state funding of private universities. By 1870, [it was] funded by private endowment." These are the first three schools I picked (off the top of my head) to look at. Clearly, there is precedent for discussing funding sources. Indeed, it seems appropriate to also discuss the school's endowment. --TrustTruth (talk) 14:10, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

But the difference is, these schools have one sentence within the article. The GWU article has a section devoted to it giving it much more emphasis. There's no mention of the sentence in the Contents box of BYU for instance; it just has the sentence in the article. The GWU article has Commanity listed in the Contents box because it is being given so much emphasis. I'm sure you can see the difference.--Truecolors (talk) 14:56, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

So you're just suggesting the contents of the section be moved elsewhere? That's fine with me. It ought probably to go into a section discussing the school's operations (funding sources), along with a discussion of its endowment. --TrustTruth (talk) 15:22, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I am suggesting that. However, I think "Students may offset the cost of tuition by selling a variety of services (including phone, payroll and web hosting services) through a fund raising organization called Comanity.[64]" ought to be added at the end of the section entitled "Tuition and Financial Aid" and not operations. It fits well there as the topic of cost to students is already being discussed. This is really all that needs to be said on the subject. As TrustTruth noted above, the Georgetown article doesn't go into detail about the endowment and BYU's doesn't go into a lengthy explanation about the LDS Church and it's tithing.--Truecolors (talk) 21:38, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

No one has responded to my idea for a change in how Comanity is represented above. Does that mean it's okay with everyone? If so, I can change that.--Truecolors (talk) 02:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I say we strike the section on Comanity. It's not endemic to the university, can only be found in an historical document and no current information on Comanity is available. Not notable, not current. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 07:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

5. "Accreditation": a simple, "GWU is not accredited" would seem more encyclopedic than the editorial on the merits of accreditation. The notes on alums being accepted to graduate programs seems like it would be of interest to readers accessing the article, but feels like a poor fit in this section, to me.

I think simple statement is the way to go for both accuracy and NPOV. "GWU is not accredited" is a simple fact. Furthermore, I expect this to remain true for some time given spatial and endowment constraints. Keeping this section intact in its current version leads simultaneously to both a positive ("we will be accredited soon") and negative ("this bogus place isn't accredited, so look what you are missing") bias at the same time.... Drew2longC (talk) 22:31, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I like the simplicity and directness of that as well, Drew2longC. Anyone have any other suggestions?--Truecolors (talk) 02:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

No, it should stay as it is. If anything, it should be expanded to document why it is not accredited. This is relevant information for anyone considering the school, and removing it only serves to make it appear that the school has had no issues with accreditation, which is not true. I am restoring the content. Please discuss in new section below. --TrustTruth (talk) 16:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

6. "Methodology": The "according to the school" aside is unattributed and argumentative. Recommend rewording of this section with specific encyclopedic declaration of the school's methodology with high-quality sources cited (looks like most of these are sourced to the school's own stuff, and this seems appropriate to me).

7. "Alumni": Is it customary to list alumni? Seems like that would be a good idea. To only list Congressman Siljander seems rather lean. Also: are we planning to follow the case on him and keep the article up-to-date? A simple link to a Siljander page would seem to suffice; the reference to the legal case seems prejudicial against the university if we are not going to reference his other notable accomplishments as well; again, it seems overly-detailed and out of place. Not that a list of alums would be a bad idea, but if Siljander's the whole list, I recommend removal of this section.

Most of the universities have a list of alumni on wikipedia. Siljander was discussed previously - BYU has listed DB Cooper, and various anti-mormons who graduate from there. Trms (talk) 12:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Anybody else? I think my reasons for suggesting this section be either expanded, abbreviated or aborted are worthy of a few more opinions on the topic.--Ibinthinkin (talk) 18:01, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that having one person on a list of "Alumni" is stretching it. Obviously he isn't the only graduate and yet the editors of this page have picked only one and a negative one at that. To keep it unbiased, either more names need to be added or this section should be omitted. The school has to keep a list of graduates. Maybe they should be contacted.--Truecolors (talk) 04:45, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The lists of alumni for universities is for "notable" alumni -- I can think of a handful off the top of my head: Siljander, Skousen, Tracy. --TrustTruth (talk) 13:58, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I can think of at least two more: Janine Bolon and Vicki Jo Anderson. So maybe the list just needs to lengthened.--Truecolors (talk) 21:53, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Two points. First, I agree that a better citation of Siljander would be a link to his Wiki entry, without referencing an indictment. My rationale is that (1) innocent until proven guilty, so this is not a NPOV statement; (2) anyone who cares can follow his link; and (3) no one has to monitor this site to change Siljander's information once his issue is resolved. Second, while I respect Anderson and Bolon, and their activities can be monitored on the web, they are only of note (at least at present) in their relation to GWU, and not in a wider sense. Thus, I am not sure that they are "notable" enough for this list. Drew2longC (talk) 22:31, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I think his indictment is notable. As an indictment does not necessarily mean guilt, there's no "innocent until proven guilty" to worry about. He is an indicted former congressman, and that is certainly notable. --TrustTruth (talk) 23:17, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The temptation to guilt-by-association from such a loaded presentation ("only one noted alum, and he's crooked") is not conducive to NPOV. --Drew2longC (talk) 01:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe this section should be omitted until we come to a consensus on this page of who ought to be included. Miss Utah was included without any consensus and many agree that the other needs some fixing as well.--Truecolors (talk) 02:02, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

At a minimum I think that the note of the indictment is problematic for NPOV; the link to his article should be sufficient. I am not opposed to deleting this section, although I can see cause for keeping it. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 07:01, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

6. "Controversies": The section on controversy raises a good question, and I honestly don't know the answer. Somebody on the WP:Universities project hopefully would know?: is it standard industry practice for universities to publish their theses and dissertations online? The wording of this section seems to have as its assumption that GW is not performing on an industry standard. If it truly is an industry standard, this is relevant as a controversy. If it is not an industry standard, this section is argumentative and prejudicial. I mean, as an alum, I know that GW has a bunch of hard-bound gold-lettered volumes in its library of theses and dissertations of grads that anyone could theoretically go peruse. But not everybody gets to Cedar City that often. It seems like publishing their graduates' writings would be a simple way to quell some of the controversy regarding the degrees awarded by GWU. Is the dissertation/thesis the property of a university, or its author? Would the school need to get a release from the author in order to make it available online? Presumably many candidates would have designs of publishing their thesis/dissertation ideas on their own as well, for profit. Does anybody know anything about this process and common practice?

My thesis at an unspecified Utah university is copyrighted by me. I own the copyright (although it is unregistered...I didn't want to pay the fee to register with the copyright office). My thesis is available online and it is now a common practice and most major universities put at least the abstract online (although I don't consider universities to be an industry). Personally, I don't think it is a major controversy, but I think that GWC should have a list of titles and possibly abstracts available to the public.Trms (talk) 12:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The term "industry standard" is a common usage meant to represent acceptable practices, generallly acknowledged requirements. My intent was not to describe academia as an industry, although I wouldn't shrink from that dialog in another forum. Your comment regarding the significance of the controversy suggests that perhaps you feel the section might not belong in the article. I don't want to put words in your mouth; would you please clarify? --Ibinthinkin (talk) 13:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Back to your question, Ibinthinkin: Is it the standard to publish dissertations and theses, or at least make them available to the public upon request? The answer is yes. A couple repositories off the top of my head are ProQuest and Lexis Nexis. You can also usually find peoples' dissertations in the college library (I found my own father's this way once when I had some time to burn). --TrustTruth (talk) 19:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Have you gone to the GWU library and tried to look at copies of their theses and dissertations? In the comment above, he mentions that there are copies of these in their library.--Truecolors (talk) 05:07, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I have spoken with people who have been there and they couldn't find any such volumes. Perhaps you could get your friends at GW to send you a photograph of the dissertations on the shelf. Better yet, if GWU could at least publish a list of dissertations and authors, that would clear things up immensely. --TrustTruth (talk) 14:02, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I would guess that GWU is small enough and perhaps short-handed enough right now that publishing their dissertations and theses is not a high priority. It would perhaps make them appear more legitimate to critics but it wouldn't help educate their students. I believe that if you approached them, they would gladly show you their dissertations. And my guess is that you don't have to have friends at the school to approach them; just time and honest curiosity. I also found my father's and grandfather's dissertations at the universities they attended so I understand the importance of their being available. Whatever the reason for GWU dissertations and theses not being published, let's not assume the worst but keep open minds. As the university grows, they will most likely catch up with "industry standards."--Truecolors (talk) 22:08, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

This whole discussion is creepy OR and not terribly helpful or informative. I'm sure that there are many institutions that don't do a very good job publishing or publicizing their graduates' theses and dissertations (although I suspect that 99% of them are still sent to ProQuest and microfilm is available from them either by direct request or through an interlibrary loan request). I'm not really sure what the point of this discussion is... --ElKevbo (talk) 22:57, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

The problem here Kevbo is GW has given out doctorates in the past for life experience, so the question of whether the school still does that or whether it requires at least a dissertation is certainly apropos. --TrustTruth (talk) 00:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

No question. If we were writing an original article or a journalism piece then we would definitely want to ask that question. But it's OR and doesn't belong here. --ElKevbo (talk) 01:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. A journalistic piece to cite -- one in a reliable publication examining the pertinent facts -- would do wonders for this article. I did re-include the degree table in paragraph form near the beginning of the article, but not in any diploma mill-type context. --TrustTruth (talk) 02:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You not only changed this but many other things without listing them here first for discussion. That's against the rules of Wikipedia. Your bias is really showing through here. Let's keep the changes unbiased.--Truecolors (talk) 17:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I have written two documents for accredited graduate degrees (a thesis and a dissertation). It is assumed that most graduate degrees with include a document of this nature, and that copies will be held by the institution and a public repository. Current graduate students at GWU do have to prepare and bind multiple (3 or 4, I think) copies of their thesis or dissertation. One copy is held by GWU, though likely not in their library (given its small size). One copy is retained by the student. I confess that I do not know the dispensation of the other(s). Drew2longC (talk) 22:31, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

7. "History": Seems like there is a public perception of continuity of operations that belies that fact that GWC/GWU has really only been in operation since 2002. Previously, "GWC" was a branch of a different school, with religious accreditation, a separate administration, different policies, different degrees offered, etc., etc. These are separate legal entities, right? Do we need to make this clear? Is it relevant? Much is being made of the way things were done differently before and after the change in legal status. Seems like it might be significant that it wasn't actually the same school. In effect, GWC:CRBU died at the end of 2001. CRBU ceased to do operations in Utah and those who had previously been employed by them worked without pay for many months. In 2002 a new school was registered in the state of Utah with different degrees, policies, board, etc. It's a fine point in some people's minds, to be sure, but we ought to consider how it should be treated in the article, if it really is just one article at all. Can somebody comment on my take on this? Am I wrong on my facts? --Ibinthinkin (talk) 10:59, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Ibinthinkin: you mention that CRBU had "religious accreditation". Can you please elaborate on that so we can add it to the main article? Specifically - what does religious accreditation mean? Thanks! Trms (talk) 12:12, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I'll look into your question and respond if I find anything significant. Perhaps I misspoke.

Please do, because it sounds familiar. A recent posting from Oliver DeMille at tjedonline says that exact thing. Here: http://www.tjedonline.com/olivers-update.php?id=6 - Oliver DeMille stated that CRBU had "religious accreditation". Trms (talk) 20:32, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps that's where I read it. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 11:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I am still anxious to hear other comments regarding the possible differentiation of the CRBU school and the GWU that now operates. We have seen exhaustive attention to the way in which they differed in practice. It begs the question whether it is worthy of note that not only did they differ in practice, but in virtually every other way other than the name and some teachers, including the fact that they are not even the same legal entity.

I made some minor (in my opinion) changes in wording of this section to indicate that the original entity founded in 1992 was GWC, a branch of CRBU, and not the stand-alone GWU of today. I think that the current wording adequately shows that its "reorganization" made it a separate entity. Drew2longC (talk) 22:31, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

If the change in legal status had been a paperwork-only detail, then I don't think it would be notable--worthy of mention, certainly, but not separate treatment. But whereas it also marked the change in leadership, administrative structure, policy, procedure, degrees offered, etc., I think it is extremely significant.

This might be a question of perception. My opinion is that this institution appears to have been run mainly at the local level in a relatively consistent fashion from its inception by DeMille, Brooks, Groft, etc., ---regardless of their titles from 1992-2001---and that much of the apparent difference between now and then comes from the name value (e.g., Sills) placed on GWC early on to lend some credibility from the mother ship. Drew2longC (talk) 22:31, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

And it's not as if the school itself has not noted the distinction; they are the primary source of our knowledge of the details of note. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 13:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Are suggesting we change the article to say the school began on January 1, 2002, when control was transferred to the George Wythe Foundation? Do you think the school wants to divorce itself from its pre-2002 history? Because that would indeed warrant inclusion in the article. --TrustTruth (talk) 16:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

For the sake of discussion, it's immaterial to me what "the school" wants or does not want. I'm simply suggesting that as editors on the talk page we consider whether we are accurately reflecting the facts as indicated by reliable sources. It's a complicated proposition, I agree. But after careful consideration, we have: 1. A school owned by one organization, which operated for years under a certain administration and with a particular variety of educational offerings, and, 2. A school of the same name which is a separate legal entity and which operates with a different administration and educational offering.

That the public perceived continuity (presumably by design of those operating the two schools) is likely relevant. That the principal instructors were the same is likely relevant.

The public (at least the part that folows GWC/GWU) considers them the same beast.Drew2longC (talk) 22:31, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

That they are separate legal entities with different administrative policies and educational offerings is a matter of public record. I'm just saying: how do we handle this as editors? --Ibinthinkin (talk) 18:01, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Didn't DeMille become president in 1999, three years before CRBU went defunct and control of GW was transferred? --TrustTruth (talk) 19:13, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

In this case it might be helpful to check the web archive to see what it said in 1999:

http://web.archive.org/web/19991128085158/http://gwc.edu/

Trms (talk) 20:32, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Ibinthinkin, the school itself says it had a 15-year history as of 2006. That's still the official history. (see [13]) A change in control does not necessarily a new school make. Look at Harvard, in the example I just added about funding. It shifted from public to private control in the 1800s, but no one is arguing that 1636 isn't still the founding date. --TrustTruth (talk) 14:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

You're punching at a straw man. I'm not suggesting a revisionist version here. You seem to be trying to attribute some sort of authority to me. I'm not speaking "for" the school. I'm speaking for the article, as an interested editor. I'm struggling because nobody seems to be addressing the question on its face. Is it relevant that as time passed the school became more and more established in its forms, policies and offerings? Would a punctuated, progressive accounting of how the school evolved be a more accurate relating of the founding and establishment? Because the way the article has told the story, the way the editors have chosen their sources and the way they have cited those sources has been convenient for a particular point of view--that the school awarded degrees that it should not have. Are cached CV's or websites referring to a person by name, with some reference to their education (not being either the school or the person themselves making the claim of their relationship) typically considered reliable sources for a WP article? Do articles on other institutions of higher learning typically include such sources? Why or why not? Are you saying that degree "x" was illegally awarded? If not, what was your point exactly? This article has been one long and aggravating body-of-evidence assertion that GW is not a "real" university, to quote one of our editors. So please, let's just take it on. Let's call a spade a spade. The question is:

This is an interesting question. The old GWC curriculum was more universal (multiple majors and degrees) than the current GWU offerings. On the other hand, I think that GWU functions as a "university" in the sense that it is trying to deliver a "universal" curriculum in the discipline of statesmanship to the individuals who attend. I am by no means saying that its present status or course / major offerings are as effectively configured as those at long-established universities like the Ivy League schools---all of which started as colleges and then transitioned over time to become universities.

One key difference is that GW has always granted graduate degrees, whereas a school like Harvard didn't start doing so until it had been around for 150 years, at which time people started to call it a university. GW's name change is puzzling in this regard, in fact. --TrustTruth (talk) 23:17, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

True, but different times breed different responses. Normal College (ancestor to Duke University, established 1851) began offering degrees after only a year or two based on the standards of the day. In the 21st century, institutions that dispense higher education (whether accredited or not) dispense degrees as a matter of course, because everyone else does it. --Drew2longC (talk) 02:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Diploma Mill or Original Research?

Is GWU a diploma mill? If it is, who says so, and how can we cite them here? If it is not, then the emphasis on a point of view that is neither generally acknowledged nor reliably cited is out of place. You can find, in any single school's history, evidence of alums that either reflect credit or disrepute on the school. You can find, in any school's history, anecdotes of people who were raving fans and people who had an axe to grind. Should we create a new template for articles that dedicate themselves to these topics? Perhaps. But this is not that template, not that article.

The original research that has characterized the approach to this article, and the care with which controversial material has been included (or material with the design of making the school seem flaky--are we SERIOUSLY arguing about Comanity still?) is just so tiresome and out of place. This article should NOT be the forum for investigative journalism. If such responsible sources already exist as make serious accusations about the school and its practices, they should be cited here, as should the school's official response to the accusations by a reliable source. But for Wikipedia to be the publisher of original research into the alleged unethical practices of a school that presumably already answers to its marketplace and the regulatory bodies which permit it to operate is a crime of irony.

There's no scandal here. GW is what it says it is, it does what it says it does. It is an unaccredited school which advertises an educational offering and accepts tuition money from students in exchange for instruction and certification of completion of coursework. Period. End of story. It has a history, and the notable aspects of that history, both the flattering and unflattering ones, are worthy of mention in this article. But the dogmatism with which this article has been edited (on both sides of the aisle of opinion) approaches religious zeal. Can we just stick to the facts and make this article as high a quality as the reference to reliable sources affords? Where there is a lack of clarity on a detail, this is not a call to arms. It is a vacancy of information. And whether or not a particular editor considers the vacancy significant is not justification for original research. An encyclopedic article is limited to, "Information on "x" is not available", at the very most; likely a more standard approach is to leave the reference out entirely. WP is what it is, and we can write a reasonably good-quality article based on the available reliable sources. If the resulting article is a travesty against reason and justice that is too great a burden for some editors to bear, there is a whole world of other options for self-expression that do not answer to the same constraints as does this encyclopedia.

As for the crime of irony: the misrepresentation is not in GW's practices, but in those of the editors who have set out to make this "encyclopedic" article, in express violation of WP's mission and policies, a unilateral call-out to GWU. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 12:37, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree with everything you've said here. It is obvious that there is huge bias happening and, with little or no citing, things are being changed and added that can only be for the purpose of giving GWU a bad reputation. I also call on the Editors: please check for accuracy and bias in this article. Please check the history for edits that have been done without discussion. --Truecolors (talk) 18:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Quick question as a newbie (2 days). I have made minor edits to the text entry, and then noted them here in the discussion so that people could look at them and comment. No disrespect to the collective was intended by not discussing them up front. For future reference, is there a "behind the scenes" template that can be edited, or a "Track Changes" version, or does one just copy the original entry into the discussion page and revise it there? Thanks. --Drew2longC (talk) 22:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to the discussion, Drew2longC. Actually the edits should be discussed here first and then done. But I am fine with the edits you made. All the changes can be seen in the history tab. If anyone else has a problem with the changes, let us know.--Truecolors (talk) 02:38, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Recent edits

User:Truecolors has made some recent edits removing the endowment information and modifying the history section to appear more favorable to the school. Let's discuss these edits here before running into the WP:3RR rule. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:20, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I only put back what you changed without any discussion on your part. I didn't modify; I only undid your changes. Please don't accuse me of what you did. Don't discuss making one change and then really make several. That's dishonest. --Truecolors (talk) 17:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I added endowment info, corrected DeMille's history, and added Doughty as a founder. Let's discuss which things you disagree with and maybe we can reach a consensus here. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:28, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

All anyone has to do is look at the history to see that this is only a small part of the changes you made without discussing them first. I think the honest thing to do is for you to undo all the changes you made and discuss them first. So let's see how honest you are. --Truecolors (talk) 17:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Let's discuss the issues at hand please, and try to avoid personal attacks. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:39, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The issue is that you need to undo your changes until they have been discussed. --Truecolors (talk) 17:43, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Steady, boys. Let's assume good faith.

TT: I have comments of my own on your edits. You couldn't have made my previous point any better. To cite an article that is several years old as a source to declare that the school presently has no endowment...first of all, it's not good journalism, and secondly, if there is no information, we simply don't enter any keystrokes in an open field. As it happens, the article in question expressly has a disclaimer on the phrase "no endowment", implying that there actually was an endowment at the time. The reader is led to believe that the author is suggesting that the endowment is not nearly as large as he would have liked, or felt was needed; no further comment on the size or amount is given. To go to the effort of type in -$- -0-, especially when you've actually cited one source that says there was an endowment, and another that does not comment on the endowment, really makes it difficult to take you seriously any more. I just listed, point by point, a whole bunch of ideas for improving the article, and your response is -$- -0-, with two misleading citations?

I again suggest that we check every citation to for its quality and accuracy. There have been enough problems on this front to merit a thorough review.

Editors: Will you please consider my suggestions above and comment on them as you see fit? --Ibinthinkin (talk) 17:46, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That's why I added the second citation, to DeMille's article, published less than two weeks ago, which explicitly states "We have no endowment to turn to for help". What's the big deal about having no endowment? It's a fact, it's a standard data point for university articles, let's include it. I don't understand the controversy. Both references say no endowment: no endowment in 2005, no endowment as of 4/10/09. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:52, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I just did a search of DeMille's article and I can't find that quote anywhere. I followed your link and searched for the quote as well as just the word endowment. I couldn't find it.--Truecolors (talk) 18:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

My bad -- this is the correct link: http://www.tjedonline.com/olivers-update.php?id=10. Also, the article is dated 2/12/09, not 4/1/09. --TrustTruth (talk) 18:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Then the endowment space should be left blank just as Ibinthinkin said. If there was no mascot, it's not encyclopedic to write none or "0" but it is just left blank. --Truecolors (talk) 19:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

No, we include the fact that there is no endowment. This is notable, and has an impact on the school's operations, as DeMille himself acknowledges. Lack of a mascot is ancillary. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

No, we acknowledge that we don't know what the endowment is and leave the field blank. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 20:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

We do know what the endowment figure is. It is zero. I have included a referenced statement from Oliver DeMille, a founder and current member of the board of trustees, verifying that the school has no endowment. --TrustTruth (talk) 21:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I thought the rule was that agreement on the discussion page is what gave someone the right to edit the page. Ibinthinkin and I have agreed but no one has agreed with you and yet you are taking it upon yourself to change it with no consensus.--Truecolors (talk) 19:50, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Just on the face of it, I'll engage the discussion as if it were all in good faith. It should go without saying that we cannot use the personal blog of an unpaid board member as a definitive source for rating the school's endowment. If this were an article about Oliver DeMille we could probably use it to comment on Oliver DeMille. But that's as far as we can go with using a blog like this under these circumstances.

But with that having been said, Wow, here I come again, pointing out that the citation doesn't say what the editor says it does. In the context of the article, and using common sense, it is far more likely that DeMille's intent was identical to Brooks', and not to declare that there was a zero balance in the schools' accounts. Anyone reading the article to gather its meaning cannot fail to miss the point. It could easily be argued DeMille is saying is that in these uncertain times the level of endowment could not be relied upon for sustainability of the school's previous business model without adapting to the new reality. Indeed, in the context of the article, DeMille cites encyclopedically a dozen or so sources that indicate that across the nation, endowments are falling in value and schools are suspending operations due to financial distress.

AND AGAIN: Why are we still grappling with minutia in an attempt to portray the school as flaky and unethical, rather than addressing the question of the the quality of the article. Please consider my recommendations, or make some new ones of your own, that might elevate the quality of this article from "C".

I do not see how we can continue with this process unless we come to a consensus on our agenda. Are we trying to create a concise, informative article based on reliable sources, or are we trying to prove that GWU is not a "real" university?--Ibinthinkin (talk) 20:11, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Please remove the endowment figure and the unacceptable citations.--Ibinthinkin (talk) 20:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I am in complete agreement with Ibinthinkin. It's time to follow the rules Wikipedia has set up.--Truecolors (talk) 20:53, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You haven't given a good reason not to include it. The endowment figure is standard across Wikipedia university articles. Sorry, but if you want this to be treated like a "real university" you're going to have to accept the good with the bad, not cherry-pick what reflects best on your school. Saying the school has no endowment is not the same as saying it has no money in its accounts. An endowment is different from operating funds. No one is saying the school has no money. --TrustTruth (talk) 20:59, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Here's a good reason: We don't have a reliable source to tell us what the school's endowment is. No information, no comment.--Ibinthinkin (talk) 21:13, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

We do have a reliable source: Oliver DeMille. "We have no endowment to turn to for help." He said this on his own website (http://www.tjedonline.com/olivers-update.php?id=10), as well as in the George Wythe University newsletter, The Statesman (http://newsletter.gw.edu/archive/FeaturedArticle/117), which is published by George Wythe University and available on its website. I'm sorry, but this is a reliable source. --TrustTruth (talk) 21:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey, slow down. I'm not objecting to the information just for the sake of objecting; I'm saying we can't say it without a source, and that the sources provided are not acceptable--one, because it doesn't say what you say it said, and the other, because it is a personal blog, and that isn't an appropriate citation for the information in question.

Your emphatic defense of DeMille's reliability is sort of creepy, in my opinion. The irony is almost too great for me to bear. With great regularity we have seen the manipulation and misrepresentation of these same sources at the editor's convenience and the neglect of them at GWU's inconvenience. You are right and ready to take note of this little detail that Brooks or DeMille said, and energetically declare DeMille to be a reliable source; and then you show a robust skepticism and recur to original research when these same sources do not make your point. We will undoubtedly return to this again.

But returning to the point of the endowment: this is the first you've mentioned the newsletter article, and I would agree that the GWU newsletter is a reliable source. Does anybody else have any concerns over using this comment from the official newsletter of the university as a source of $0 endowment? --Ibinthinkin (talk) 21:52, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I would still say it's reliable if it came only from DeMille's website. You may have noticed that as soon as I found DeMille recounting his history in his own words (http://www.tjedonline.com/olivers-update.php?id=6), I went straight to the Oliver DeMille article and made changes based on the new information. His comments did not seem unduly self-serving. This is my guidance: WP:SELFPUB. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

My point isn't whether or not DeMille is a reliable person or whether he tells the truth in his blog; my point is that a personal blog is not considered a reliable source except under very specific circumstances, i.e. the blog is the personal blog of a subject of article and the information cited therefrom is that same persons comments on himself, or, the blogger is a recognized as an impartial authority on the subject of the stature of a media outlet. At the end of the day, the point is not whether you agree with DeMille, but whether you may include the information based on his blog alone. --12:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I still have two concerns about the endowment and don't think it ought to be left on. First of all, BYU and St. Johns don't list any endowment. In fact, all the schools I checked either said endowment and had an amount of money or didn't say anything. Secondly, you have misrepresented the quote from DeMille. It says, "We have no endowment. . . ." It doesn't say they have an endowment of zero dollars which is what you are representing. This is completely different. If you are going to continue to include endowment then you need to prove that they have an endowment and that it's worth zero dollars. So far you have only proved that DeMille says they have no endowment at all. That is completely different. Your original research here isn't correct.

Also, you are doing the same thing where you have changed it to read, "Jefferson reading the law with Wythe." In Brooks' history where this history supposedly came from, there is a citation from Skousen's book Making of America. DeMille got his knowledge of Jefferson's education from this book which says, "He studied not only law, but also languages, physics, agriculture, mathematics, philosophy, chemistry, anatomy, zoology, botany, religion, politics, history, literature, rhetoric, and virtually every other subject imaginable." When you changed it to "Jefferson reading the law," you are literally trying to change the history to your own interpretation. We all know this is not acceptable on Wikipedia. This needs to be changed back as well.--Truecolors (talk) 00:20, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

reason to delink, not to remove the section. I restored it without the link.DGG (talk) 18:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

On second thought regarding the endowment: the school has noted in various places that they own $1mil in land, and I have heard of this referred to as an endowment. I think we need to triangulate sources to get a clear picture of what the school's official declaration of their endowment is. I return to my previous comment that in the context of the newsletter article, DeMille's comments do not appear to constitute a clear declaration of a dollar amount of the school's endowment, but a suggestion that the existing endowment cannot be relied upon to sustain the school in the changing economy without adaptations to the business model and outreach of the program. The context renders the language to be sufficiently vague. I think, on reflection we would not be using a newsletter article to establish a dollar amount for the endowment for any other school, and should hold ourselves to the same standard in the treatment of this article. In my mind, the only reliable source for reporting on the endowment would be an official declaration from the school that had as its intent to declare the dollar amount of the endowment. Anything less on the subject, (unless possibly repeated by several different principals of the school under different circumstances and in reliable forms--not just the one article by DeMille, with context that makes his intent to place a dollar value on the endowment unlikely) is just prose and commentary. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 12:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

We're splitting hairs. An endowment by its nature is income-producing. If they own $1 million in land, that may be an asset for the school, but not necessarily an endowment. I'd be interested to see the statement you're referring to. I thought they were going to build a campus on that land? The only verifiable thing I have to go on is Brooks's 2005 statement, and DeMille's (explicit) reaffirmation from earlier this year that there is "no endowment". --TrustTruth (talk) 17:24, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not splitting hairs one bit. And as for an endowment being income-producing: please note Oliver DeMille's article "The Tuition Bubble Has Hit", which you refer to for the quote on the endowment. Endowments are SUPPOSED to be income producing, as we suppose. But GWU's endowment is in the same boat as everyone else's: not faring well in the current economy. The GWU land was set apart with a campus of less than 50 acres, if I'm not mistaken, with the rest being ear-marked for income-generating purposes. Sort of endowment-like, if you think about it.

But back to the discussion of splitting hairs: I'm saying that any source that conveniently refers to the schools endowment is not necessarily an authoritative declaration of the value of the endowment, no matter where it came from. Unless it is demonstrable that the statement was intended to be a declaration of the endowment's value, it is not a reliable source for use for the purpose of establishing the value of the endowment. For you to contend that "it could be understood as such" is a discussion of semantics, not of reliable sources.

I stand by my previous statement: "in the context of the newsletter article, DeMille's comments do not appear to constitute a clear declaration of a dollar amount of the school's endowment, but a suggestion that the existing endowment cannot be relied upon to sustain the school in the changing economy without adaptations to the business model and outreach of the program. The context renders the language to be sufficiently vague. I think, on reflection we would not be using a newsletter article to establish a dollar amount for the endowment for any other school, and should hold ourselves to the same standard in the treatment of this article. In my mind, the only reliable source for reporting on the endowment would be an official declaration from the school that had as its intent to declare the dollar amount of the endowment. Anything less on the subject, (unless possibly repeated by several different principals of the school under different circumstances and in reliable forms--not just the one article by DeMille, with context that makes his intent to place a dollar value on the endowment unlikely) is just prose and commentary." I move that until we have a more reliable source with a dollar amount, the reference to an endowment be removed.--Ibinthinkin (talk) 00:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

It's common knowledge that Jefferson read law in Wythe's office / home for several years. That's the thrust of what he was doing. They discussed many other things as well, but when all is said and done, he was there to read law, regardless of Skousen's book. DeMille read in Skousen's book about Jefferson reading law with George Wythe. What's the problem here? If anything it is more accurate than what was there before. --TrustTruth (talk) 05:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

This part of the article is supposed to be about the accuracy of the history of GWU--what inspired them to begin GWU. DeMille believed Jefferson did much more than study law with Wythe. The Making of America talked about much more than studying law and that's what he read and that's what he said inspired him. All that this is about is what Oliver DeMille says inspired him. I believe it's important to portray the history of GWU accurately and the way it is now doesn't. So maybe we need to have a discussion about that. For this page which is supposed to explain why DeMille did what he did, is it more important to explain his belief of Jefferson's studies or someone else's? I believe all the changes made yesterday need to be justified here first and consensus needs to be made here before the status quo is changed. The burden of proof is on you for wanting the change.--Truecolors (talk) 16:33, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I still don't understand what is wrong with saying he was reading law with Wythe, because that is what he was doing. I'm not opposed to mentioning that they discussed a broad range of topics above and beyond law, but when all is said and done Jefferson was there for training in law. I don't think this article should contradict the George Wythe or Thomas Jefferson articles. We need to be clear that Jefferson was reading the law. Since we're talking about clarifying what he was doing with Wythe, it may be appropriate to mention that Jefferson had already completed his degree at the College of William and Mary by this time. --TrustTruth (talk) 17:20, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

But we're not talking about clarifying what he was doing with George Wythe. We are talking about what DeMille read and understood about what Jefferson was doing with George Wythe. This isn't the page to decide what really happened between Wythe and Jefferson; that belongs on their own pages. This page is for the reader to correctly understand GWU and its founding. --Truecolors (talk) 18:59, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

DeMille was talking about Jefferson's time reading the law with George Wythe. The two continued to correspond through the years, but the the thrust of what DeMille wanted to replicate was the time Jefferson spent reading the law. If we leave it as is, "the account of Jefferson’s tutelage under Wythe", it is not clear that DeMille is talking about this time in Jefferson's life. It is much more clear and specific to say something like "the account of Jefferson reading the law under Wythe". Seriously, I don't see what the problem is here. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

That's not what is in GWU's history. It's not our role as editors to interpret what DeMille was talking about. If you don't see a problem here then let's just leave it the way it is. Others do see a problem with narrowing the wording. --Truecolors (talk) 19:35, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Read pages 5 - 7 of the history. It's pretty clear this is what DeMille is talking about. --TrustTruth (talk) 19:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Here is the quote directly from the history (page 6): "He [meaning Jefferson] studied not only the law, but also languages, physics, agriculture, mathematics, philosophy, chemistry, anatomy, zoology, botany, religion, politics, history, literature, rhetoric, and virtually every other subject imaginable—always recording quotations and observations in his personal notebooks." To me that sounds like a lot more than law. Today, we would never include all of this in law school. This is what DeMille read about Jefferson's time with George Wythe and what DeMille himself wanted. It might be clear to you that all he did was study law but it wasn't clear to DeMille and that's who we're talking about here. Like I said before, I'm pretty sure it's not our job to interpret what DeMille meant.--Truecolors (talk) 20:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I never said that's all he studied, I said these things occurred during the period of Jefferson's life that he was reading law with Wythe. It is essential to include "reading the law" to make clear which period of Jefferson's life DeMille is referring to here: "I was particularly moved by his association with George Wythe, which he considered both foundational and pivotal in his young life" (Brooks, p. 5). Notice that Skousen also makes clear the Jefferson was there to study law, but got more than just law out of it: "It was the greatest stroke of good fortune that Thomas Jefferson had the opportunity to be accepted by George Wythe as a protégé for the study of law. The two got along famously. Wythe thought a well trained lawyer should know just about everything and Thomas Jefferson had the appetite for it." I repeat, I don't understand why this is such a big deal. --TrustTruth (talk) 20:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Changing the wording to "Jefferson studied the law" makes it sound like that's all he studied. Saying "Jefferson’s tutelage under Wythe" is much more all inclusive and would include studying the law as well as all the other subjects. However, if you think it important to specifically mention his study of the law then perhaps it needs to say both. Here's an idea, "DeMille's inspiration for such an establishment resulted from his own desire for this kind of education after reading the account of Jefferson’s tutelage under Wythe, including his study of the law, in W. Cleon Skousen’s book, The Making of America, and DeMille’s subsequent relationship with Skousen as his own mentor.[7]" I understand why you might not think it a big deal but to DeMille it obviously was and the article is about his inspiration, not someone else's. So, as I said before, if you don't think it's a big deal, then let's leave it the way it is. But please don't make changes without discussing them first just because you don't think they're a big deal. Every change, big or not needs to be discussed. --Truecolors (talk) 22:09, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

You're missing the point. The critical piece of information to convey is the time period of Jefferson's life DeMille is referring to. Wythe was a life-long mentor to DeMille. But the part DeMille wanted to replicate at the time was the period in which Jefferson read the law under Wythe -- those five years are what DeMille is specifically referring to. I'm not trying to make clear that Jefferson studied law with GW; I'm trying to make clear when Jefferson had his "intense mentoring" experience with him. The crucial thing is that this happened while he was reading the law. Feel free to add something to indicate that he also discussed other subjects, but I think it helps the article's clarity by saying "reading law" and linking to the article about people reading the law. --TrustTruth (talk) 22:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know that I agree with your point: I don't know that it's that critical. But if you don't like my idea for a revision then please offer your own here so it can be discussed. Perhaps the dates can be included or Jefferson's age if that would help with the time period. But that "intense mentoring" idea needs to stay there. He did more than study law and I believe that is an important point that was lost with your edit. So again, please offer any suggestions but here for us to discuss.--Truecolors (talk) 22:30, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

"DeMille's inspiration for the school resulted from his own desire for this kind of education after learning about Jefferson reading the law under Wythe in W. Cleon Skousen’s The Making of America. In addition to law, Wythe and Jefferson together read all sorts of other material, from English literary works, to political philosophy, to the ancient classics.

Note that I'm partially ripping off the George Wythe article. --TrustTruth (talk) 23:26, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

A financial endowment is an indicator of the resources and longevity of an institution. The two sources listed are reliable, stating that GWC has no endowment. The information is standard to include in the university infobox and should be elaborated upon in the body of the article. However, I would suggest the infobox line read "None" rather than "$0", since $0 would indicate that there are no funds in an existing endowment fund, and I believe the sources state that no endowment has ever existed for GWU. (As an aside, editors would do well to review WP:CONSENSUS, as 2:1 is not a consensus. Also, when trying to establish precedent, one should refer to Wikipedia's best articles [in this case Wikipedia:FA#Education], which the articles for BYU and St. Johns are not. All University FAs list endowments.) —Eustress ^talk 01:16, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

You're right, Eustress, 2-1 is not a consensus but 1 for sure isn't. But I do appreciate your help with Wikipedia's best articles. Thank you.--Truecolors (talk) 01:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:What is consensus? for more guidance on the subjective (and sticky) topic that is consensus. --TrustTruth (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Eustress: which two sources are you saying are reliable?--Ibinthinkin (talk) 12:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Leadership Education Uganda

The heading "Other Programs" should make note of Leadership Education Uganda. Information on this program is found here: http://newsletter.gw.edu/archive/Submissions/69 and here: http://newsletter.gw.edu/archive/FeaturedArticle/92 and here: http://newsletter.gw.edu/archive/PhotoGalleries/94--Ibinthinkin (talk) 07:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Also of note are the education conferences that GW has hosted for years: http://newsletter.gw.edu/archive/CampusNews/106, http://newsletter.gw.edu/archive/CampusNews/90. These conferences are for continuing adult education and for facilitation of Leadership Education among public, charter, private and home educators, including the facilitation of the Five Pillars Certification Oral Exams.

Also of note are the bi-annual European excursions with required readings: http://www.gw.edu/seminars/24.php.

The China Project which utilizes GW students as teachers deserves mention.

The U.N. projects in New York, Istanbul and Geneva are worthy of mention.

The Constitutional Convention simulations for students and college-bound youth are worthy of mention.

The Rotaract program chartered through GWU, and the resulting philanthropic projects deserve mention.

Certainly there are others; but to claim to be a college of statesmanship with a peculiar definition of the word seems to demand that the school must have some evidence of projects that reflect their declared purpose of blending entrepreneurship, scholarship, service and leadership. Such projects are relevant and notable, and should be mentioned in the article.--Ibinthinkin (talk) 07:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

This type of info would be fine to include if you could support it with reliable sources; i.e., reliable third-party publications. If GWU is the only site that talks about these programs then they are probably not notable enough to include here. 99.156.92.12 (talk) 12:57, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

My head's a little spinning, here. The newsletter is a reliable source for everything but describing the educational and service programs (complete with photos of students teaching in Africa)? We can talk about the endowment being -0- from an aside in a newsletter article; we can blow a fundraising opportunity into a full-blown financial aid program, and we're supposed to ignore the report of the school's educational offerings? This seems to me to be the one legitimate use of the newsletter that has been proposed here.--Ibinthinkin (talk) 19:27, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with that. If we can't use the newsletter for this, it shouldn't be used for the others either. Let's stay the same on how things are sourced. It would look much more professional.--Truecolors (talk) 23:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I think these types of programs that Ibinthinkin mentioned fit much better than Comanity and WeSquared. The only response I got to my question of removing Comanity to a sentence under tuition and financial aid was Ibinthinkin who was fine with it. If no one else has anything to say, then I can move it. I believe WeSquared belongs there too. And then if anyone can find third party sources on those programs Ibinthinkin wrote about, by all means let's include those.--Truecolors (talk) 18:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

No, True, I stand by my previous assertion that these elements are not endemic. It appears that Comanity was an opportunity for students to work at a company that would in turn donate proceeds to the school, but it doesn't seem to be in operation anymore. This one at least should be removed, and probably WeSquared as well. WP is careful to not promote private businesses here, which these both are. I have no objection to the arrangement they apparently had with GWU, but I don't think it merits mention in the article. It is one thing for the school to point out to its newsletter subscribers that a particular business has plans to donate to the college; this is a far cry from being a fundamental program of the school. Both Comanity and WeSquared should be removed. They are private, for-profit businesses which served neither an academic nor administrative function on behalf of the school, and should not receive promotional consideration from this article. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 19:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

removed original research

I removed the section of the article referring to the various degrees allegedly awarded during the early years. There was no comment on my previous two attempts to engage other editors in a discussion of this proposed change, and I will nonetheless explain myself again here. The sources on these "degrees" were either dead or unreliable. There is a reason why we don't cite any old webpage or bio as a reliable source on Wikipedia. Think this through: if I put up a bio on my website that said I was awarded a degree from GWU in 2001 as a certified Horse Whisperer, should we cite that, too? What if Joe the Harvard Hater published a CV on some nazi website that declared himself to be a notable graduate of Harvard, just to be mischievous? Should that be noted in the list of Harvard's notable alumni? I'm not here to say that GW never awarded any degrees besides the ones they now offer. I'm saying, absolutely, that there are guidelines on what we can cite here, and the reasons for it are very good ones that we ignore at our peril. We simply can't use OR--especially when the reasons are compelling. That is a sure sign that it's controversial and disputed. So, friends, I have stopped trying to talk about it to nobody-there, and have simply made the edit that was needed.--Ibinthinkin (talk) 08:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I restored information about the degrees GWU used to offer, which seems pretty well supported by several reliable sources (some are even from GWU.edu!). If there are issues with individual sources, please mark and date them accordingly with templates like {{or}} or {{verify credibility}} (see Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles for a list of tags). 99.156.92.12 (talk) 12:47, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for that, 99. Feels like I'm in "Get Smart", LOL. I'm still learning about the tags and what-not here, and that's a perfect solution for the time being. Here's the deal: how do we verify that a degree was awarded? What is verifiable citation and what is OR?

Citation number 14 is interesting, and frankly reflects positively on the school (Alumna alert--she could be added to the list of notables if her status is verifiable). Citations 15 and 16 are dead links; 17 is a personal website of a gentleman soliciting for business, 18 shows that a degree was advertised in a GW catalog but we have no basis to claim such a degree was ever awarded, 19 is a gentleman's personal website about his achievements (quite a colorful character it would seem, and again, a candidate to include in the alums section if his claim is verifiable), 20 is a dead link, 21 is same as 18, 22 is a court record referring to the testimony of a woman, which the record shows was thrown out because the court did not consider her reliable. So I find that 18 and 21 are reliable, but only refer to degrees offered, not degrees awarded.

But to the point of verifiability: does a claim by the person or a bio about them constitute a reliable source? This seems to me to be a sticky point, and an OR trap. I think for reason and encyclopedic content to prevail we should recur to the school's historic and present publications regarding what degrees were offered, as to my knowledge no authoritative, exhaustive list exists that documents what degrees were awarded. Probably the college should publish alums, or degrees awarded or something, wouldn't you think? But such a source is currently not available to us, and the article should not aspire to being that source. The fact is, we do not have a reliable source (to my knowledge) that lists alums/grads/degrees awarded. Language referring to the fact that degrees were offered in a variety of areas prior to 2002, and language enumerating the changes in these offerings as they occurred would be appropriate, both with verified sources. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 14:22, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Beginnings

I propose that the beginnings section be removed. It is a personal account of Oliver DeMille which is covered quite well in the article dedicated to him. This article reads much more encyclopedically without this section. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 08:56, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The two sentences you are referring to provide a concise explanation of how one of the founders arrived at his decision to start the school. This information is essential to the school's history. 99.156.92.12 (talk) 12:51, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Encyclopedic comment generally restricts itself to the historic events, not the mindset of the personalities associated with them. Such personal details may be appropriate in the biography of the individuals in question, but the birth of the institution should be concisely noted with respect to who, how, when, where. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 14:25, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

This should not be removed. --TrustTruth (talk) 16:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Some of the Featured Articles that Eustress pointed out do talk about what inspired the founders of those institutions when appropriate. I think removing it altogether would sanitize it too much. In the history, DeMille said, "I was particularly moved by his association with George Wythe, which he considered both foundational and pivotal in his young life. Wythe’s methods were unique, and the results were outstanding. I wanted that kind of an education, so I set out to find a school where I could study under a Wythe like Jefferson did." This is the important part.

TrustTruth, You wanted to change it to, "DeMille's inspiration for the school resulted from his own desire for this kind of education after learning about Jefferson reading the law under Wythe in W. Cleon Skousen’s The Making of America. In addition to law, Wythe and Jefferson together read all sorts of other material, from English literary works, to political philosophy, to the ancient classics." From looking at these two quotes, I think the point is not a list of all subjects as much as that Wythe was a mentor that led Jefferson in directions he needed and that inspired him. I really think that it works best just to leave it the way it is for now. --Truecolors (talk) 18:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I plead middle-of-the-night insanity here. No objection to keeping it. Much apologizing to do today. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 19:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Checklinks

Just a heads up that Checklinks indicates that several citation URLs are dead or have connection issues. Interested editors should help to rescue the links with a web archive or to find an alternate source, otherwise the information may be challenged and deleted. —Eustress ^talk 01:49, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

That is SOOO cool. See, that's why we need folks like you around. I had no idea how to do that. Is that something you initiated? I don't understand some of the results, however. Why does it report a problem on the .pdf file? And what is the significance of the redirects? --Ibinthinkin (talk) 12:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Accreditation

I have restored the accreditation section. Please discuss here. --TrustTruth (talk) 16:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I think a compromise might be reached. Maybe something like the next two paragraphs (with my rationale for proposal in the third one)....

GWU applied for accreditation in September 2006[55] to afford its students access to Pell Grants and federally-subsidized student loans, which are not open to students attending unaccredited institutions, as well as to provide better post-graduate education opportunities. The accrediting organization reviewing the GWU application is the American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE), which specializes in accrediting institutes of higher learning with a liberal arts focus. AALE lists the school on the AALE website as an applicant for accreditation[57] and is currently engaged in the review process.[56] The school has said it "anticipates a decision" in the spring of 2009.[55]

According to GWU, acceptance to graduate programs at accredited universities can be difficult for GWU graduates.[58] The school does not offer statistics on how many students with one or more degrees exclusively from GWU have been admitted to graduate programs at other institutions. Two GWU graduates have been admitted to law school at the University of Oklahoma[58] and at Pepperdine University,[59] both with high LSAT scores. A third GWU graduate who attended South Texas College of Law had also obtained a B.A. from Brigham Young University before applying to law school.[60][61]

My rationale: On reflection, I must agree with TT that the information included in the proposed revision is reasonable material for this section, and thus should be retained. However, my proposed rewording, while retaining all the points in the current version, is more NPOV. The fact that two GWU graduates had high LSAT scores certainly implies that GWU does an acceptable or better job of preparing students for law school. That said, the accolades given to the individuals who gain entry to law school also implies that the path to acceptance can be tough. --Drew2longC (talk) 18:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, I prefer it the way it is. We can't cite the reasons they applied for accreditation (if we can then let's add that), so stating that they did it to give students access to grants, etc., doesn't work. Better to state the plain facts: that they applied for accreditation on this date, etc., and accreditation gives students access to federal programs, etc. Just like it's currently written. Other than that I think your wording is probably fine. As far as talking about individual students (the accounts from the GW newsletters), that could certainly be modified. If the accolades given to them imply that the path to acceptance is tough, don't you think it's better to set the appropriate expectation for students -- that it's a tough path to follow -- than to leave that out? My thought is, the more information, the better. If a prospective student is reading the article, and it provides as much information as possible, and the student still decides to go to the school, he or she -- and the school -- will be better off for it. Better to go in with eyes wide open. It's a disservice to prospective students, or to the general reader, to do otherwise. That's what glossy recruitment brochures are for! --TrustTruth (talk) 18:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, you know, I was up in the night (literally) and I think I won't edit at 3am in the future. Things look differently to me at that time of night. I have no objection to keeping it. Thank you all for your patience with my click-happy edits last night, and apparently the article will not be much the worse for wear. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 19:10, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The way I modified it is better. The major reasons to apply for accreditation are those mentioned in line one of revised paragraph one; a reference is not needed for common sense. However, holding that opinion, I have no problem if the revised version I proposed were modified by removing these words from line 1: "to afford its students access to Pell Grants and federally-subsidized student loans, which are not open to students attending unaccredited institutions, as well as to provide better post-graduate education opportunities." Paragraph 2 as revised clearly conveys difficulties in admissions at other programs but with POV closer to NPOV. --Drew2longC (talk) 20:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

TT, giving prospective students an "appropriate expectation" is not the job of Wikipedia. It's job is not to persuade or dissuade but merely to state essential facts in an objective manner. If it's not encyclopedic, it should not be in this article. I am assuming good faith here that this is not really what you meant to say. If so, it shows a strong bias. Let's stick with the pattern of "FA" university articles and make sure that everything in the article is encyclopedic and notable. Comanity and WeSquared needs to go. No "FA" articles talk about how students earn money or contain a list of donors for the university. If we use GWU newsletters for sources anywhere in the article, we can definitely use them to show the other programs Ibinthinkin spoke of that really are part of the school. What's your vote--use GWC newsletters or not? There are quite a few source listings there now from GWU newsletters. --Truecolors (talk) 04:42, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

In fairness to TT, I have no objection to retaining WeSquared and Comanity, given their relationships to GWU. I believe that the mention of the subscription fee for WeSquared is not NPOV; people can assume that information by reading the perfectly proper wording "subscription website" in line one and find the exact fee by going to the WeSquared site (which is given). I believe that the last section of this paragraph is also irrelevant to this article, as it should be mentioned on the WeSquared site. The rest of the WeSquared paragraph seems reasonable. I don't see anything particularly objectionable in the Comanity paragraph. I would suggest adding the word "independent" in front of "fund-raising" and changing the word "organization" to "business" on line two; other educational institutions and businesses do have profit-sharing relationships that are designed to benefit the school and in some cases the student. I see no problem with including newsletter citations as long as both they and their presentation in the article are balanced for NPOV (as is the case for quotes given in references 58-60, if combined with the revised wording for paragraph two of the "Accreditation" paragraph that I suggested above). FYI, I will be unable to weigh in for the next few days. Good luck negotiating till then. --Drew2longC (talk) 05:05, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The citations in the comanity section are dead. There is no longer a wikipedia page for it. I am going to remove it until we can find a source that is current.--Truecolors (talk) 17:36, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

tuition

Seems like the tuition section ought to give the current rate of tuition for bachelors, masters and doctoral programs and call it good. I don't know of another university site that refers to a tuition increase of more than a year past as the encyclopedic info on its tuition. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 18:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

The information you're referring to seems very encyclopedic, and with such a substantial tuition increase (98%!) only 1.5 years ago, I think it'd still be notable enough to cover in this article five years down the road. However, it would be nice to include a snippet about how this partially offsetting "merit scholarship" is merited. —Eustress ^talk 19:07, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

To do

I've added a to-do list at the top of the page for editors who would like to improve the article. —Eustress ^talk 19:30, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Notable Alumni

How could the 2007 miss junior Utah be an alumnus of GW? How did she graduate that fast? Trms (talk) 10:06, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

She isn't a graduate of GWU. The article cited says that she attended a few classes there but plans to study at BYU. I know there are some definitions of alumnus that include those who have attended but not graduated. However, the common definition is a graduate. Should she really be included here if she never graduated?--Truecolors (talk) 23:16, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't see that article. That is right, I checked a dictionary prior to posting that and by some definitions she could be alumnus. I don't think she should be included. Why can't the current administration of the school be counted as alumni? Why not Oliver DeMille himself? Andrew Groft? Shanon Roberts? Anyone have any more suggestions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Trms (talk • contribs) 01:34, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ALUMNI,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Lists_of_people. These two explain who should be included and Sarah Hampton doesn't fit. Therefore Sarah Hampton should be removed. Oliver DeMille and Shanon Brooks used to be included but Eustress removed them with the following justification, "Removed non-notable alumni; i.e., those connected with GW--with such a young school, it's quite self-embellishing to call them notable for being tied to the school." There just aren't any notable alumni yet - it's a young school. So I will go ahead and remove her. Thanks for the input.--Truecolors (talk) 06:47, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Introduction Section

Currently the introduction says: "George Wythe University (GWU) is a private, unaccredited,[4] liberal arts university in Cedar City, Utah. GWU's curriculum is centered on the Great Books of Western Civilization and uses discussion-based classes facilitated by "mentors".

I Think that the school is centered on Thomas Jefferson Education rather than Great Books - on the website of the school isn't TJEd mentioned? Any thoughts on this change? Trms (talk) 12:05, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

http://www.gw.edu/about/ says the following, which seems to be pretty well summarized in the current lead:

"We have revived the principles of leadership education used by George Wythe to train some of the most influential leaders in history. The process is principle-centered, framed on the classics of Western Civilization in literature, history, science, the arts, and philosophy, grounded in a belief in God and natural law, and crowned in the discipline of real-world application under the guidance of a committed mentor."

As a non-alumnus of GWU, I'm not familiar with how much TJEd plays a role in the institution's pedagogy. But if the TJEd template is to remain at the bottom of this article, some kind of direct relationship between TJEd and GWU should be established. —Eustress ^talk 00:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

TJEd was published by GW Press. Not being sarcastic, question in earnest: is that a sufficient connection to justify the link? Ibinthinkin (talk) 20:51, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that would suffice, but like I said, that needs to be explained in the article. A glancing remark would do, as long as it's supported by a RS, of course :) —Eustress ^talk 00:35, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I just updated the fact that the new president is Shane Schulthies (which happened way back in June) and I've noticed a lot of other junk posted in this article that is outdated, irrelevant, and even serving people with an interest in selling books, etc.. I'm reading up on how Wikipedia works, and that seems inappropriate. For example, this endless promotion of TJED and using the GWU Press as an excuse. Fact is, there has been no GWU Press for at least over a year, but that's a red herring anyway because TJED is not even relevant. I have attended GWU classes for a number of semesters and I hear nothing about TJED. This article should not be serving the personal interests of anyone. I'm going to clean up a few things that are clearly out of date and unsubstantiated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Felidae2 (talk • contribs) 19:18, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I think I've updated most of the items that were problems. I can see a few more errors, but need to do a little research first. Felidae2 (talk) 05:58, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I just went in and eliminated the redundancy of saying "unaccredited" twice in the same paragraph. It fit better to keep it in the latter sentence since it had added explanation so I took out the first one. I consider this a minor change but thought I would explain it. I also added "classical" to explain liberal arts better.--Truecolors (talk) 21:06, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

YFA

I removed non-encyclopedic content regarding YFA. The history of YFA can be included, discussed and disputed on its own page. A simple explanation of the program suffices here. For the record, YFA was defunct for ten years when GW took it up. Its location has been: Monticello, 2007-2009; Cedar City, 2005-2006; Mammoth Valley, 2003-2004. Ibinthinkin (talk) 18:20, 6 June 2009 (UTC) Disagree. You called this non-factual in your edit; it is factual and substantiated by the sources. Re-added. Cite your sources on the timeline. --TrustTruth (talk) 01:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Where does the timeline you provided come from in the first place? Here's one detail for you: http://newsletter.gw.edu/archive/CampusNews/72Ibinthinkin (talk) 15:06, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Back to the point: discussion of YFA here should be as respects GW. An internal link to the content of YFA's own article is more appropriate than discussing its history here. Ibinthinkin (talk) 15:10, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

WeSquared.net

I believe this section should be removed. It is a privately-owned business with a claim of intentions to donate to the college. It does not provide any essential services on behalf of the college, and cannot reasonably be called (as it is in the current language) a website of the college. It is a for-profit business operated by "friends" of the college with the apparent intention of profiting from a relationship with the college's marketplace, while providing a means of generating interest in the college. I think it's out of place here, unless we want to include other such businesses. That seems a little strained, and is likely in violation of WP policy of promotion of businesses, products and services... Thoughts? Ibinthinkin (talk) 18:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it adds much value to the article, so I'd be okay with its removal. —Eustress ^talk 23:13, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I would also tend to agree. It is out of place. Any other thoughts?--Truecolors (talk) 23:18, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Accreditation

I am not aware of any statement by the university that it is not seeking accreditation of the graduate programs. However, the current application with AALE is for undergraduate programs, which is specified in the article. We can't prove a negative, and should not comment on the "intent" of the school, or the process of accreditation for graduate programs which may or may not be underway, but undisclosed. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 14:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Expansion

I changed the language from "removal" of Shanon Brooks. To say that a new president was appointed obviates the stepping down of the previous one. Furthermore, "removal" sounds like he got fired, and that's nowhere reflected in the information the University provides. In fact, he remained on the board for months afterward and continues to promote the school in his work in the private sector.

As for the "disappearance" of the chancellor position, this again was worded in a way to somehow reflect that there was a falling out with the individual in question--in this case, Oliver DeMille. DeMille and the University both noted that DeMille's health precluded his continuing in administration. He continues as a board member and as a mentor of graduate students. --Ibinthinkin (talk) 14:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I removed the language regarding the dba filing. The designations for academic institutions (such as "institute," "academy," "college," "university) are carefully defined and regulated. The filing of a dba--while being a necessary administrative detail allowing an entity to conduct business under a particular name--does not grant one authority to use the designation "university" in the state of Utah. Ibinthinkin (talk) 14:37, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Monticello

As stated elsewhere in the article, the plans for expansion include developing from small colleges into multi-college campuses. The strategic plan for Monticello--from the first time it was announced in August 2008 at the groundbreaking--included one small building for classroom space that would later become an administrative hub for multiple college buildings. The "modifications" to the plans for expansion in Monticello are not substantive, but chronological, in nature. That is to say: Monticello was always going to start small and grow strategically to maximize the usage of the land there. The announcements of February 2009 did not specify changes to this plan, but rather indicated that the current economic crisis demanded that the pace be commensurate with sustainable growth.Ibinthinkin (talk) 14:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying the school is still going to build a campus in Monticello? I thought all the land had been foreclosed on. --TrustTruth (talk) 23:26, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Where did you hear that? I know that part of the land is owned outright, and the part that is not has a friendly lender who has much to gain from the success of the project, as compared to sitting on undeveloped land in San Juan County, Utah. I heard very recently that the board was still projecting a building on the site by 2012, and as early as next year. I have never heard anything to the contrary of moving forward with the original plans, although the economic climate made people a little more cautious about it. Do you know something different than this? Ibinthinkin (talk) 14:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

University Seal

Ok, I'm not sure where to put this so I made a new topic. I've noticed that most schools' wikipedia pages display their seal rather than a logo. I found the seal here on this page but I have no idea how to import it here to wikipedia. http://www.gw.edu/ways_to_give/ Maybe someone else will know how to do that. Oh, and sorry for not signing earlier. Felidae2 (talk) 05:55, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Done —Eustress ^talk 19:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)