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Archive 5←Archive 9Archive 10Archive 11

Replacing excessive images with texts

I have decided to replace excessive images with texts and reliable sources in 'Notable people'. The section contained unencyclopedic and excessive gallery of images. Besides, there were no source. The improvement tag was there on the page since October 2018. University of Chicago or Northwestern University or pages on most of the U.S. schools don't have excessive gallery of images in 'Notable people'; they have texts and reliable sources. Replacing images with texts and reliable sources is the right way to move forward. Ber31 (talk) 00:01, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Says you. You're edit warring. There's a lot of diversity of opinion about galleries, and in the end it's a matter of editor discretion on each article. You'll need to convince your fellow editors that the gallery should be removed. I think it's fine. There's almost no one in the world who won't recognize at least some of these faces, so the gallery gives a visceral grasp of the range of prominent people who have attended or otherwise been associated with Harvard. EEng 00:40, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Why is it a gallery of American politicians? If there is a gallery it should be full of the school's most awarded individual's... Nobel laureates Etc...--Moxy 🍁 00:49, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Probably because of some accident of who put the gallery together. Feel free to make it more catholic, and probably as it grows we'll need to come up with some criterial for who to keep and who to drop. We should also remember that there are separate articles on Harvard College and the law school, business school, medical school, and so on, so really there can be galleries in each of those and only a very selective set here. EEng 01:41, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
User:EEng, edit warring has never been my intention. I will not make any further contribution to Harvard University page until some kind of consensus is achieved on this case. My only aim is to improve the page. 'Alumni' contains only images and no texts or reliable sources. Without a reliable source, how can a reader know that FDR had earned an AB from Harvard? Don't you think adding texts and reliable sources will be better for the page? Ber31 (talk) 01:02, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Adding sources to the image captions would be a great contribution (and if the gallery is eliminated the sources can still be used in whatever replaces it) ,and if you really have the spirit of Wikipedia you'll add them, if you know of them, whether or not you're getting your way on the gallery. EEng 01:41, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Instead of adding sources to the image captions, don't you think that adding texts and sources will be even better? Ber31 (talk) 01:54, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
I don't know, because the format of the article remains to be determined. What I do know is that you can add sources now to the article as it is. So if you have sources go ahead and so it. EEng 02:48, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
This was my edit. User:EEng reverted my edit. Other editors can make their own judgement on which version is more preferred. Ber31 (talk) 01:08, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
What you linked was not what I reverted. What I reverted was your elimination of the gallery in favor of text. EEng 05:20, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
I personally do not think there is anything especially problematic about a gallery, though I am open to a text-based version as well. But I strongly believe that such a change should be discussed and vetted, and when it is pushed through, we should have at least rough consensus that it is an improvement over the status quo. I was unconvinced that the version you were pushing through was an improvement, which is why I wanted to prompt this discussion. RedHotPear (talk) 01:44, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
How about having a text-based version with some images? Ber31 (talk) 01:54, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Honestly, what is your preoccupation with a "text-based version"? What you've been pushing is an absolutely horrid block of dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary dreary text, like a phone book. EEng 02:48, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
If we do end up going for a text-based version, it should almost definitely have some images. RedHotPear (talk) 02:00, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
Good point, RedHotPear. 'Alumni' should also have some scientists and mathematicians. Ber31 (talk) 02:06, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

The section on Faculty has a pretty much list-like paragraph. It is not interesting to read. When I look at the alumni sections in, for example, the Yale University and Princeton University articles, I see list-like paragraphs, slightly dressed up, but still not interesting to read. We have a list-like paragraph in the lede about the number of presidents, billionaires, etc. that have graduated from Harvard. It is also not interesting to read, but something similar should be in the alumni section of the article, if only to make the lede and body consistent.

Given all of this, I suggest that we have a single paragraph (or maybe just a sentence or two) emphasizing that notable Harvard alumni have, over the past three and a half centuries, contributed creatively and significantly to society, the arts and sciences, business, and national and international affairs, etc. As for the gallery, I find it interesting to have 20 or 25 or so of the most notable and inspiring alumni, those who have made significant and lasting contributions to society in a variety of ways, be it through leadership, creativity, personal determination, or similar. Attic Salt (talk) 01:47, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Maybe this discussion also has something to do with differences in personalities. Take a look at the User Page of User:EEng. He has a flamboyant User Page. Take a look at my User Page. :)
User:Attic Salt, we shouldn't be talking about making pages "interesting". When we have 'texts based version with reliable sources', we can add many people to 'Alumni'. We can add more details. Currently, it is stuck with roughly 20 images. It will be better when we have 'texts based version with reliable sources', and some images. 'Alumni' shouldn't be gallery-only. Pages of this website shouldn't be like pages on Wikimedia Commons. Ber31 (talk) 01:28, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
If people think we need a list-like paragraphs, like that have at Princeton and Yale, then fine. I just don't think such paragraphs are worth reading. They aren't interesting. On the other hand, a short list or a gallery, not lots of alumni, but the most notable, can, in my opinion, be impressive and thought provoking. Attic Salt (talk) 02:26, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
Strive to make your articles feel like this to the reader.
Yes, but as Ber31 points out, pages shouldn't be interesting. They should be dull as dishwater – the duller the better. Our motto: "It was tedious to write, so it should be tedious to read." EEng 03:00, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
I have never said that pages shouldn't be interesting. We shouldn't compromise on rigour. I do think that paragraphs with plenty of texts and reliable sources are worth reading. Ber31 (talk) 04:02, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
No one's suggesting compromising on rigor. It's been pointed out over and over that you can add sources to the image captions. Now if you have sources then please add them, if you don't then don't, but in either case please put a sock in it with this idea about images somehow being in conflict with sourcing. It's really tiresome. EEng 12:17, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
This discussion is going nowhere. Did I ever suggested that images are in conflict with sourcing? Adding sources to the image captions would look ugly. Look at MIT page ('Notable alumni'). Or Princeton page. Do they have sources on the image captions? We can have a text-based version, with a gallery or some images. Besides, it will be better if you can avoid not so polite idioms such as "put a sock in it". Ber31 (talk) 02:00, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
Did I ever suggested that images are in conflict with sourcing? – Yes, you did, in your very next sentence: Adding sources to the image captions would look ugly. You keep saying "I'm not saying X", then immediately saying X. EEng 05:20, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
What I was saying was we can have a text-based version with sources, plus a gallery or some images. Texts should have sources, and including sources to the image captions would look ugly. Ber31 (talk) 08:45, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
I give up. EEng 10:21, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Preliminary discussion

Before we move on to discuss the format we want, I'd be interested to know whether we can come to consensus on the question of whether articles should be interesting or not interesting. Please indicate your preference below.

  • Interesting because that way things are interesting. EEng 03:04, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Somewhere in the middle If you want to acquire knowledge, you should be learning hard stuff. Most people won't find articles on PDE interesting. However, if you want to understand how the world works, you should have a decent understanding of PDE. For instance, if you really want to understand how heat flows from one system to another, you should know PDE. In this website, we should makes things accessible to general readers. However, we shouldn't compromise on rigour. Ber31 (talk) 03:59, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
    You seem to have posted to the wrong talk page; this is the one for Harvard University, not partial differential equations. But since you bring it up, I do find PDEs interesting, and there's no reason the article on them can't be interesting. I think some bad math teachers and bad math textbooks have lowered your expectations. EEng 12:15, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
    No. I haven't posted in a wrong page. There are many articles out there that are uninteresting to general readers. PDE: I am not talking about you, EEng. I am talking about most people. No, most people don't find advanced topics in mathematics that interesting. Many of them have no chance to master those topics. Ber31 (talk) 01:36, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Instead of sniping at other editors and asking bullshit questions, you could spend your time productively by looking at how the articles about colleges and universities that are featured or A-class handle this. That would give you a good idea of how other editors have handled this in ways that other editors have found exemplary. ElKevbo (talk) 04:30, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
    I've adjusted the indentation to clarify that you're talking to Ber31, not to me (at least I hope that's the case). EEng 12:15, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
    Don't edit my comments ever again: I was replying to you. ElKevbo (talk) 13:39, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
    Calm down. Adjusting indentation is allowed under WP:TPO. Your post was hard at the left margin, which doesn't make sense as a response to anyone here, and I went out of my way to make sure you saw what I did (by both noting it here and pinging you) in case I was mistaken – which it turns out I was, for which I apologize. Since you didn't re-adjust my incorrect adjustment, I've done that now to make it a response to my OP in this subsection, in keeping with your clarification. If that's still somehow wrong please accept my apologies for the second time.
    Back to the point at hand... Do you have some particular articles in mind? EEng 14:21, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
  • LOL I love you EEng. Was laughing so hard at this; you make Wikipedia a good time. I personally think Attic Salt's intermediate solution is worth considering as something that could gain consensus. We would retain a gallery but also add some accompanying text that includes but is not limited to what we already have in the last paragraph of the lead. RedHotPear (talk) 05:03, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
    WE ARE NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE A GOOD TIME. WIKIPEDIA IS SERIOUS BUSINESS AND WE ARE ALL VERY PONDEROUS AND IMPORTANT HERE. STOP HAVING ENJOYING YOURSELF IMMEDIATELY. STOP IT! I SAID STOP! NOW. EEng 12:15, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

This article has an impressive gallery of 25 alumni. I wonder whether or not the following alumni might be included in the gallery, in place of existing names -- my preference is to try to keep the gallery to 25 notable people: Virginia Hall, Mary White Ovington, Margaret Atwood, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau. Opinions? Attic Salt (talk) 04:58, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Strong no on Ovington, lean no on Atwood and Hall. Emerson and Thoreau perhaps, though it would probably be hard to justify including one without also including the other. RedHotPear (talk) 19:20, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
Relative to Elena Kagan and Michelle Obama? Attic Salt (talk) 19:27, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
I do hold that Kagan and Obama are more notable than Ovington, Atwood, and Hall. Kagan is one of four female Supreme Court justices in American history and the only one to have graduated from Harvard (also the first female dean of Harvard Law). Obama is not only the first African-American first lady but also a lasting cultural icon. While it is an extremely rough barometer (but somewhat more objective than just our personal opinions), Obama's page continues to command more views than most of the other alumni on the list, even though she is no longer first lady. RedHotPear (talk) 19:58, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

This page has an unencyclopedic/excessive gallery of images in 'Alumni'. Please check pages University of Chicago or Yale University or Dartmouth College or California Institute of Technology or Rutgers University. They have a text-based version with sources. We should also have a text-based version with sources, plus a gallery or some images. 25 is too much. We shouldn't have more than 10. If people find images so fascinating, they can contribute to Wikimedia Commons. Commons can have a page called 'Harvard alumni' and people can add as many images as they want. Obama is a lasting cultural icon only to liberals. Martin Karplus isn't that well-known. However, his contributions are much more useful than that of Obama. Ber31 (talk) 09:06, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Ber31: The article on the California Institute of Technology, and which you suggest that we check, has an alumni gallery with 23 people. 23. Yes, the CalTech article also has the text-based summary of alumni, which I support, in principle, so long as it is not simply a long list-like bunch of paragraphs. But you say that the Harvard article, with 25 people in its gallery, is "too much". If you think we should only have 10 people in the Harvard gallery, not the 25 that we presently have, and not the 23 that CalTech has, perhaps you can suggest which 10 people should be in such a trimmed-down presentation. Attic Salt (talk) 20:14, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
User:Attic Salt, since you support the text-based summary of alumni, we can reach some sort of consensus. OK, we can have 20-odd images. However, we should have images on notable some scientists, economists and mathematicians. Thanks for adding Paul Samuelson to the gallery.[1] The gallery shouldn't be too US politicians/celebrities/judges-centric. Ber31 (talk) 02:48, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Ber31:With others, I have worked to broaden the gallery to include more than politicians, and to include a diversity of backgrounds and roles. As for scientists, I added Oppenheimer to the gallery. I favor adding Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, even if it makes the gallery larger. What about Charles Sanders Peirce? Attic Salt (talk) 03:32, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
User:Attic Salt, I favor adding either Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Thoreau. Both of them were associated with the transcendentalist movement. Thoreau can be added to the gallery. Can we have 24 images? You can add Thoreau and remove two images. Ber31 (talk) 01:49, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
I think I said earlier (somewhere in the sprawling discussion) that we should bear in mind that there are separate articles on Harvard College, Harvard Medical School, and all the other schools listed at Harvard_University#Governance. Maybe we should attend to the lists/text/galleries at each of those articles, and then worry about a crème de la crème list/gallery here. EEng 04:36, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikimedia Commons has a page called "Alumni of Harvard University".[2] Those who are fascinated by images and galleries and colors should contributed to that page. Ber31 (talk) 09:53, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

How many times are you going to keep saying this over and over? Just wondering. EEng 10:24, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
User:EEng, I am hoping that after repeatedly reading my arguments, you guys can finally understand what I am actually saying. As per Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Image_galleries,
In articles that have several images, they are typically placed individually near the relevant text (see WP:MOSIMAGES). Wikipedia is not an image repository. A gallery is not a tool to shoehorn images into an article, and a gallery consisting of an indiscriminate collection of images of the article subject should generally either be improved in accordance with the below paragraphs or moved to Wikimedia Commons. Generally, a gallery should not be added so long as there is space for images to be effectively presented adjacent to text.
Articles consisting entirely or primarily of galleries are discouraged, as the Commons is intended for such collections of images. One rule of thumb to consider: if, due to its content, such a gallery would only lend itself to a title along the lines of "Gallery" or "Images of [insert article title]", as opposed to a more descriptive title, the gallery should either be revamped or moved to the Commons. Links to Commons categories (or even Commons galleries) can be added to the Wikipedia article using the {{Commons category}}, {{Commons}}, or {{Commons-inline}} templates.
A gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. Just as we seek to ensure that the prose of an article is clear, precise and engaging, galleries should be similarly well-crafted. Gallery images must collectively add to the reader's understanding of the subject without causing unbalance to an article or section within an article while avoiding similar or repetitive images, unless a point of contrast or comparison is being made. Ber31 (talk) 10:37, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
It then goes on to cite Women's suffrage in New Zealand#Gallery as an example of an informative and well-crafted gallery. Do you plan to turn that into text as well? EEng 10:44, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
Women's suffrage in New Zealand#Gallery is an example of an informative and well-crafted gallery. However, when it comes to the alumni section of colleges and universities, we tend to have a text-based version with sources, and a gallery or images (and I am TIRED of repeating that over and over again). Can we finally have a text-based version, with a gallery of about 15 alumni? Ber31 (talk) 11:01, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
Speaking for myself at least, I'm tired of you repeating it over and over again as well. You simply keep saying "text-based version text-based version text-based version text-based version text-based version text-based version" as if it's self-evident, or because some other articles are that way. Since you refuse to give any actual reasons, or even (as would also be valid) to recognize that it's ultimately just an aesthetic judgment or gut judgment, I'm going to stop responding, and I suggest my fellow editors do so as well. EEng 20:57, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
User:EEng, why shouldn't "fellow editors" respond to me? You shouldn't try to create "us-vs-him" mentality. If you don't want to respond to me, you are free to do that. I am following the Wikipedia policy, and I cited Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Image_galleries. Ber31 (talk) 02:48, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
Ber31 Should I be saying that Karplus's contributions are more notable only to chemists? The idea that a person's notability requires majority recognition, let alone majority approval, is simply incorrect. RedHotPear (talk) 15:45, 1 October 2020 (UTC)
User:RedHotPear, the contributions of chemists are useful to humanity. I have never suggested that a person's notability requires majority recognition; I am suggesting the exact opposite. You wrote: Obama is not only the first African-American first lady but also a lasting cultural icon. Being the first African-American first lady is not an achievement (at least according to me). We shouldn't have the image of M. Obama simply because she is more well-know to the general public (in the US) than Karplus. Ber31 (talk) 02:48, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
You wrote that "Obama is a lasting cultural icon only to liberals." I'd note that per the title of the section and Wikipedia content norms, the criterion is "notable alumni," not "alumni deemed by Ber31 to be 'useful.'" RedHotPear (talk) 16:26, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
When did I suggested that only "alumni deemed by me to be useful" should be added to 'Alumni'? I try to persuade other editors. For liberals and progressives, she could be a lasting cultural icon; for others, she could be irrelevant. Ber31 (talk) 01:49, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Content dispute

AMs earned by John Adams and John Quincy Adams were not earned through academic labor. User:EEng reverted my edit.[3]. I was trying to improve the page by adding well-sourced materials. EEng once again reverted my edit.[4] Those reverts by EEng can be considered as Wikipedia:Disruptive editing. Ber31 (talk) 03:25, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

[5] EEng 03:33, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
Let neutral editors decide. Ber31 (talk) 03:36, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
If my edit summary wasn't clear, I should be informed on my Talk Page. Reverting well-sourced materials is deleterious to the encyclopedia, and can demotivate editors from contributing. There has to be consequences for such behavior. Ber31 (talk) 03:44, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
@EEng and Ber31: I was brought here by a request on my talkpage from Ber31. What evidence do you have that they didn't in fact earn those degrees? What do you mean "not earned through academic labour"? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 05:58, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for asking me to clarify. Graduate students had to complete certain number of courses and in some cases, write a master's thesis, to earn the Master of Arts degree from Harvard University. These days, students earn the AM degrees en route to the PhD degrees in most cases at Harvard. When a student completes the AM degree in such ways, the degree is earned through academic labor. John Adams and John Quincy Adams earned ABs from Harvard, and there is no evidence that they were involved in graduate studies at Harvard. Here are some sources:[6][7] Ber31 (talk) 06:38, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
I have taken a half-an-hour break from my regular work to provide further details. During the 18th century, it was common for many Harvard College graduates to attend Harvard's commencement three years after their graduation to present a "master's thesis" and get AM degrees.[8] John Adams and John Quincy Adams didn't earn those AMs by spending a year or more as students at Harvard. Those 18th century Harvard AMs were not like modern-day regular AMs or MAs that are completed through academic labor. To earn a regular master's degree, a student has to complete certain number of university-level graduate courses required by a university and complete a master's thesis (thesis option), or simply complete certain number of university-level graduate courses (non-thesis option). Students can also earn the AM degrees en route to the PhD degrees; these days, most of the AMs earned by the Harvard graduate students are earned in this way. Unlike in the past, Harvard doesn't offer too many stand-alone master's degrees. Those 18th century master's thesis that were presented at Harvard's commencements were not like the modern-day master's thesis. The AMs that were awarded to John Adams and John Quincy Adams were completely different from the AM earned by the likes of Brian Schmidt. Ber31 (talk) 12:01, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Ber31, this is interesting. Looking at the google book reference you provided, I see that the Harvard AM was something of a "rite of passage" in the old days, but that John Adams did, also, show up and defend an argument and, in so doing, satisfy the AM requirement. That is something, perhaps a small amount of "labor" (as you call it), if not the same as taking a year or two of graduate classes. So, the notion of what qualifies as an AM has changed over time. Still, John Adams earned his AM, even if it wasn't that much labor. I suggest that we keep the AM degrees as listed in the gallery, rather than try to parse what is and what is not a "laborious" AM. Attic Salt (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, User:Attic Salt for your insightful and respectful comment. You have made a powerful point: the notion of what qualifies as an AM has changed over time. The AMs received by John Adams and John Quincy Adams will only count as awards or honors today. However, back in those days, those AMs would count as regular AMs. Ber31 (talk) 01:04, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
I've changed the title of this thread from "Disruptive editing by EEng" to "WP:Original research by Ber31". EEng 15:54, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
I've changed the title of this thread to "Content dispute". Let's have a title that is non-offensive to both you and I. Ber31 (talk) 00:54, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Seems a bit late to be getting religion on that point. EEng 06:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
The details on what exactly an AM meant in 1758 shouldn't change John Adams's listing here. He got the degree; that is enough. --Macrakis (talk) 16:07, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
Agree with Macrakis; no reason to apply contemporary standards retrospectively. RedHotPear (talk) 16:58, 3 October 2020 (UTC)
I third it. I'm also concerned that the attempted removal is based on original research. -- Calidum 03:38, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
User:Calidum, let me clarify. OR refers to facts, allegations, and ideas for which no reliable, published sources exist. I used three reliable sources to support my claim. However, Attic Salt's points were the game changer. This case has been resolved. I think we should move on. Ber31 (talk) 01:51, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

There has be a discussion on this revert[9] by EEng. Reverting well-sourced materials is deleterious to the encyclopedia. I would like to thank User:Attic Salt for adding sources to the page.[10] Look at the state of the page after EEng's revert. The information in the lede and "Alumni" are almost the same. Ref [18] = ref [114], ref [19] = ref [114], and ref [20] = ref [116]. This was the state of the page after my contributions. There was no issue with those sources. In "Alumni", there were additional details such as John Adams was the the first vice president of the United States. Ber31 (talk) 01:35, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for adding references. But having sources in your edits does not exempt them from being challenged by other editors! For your own sake (to reduce your frustration), I recommend that you separate out banal "providing sources" edits from controversial "altering content" edits. I prefer the original version of the lead as restored by EEng. RedHotPear (talk) 03:04, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Controversial "altering content" edits? Can you please elaborate? How exactly do you find this controversial? So you prefer the original version of the lead as restored by EEng? Look at the revert carefully. Ref [18] = ref [114], ref [19] = ref [114], and ref [20] = ref [116]. Ber31 (talk) 03:22, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
RedHotPear and EEng are friends. Thus, I can't expect RedHotPear to provide an unbiased argument. It will be worthwhile to see what neutral editors think on this issue. Ber31 (talk) 03:31, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Are you kidding? I despise that nincompoop and I'm sure the feeling is mutual.[FBDB] EEng 04:50, 4 October 2020 (UTC)
Attic Salt has removed those sources.[11] For me, that is enough. Thank you, Attic Salt. EEng, you and I had a bumpy start. Hopefully, we can have a better relationship in the future. RedHotPear, thank you for sharing your thoughts. Dragging this issue further will only result in more chaos. I think we should move on. This case should be considered as closed. Ber31 (talk) 01:51, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Some substantial category cleanup needed

There are many pages for people who graduated from Harvard College but who are categorized under Category:Harvard University alumni rather than Category:Harvard College alumni. Doing some spot checks, there is a substantial amount of recategorization available for any gnomes who feel up to the task. It'd also be good to have some discussion about how to prevent the problem from recurring once the cleanup is completed. Perhaps we'd want to mark Category:Harvard University alumni as a container category with only subcategories for the college and all the graduate schools. (Since this issue applies to lots of universities beyond Harvard, I'll send invites to the higher education wikiproject and categories folks, and I welcome broader discussion.) {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:24, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The obvious issue here is that they are alumni of Harvard University. Your suggestion of having Category:Harvard University alumni as a container category sounds like a good way of addressing this. Robminchin (talk) 03:00, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree that the container categories sounds like a good idea but I defer to those who have more knowledge of the history and organization of this complex university. ElKevbo (talk) 03:23, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
@ElKevbo: I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this as a broader question. Harvard happens to name their undergraduate college, but many other schools (e.g. Tufts University, to choose one example of a gazillion) do not, and most of those don't have a subcategory. I'd think we'd want to address this somehow in the categorization, since having attended a school as an undergraduate vs. a postgraduate is a fundamentally different thing. I'm not sure how to give it a natural name, though. Category:Harvard College alumni works fine but Category:Tufts University School Arts and Sciences undergraduate alumni would be a lot more awkward. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't agree that we need to necessarily categorize graduate and undergraduate alumni separately; it can't hurt but it might be overkill for most institutions that don't make a significant distinction between these groups of people. And I'd be fine with long category titles but I'd also be wary of making distinctions that institutions don't themselves (or others) make e.g., some universities don't distinguish between graduates of particular colleges. ElKevbo (talk) 03:48, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
A couple of points. There are many articles where we either don't know what degree they received from Harvard or what school at Harvard they graduated from as some schools offer the similar degrees. So there would need to be a catch-all category for these situations. Also, if someone received multiple degrees, should we categories list all the individual schools they received a degree from, i.e. Harvard College alumni, Harvard Law School alumni, etc., or just list Harvard University alumni to get them all? Patken4 (talk) 20:05, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
For the articles we don't know, are we allowed to do something like Category:Harvard University alumni (unknown degree)? And if they received multiple degrees, I'd definitely think we'd want to categorize each of them. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:37, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
If you can't assign them more specifically, they should just go in the parent Category:Harvard University alumni. postdlf (talk) 16:17, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The problem is that that'd prevent us from using Category:Harvard University as a container category, and as mentioned above, if we can't do that, cleaning it out won't be a long-term solution because it'd just repopulate with miscategorizations as new articles are created. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 08:26, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Associated centres

@EEng:, isn't there a case for creating a list somewhere of these "zillions" of institutes? Or add them as See alsos? (Also, I didn't add anything else besides the Hutchins Center - only shuffled what was there). I'm not particularly invested in this, so not going to argue the toss, but it just seems a bit odd to have links going only one way, into this article, so just making this observation here. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 02:54, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

List of Harvard University Somethings and Somethings would make perfect sense. The question is what are the Somethings and Somethings. I'm tempted to say Centers and Institutes, but that probably doesn't cover everything (like, what about the Initiatives?). I suspect there's some kind of general, abstract higher-ed term for this kind of thing, and I know just the guy to tell us what that is: ElKevbo (if he's not still mad about that time I mistakenly adjusted his indenting). EEng 06:59, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure what institutes are being discussed. I'm generally not in favor of lists in articles, especially if they're presented without context or explanation, because they seem to rarely tell readers anything more than "this subject has a bunch of these things!" which is obvious and unhelpful in many cases.
Are these mysterious institutes each associated with a particular college or school? Each of those units has its own article so perhaps these institutes should be discussed there instead of this article (with some reasonable exceptions for particularly noteworthy institutes and a few examples to give readers a sense of the scope of these institutes). ElKevbo (talk) 02:44, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
@ElKevbo: and @EEng: - Is it worth having a separate list article? I see the problem with the naming though... "Harvard-affiliated bodies and projects"? Just a way for someone who may be interested in seeing what institutions are affiliated or partnered with the university. (The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research brought me here originally, but as I say I'm not going to bang on about it, having little knowledge of the workings or extent of Harvard and not a frequent contributor to US articles in general. And it might be a waste of time and effort.) Laterthanyouthink (talk) 03:10, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't know if this topic is independently notable which is required of list articles, too. Are there sources that explicitly discuss these institutes as a whole? ElKevbo (talk) 03:33, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
I know about N of course, but there's got to be a way to do this, but this is the first time I've tried to think what it is. We've got List of Harvard University people and List of Harvard College undergraduate organizations and probably a few others. It's can't be that stuffing such info into the main HU or H College articles is the only kosher way to present it. BTW, Template:Harvard_University lists several things that would go in such a list. (Search Center, Institut -- and don't forget Colegio.)
P.S. I'd overlooked until now (sorry) ElK's statement idea about discussing such thingamajigs in the article's on HU's academic units (Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Law School, Med School, etc.). That's a great idea and might solve the problem. EEng 04:39, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Merge discussion from September 2020

There's been a merge discussion at the top of the article as to whether Harvard University Health Services should be merged into this article, and it's apparently been there since September 2020. Discussion seems to have ended four months ago, so I think it's time to either close the discussion and remove the merge template from the top of each article, or it's time to reopen the discussion.

I found the merge discussion here in the archives: Talk:Harvard University/Archive 10#Proposed merge of Harvard University Health Services into Harvard University. I don't have experience closing discussions, so I don't really want to be the one to make the call on how the discussion turned out, but if someone with experience wants to, go right ahead. Here are the instructions, and you don't have to be an admin to close it. palindrome§ǝɯoɹpuᴉןɐd 06:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

"William R. Fitzsimmons" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect William R. Fitzsimmons. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 February 15#William R. Fitzsimmons until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Talk 04:02, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 March 2021

Add budget to Harvard University to the box just below the entry of endowment ie. the following: Wikicontributorone1 (talk) 18:48, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made – did you forget to put something after the "i.e."? Please include the budget and a reliable source. — TGHL ↗ (talk) 19:18, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 May 2021

Remove puffery "and among the most prestigious in the world.[7]" in the leading paragraph. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:College_and_university_article_guideline#Neutral_point_of_view and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipuffery Ghik90 (talk) 14:13, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

This has been extensively discussed here in Talk. Please open a new discussion if you think there may be a new or changed consensus. ElKevbo (talk) 15:31, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
Both of your links point to essays. It can be included (as can almost anything) with proper sourcing. See also WP:HIGHERED REP for an RfC on that matter. 15 (talk) 15:37, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Boosterism

I put the booster tag because this article has many issues with boosterism. Please do not remove until these issues are fixed. KhanzotChinev (talk) 21:19, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

@KhanzotChinev: Please be more specific. ElKevbo (talk) 21:34, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Lonely, lonely men of Harvard. EEng 05:36, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
I will be reinstating the tag. Please do not remove it until you have addressed the boosterism. KhanzotChinev (talk) 22:03, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
Please do not reinstate the tag until you have read WP:HIGHERED REP, looked at the sources for the lead and set out a good argument for why the lead should be changed. 15 (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
I am concerned about the quality of this page. Many weasel words and phrases such as "among the most prestigious in the world." You could say the same about many universities. It is nothing more than boosterism. I don't have time to point out everything. I will be attempting to fix the boosterism but I need all the help I can get. Therefore, we need the tag to remain up. KhanzotChinev (talk) 22:10, 27 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm concerned about the quality of the article as well, but this statement of the universally acknowledged isn't part of the problem. EEng 23:14, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 07:41, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose to merge Harvard Summer School into Harvard University. I think that the content in the Foo article can easily be explained in the context of Bar, and the Bar article is of a reasonable size that the merging of Foo will not cause any problems as far as article size is concerned. Egroeg5 (talk) 23:23, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely not. This is a top-level article that must speak in only the broadest terms (though it does so very spottily and badly as of now). Harvard Extension School would be a more sensible target, since they're both part of the Division of Continuing Education; however, that article has some prickly watchers so expect resistance. EEng 05:27, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for feedback. As it stands, I just think the Summer School article is on the simple side and would make the University article stronger/more detailed. Egroeg5 (talk) 10:55, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
As I said, the University article can't afford to be detailed. EEng 13:14, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Don't merge This makes no sense. The Harvard Summer School is one program among dozens at Harvard. This is an overview article and cannot and should not have details on individual programs. --Macrakis (talk) 14:48, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Support merging one or two sentences into this article. A brief mention of "the first academic summer session established and the oldest summer school present in the United States" seems appropriate in this article. As currently written, the topic doesn't seem notable enough to warrant its own article (but I wouldn't be surprised if there are sufficient sources that can be added to change this). ElKevbo (talk) 15:00, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
That doesn't sound like merging to me. Merging would imply that the existing Harvard Summer School article would disappear, yet, even though it's fairly short, it contains much more information than would be suitable for the main Harvard University article (when it was founded, who the dean is, how many students it enrolls, how long the session lasts, what sort of academic credit it offers, how many courses in how many disciplines it offers, etc.), and there is surely much more that could be added. For example, what proportion of its students are US vs. foreign? The age distribution and whether they're high school students vs. college students? Whether any courses offered on-line? How much it costs and whether it offers financial aid. How much of its faculty is junior Harvard faculty, senior Harvard faculty, faculty from other universities, postdocs, grad students? Does it offer any of the famous Harvard undergrad classes with the famous professors?, etc. etc.
As for adding another phrase or two to the main article, I disagree. Why does the Summer School need "one or two sentences" when the Law and Design schools -- both among the top 5 in their fields -- get precisely two linked words each in the article? --Macrakis (talk) 19:30, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
Oppose merge. The summer school is distinct; joining them would become absorbing it as a minuscule version of the current article. Lindenfall (talk) 21:33, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

I see no support for this proposal other than from the OP. ElKevbo proposes to add a "brief mention", but that's not the same as merging. --Macrakis (talk) 17:09, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

Proposal for lead section to include mention of Cambridge University as "inspiration" for Harvard

EEng claims "well versed in H history" but asks "in what way is Harvard 'shaped in the image of the English university model?'", despite a reptable source stating "If we would know upon what model Harvard College was established, what were the ideals of her founders and the purposes of her first governors, we need seek no further than the University of Cambridge", showing they clearly are not as versed in the History as they pride themselves on. EEng also says "it's to Emmanuel specifically, not Cambridge generally", showing that they also are completely unfamiliar with Oxford and Cambridge and how the collegiate systems work--it is completely common to refer to a Cambridge or Oxford at large despite a movement being primarily located in one of the colleges. This is like saying "well the development of the theory of magnetism occured primarily in the physics department, so you can't attribute that to the entire university". Further EEng is repeatedly being antagonistic, suggesting that they are continually reverting edits based on their ego, instead of objective justifications. They continue to try to move the goalpoast (source not good, then they missunederstand the source not being aware how colleges are often referred to by Cambridge at large, etc) suggesting again that these edits are based on their ego, which has possible been damaged as they personally pride themselves on knowing the history. Their concerns can be addressed here, but given their repeated revelations of their lack of knowledge, they should quit making reverts and instead make adjustments as needed.Granticus31 (talk) 00:49, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't pride myself on my knowledge of Harvard history, but I do know that history fairly well, and am the author of numerous articles in the area.
You've got two experienced editors reverting your addition, so you're going to need make your case for it instead of talking about me. The article's History section already recites that Harvard originally offered "a classic curriculum based on the English university model‍", which is what you seem to be struggling to say in the text you keep trying to force in (along with the grammatically fractured eponymy and so on). More at [12]. EEng 08:01, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
@EEng: @Macrakis: My apologies for being antagonistic and derisive at times; though I was trying to be objective and civil,I admit I might have slipped into a more passive-aggressive approach as well as some more blatant breaches of WP:CIVIL, in part because I'm unfamiliar with the wikipedia MO and became frustrated. I also remind you to follow WP:CIVIL and be respectful towards me as well. I've retitled this section so that it is more productive and less about my frustration with our lack of consensus. Granticus31 (talk) 12:15, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
My main proposal is to include in the lead section some mention of Cambridge University in some way being an inspiration or progenitor (or whatever word we find most suitable) for Harvard University. Firstly, it is very common for university wikipages to have some mention of the founding principles and some sort of nexus with history prior to the said university's founding. For example, UPenn [13] mentions in the 3rd sentence of the article Benjamin Franklin and his founding principles of UPenn. Columbia University also mentions early in the lead section that "Columbia was established by royal charter from George II of Great Britain in reaction to the founding of Princeton College," [14] noting a connection prior to its founding with another university.
Of note, this was edited out [15] by a potential sockpuppet account[16] for no listed reason, by editor Josefaught who has recently edited this page, perhaps in violation of the rules.
I could go through numerous other examples (if in doubt, please specify an integer number of examples that would be satisfactory to prove this point), but it is commonplace to mention the founding principles and/or relationship with a previous institution. Second, I think this connection is particularly strong given that the entire town was also named after the university as well, so mentioning Cambridge Uni seems especially germane as it explains both the location name and university principles. Third, this connection is robustly established in numerous authoritative sources, which establishes this connection unequivocally (again "If we would know upon what model Harvard College was established, what were the ideals of her founders and the purposes of her first governors, we need seek no further than the University of Cambridge"). The objection regarding Emma college as being separate from Cambridge Uni is based on a misapprehension of the OxBridge collegiate system in my opinion, but if anyone wishes to sustain this objection I can elaborate on exactly why, but hopefully this is clear enough without further explanation. There is influence from other universities (Oxford and Paris), but they were not as central as the Cambridge connection. Cambridge had been in operation for over 400 years by this point (longer than Harvard has been in operation to date) and has crucial importance in world history; likewise, Harvard's place in American history is arguably unparalleled and I struggle to think of a university that is more well-known in the world. Therefore, uniting these two pages is tremendously important for the reader, and of course, as in actual history the link between the two is undeniable, inextricable, and crucial. I feel strongly that the page should reflect this historical fact in a manner similar to many other university lead sections. I suggest the sentence "Harvard University is directly modeled after the University of Cambrige, the alma mater of John Harvard." Some mention of colonial leaders (which I of course know that John Harvard was a benefactor, not a "leader" of Harvard) attending Cambridge and/or mentioning that the very town is named after Cambridge Uni could be made in the lead section--though this might need an additional sentence--or could simply be relegated to later sections. Another option is "John Harvard and many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge, which the town was named after and Harvard was modeled upon." I don't see the "grammatically fractured eponymy" but I'm open to hearing an explanation. Granticus31 (talk) 12:15, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
With all of that said, I'd also like to hear reasons against the inclusion of this historical link between Harvard and Cambridge Uni, and will try to address any concerns directly once I know what they are. Granticus31 (talk) 12:15, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for moderating your tone.
Though I live only a short walk from the Statue of the three lies and have two degrees from Harvard, I don't claim to be an expert on the history of the College or the broader University. My contributions to this article have mostly been about keeping it well-balanced, without undue emphasis on any particular aspect of the University -- in particular, the College tends to get overemphasized at the expense of the graduate schools.
The origins and early history of the College are certainly interesting, and are pretty well covered in a rather long section of this article as well as a full article on the History of Harvard University. But this is just one chapter of the University's history.
And I would argue that the main problem with the Colonial section is not that it underemphasizes UCambridge -- in fact, it mentions it quite prominently -- but rather that it underemphasizes the common Puritan roots of Emmanuel College and Harvard and the centrality of Puritanism at Harvard during the 17th century (the second paragraph of the article rather underplays it). See the interesting but hardly definitive Crimson article "Emmanuel and Harvard" (1923). But as I say, I am hardly an expert on the College's history.
In any case, the 17th century background is a small part of the story. Today's Harvard owes little to Puritanism or the Oxbridge college system -- the House system was only instituted in the 1930s and, despite some superficial resemblances, functions very differently from Oxbridge colleges.
So it seems quite clear to me that a mention of UCambridge in the lead would be undue emphasis of one out of many aspects of the University. The only nod in that direction that might make sense is to add the word "Puritan" to the description of John Harvard: "its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard".
--Macrakis (talk) 14:59, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) +1. Also:
  • Emma college as being separate from Cambridge Uni – I said nothing about Emmanuel being separate from Cambridge University. I said Emmanuel College specifically, far more than Cambridge generally, was a Puritan hotbed. That's why John Harvard's plinth has Emmanuel's insignia, not Cambridge's.
  • I don't see the "grammatically fractured eponymy" – And I quote: "John Harvard and many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge and shaped the university in the image of the English university model, which the eponymous town is named after." [17] The eponymous town is not named for the English university model.
As to the issue at hand, it's ultimately just a matter of judgment, and my judgment (and that of at least one other editor) is that the connection to Cambridge isn't important enough for the already overstuffed lead, because there's a lot of important stuff to say about Harvard and it can't all fit there. As already mentioned, the History section already covers this material, and to have the lead -- the first paragraph of the lead -- read
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts that was established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard. John Harvard and many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge, which the town was named after and Harvard was modeled upon. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world.
... is (sorry to repeat this) simply absurd. It sticks out like a sort thumb. (Also, What town?.) If we were going to say anything at all along these lines, it'd be re "dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust".
EEng 06:36, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
P.S. I've added something along those lines, but I'm not wedded to it.

Date of university charter?

When did Harvard College officially become Harvard University? Valetude (talk) 11:06, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Just from memory, the first "official" external reference to Harvard as a university is in the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution [18], which calls it "the University at Cambridge" (though at other times "Harvard College"). But there is (or was, anyway) no master authority which decides which institutions can call themselves, or be called, universities, so I'm not sure there's any clear answer to your question of when Harvard "became" a university (whatever a university is, anyway). EEng 16:42, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
As the lead of the article says, the corporation is still called the "President and Fellows of Harvard College", so Harvard never "officially" became "Harvard University". For example, it is the President and Fellows of Harvard College who pay property taxes for commercial properties in Cambridge, not Harvard University. Similarly, it is the President and Fellows who confer degrees, both undergraduate and graduate (although the diplomas have a heading "Harvard University").
The name has been used since at least 1796 in a semi-official context: Commencement oration, 1796.
--Macrakis (talk) 17:08, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
The word "official" gets thrown around a lot in discussions such as this, but really that word has little meaning. As the Mass Constitution goes to pains to acknowledge (to Harvard College in Cambridge, in New England, or to the president and fellows of Harvard College, or to the said college, by some other description, under several charters successively), an ancient institution goes by a lot of different and evolving names, and while the institution itself takes pains here and there to style itself in certain ways it finds desirable, elsewhere it's all a hodgepodge that no one even thinks of trying to rationalize. Who wants to "fix" a charmingly anachronistic title like "The President and Fellows of Harvard College"? -- in fact, it's a great jumping-off point, on almost any occasion, for talking about Harvard's history, like ACM still being the Association for Computing "Machinery". Nor does it matter, practically or legally; luckily the name Harvard is so unusual that by keeping a stranglehold on the word essentially worldwide, as the school does, means that anything built around that string of letters unambiguously can mean just one thing. EEng 18:48, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
I agree with all you say.
Still, in two very formal contexts -- the City of Cambridge collecting taxes, and Harvard granting degrees -- the name used is "The President and Fellows of Harvard College" and not "Harvard University", so you might consider that a good approximation to an "official" name. On the other hand, court cases seem to use both P&F and HU. --Macrakis (talk) 21:26, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Acceptance rates of legacy and non-legacy students

Hi all

I would like to question the deletion of my recent edit by Edwin Engelbarth; and I would welcome a discussion on the basis of the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle

Edwin's deletion was on the grounds that the information was sourced from "an opinion piece by an undergraduate".

In fact, the data came from a respected peer-reviewed journal, The Journal of Labor Economics, an official publication of the Society of Labor Economists. That in turn was based on public documents from the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University lawsuit.

I quoted The Guardian, the world's third most read newspaper, and could cite others.

In my view, my edit had sufficient notability to warrant inclusion.

I understand that there may be some reluctance on the part of alumni and staff to get to grips with a long-standing issue, the prioritizing of the university's income over fair access. I also sense that the Wikipedia page could benefit from better balance and less hagiography.

I'd welcome your thoughts on this.

Sadgrove (talk) 21:46, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Coupla points:
  • You can quit right now with the reluctance on the part of alumni and staff to get to grips with a long-standing issue bullshit. That's going to get you exactly nowhere. And I'll thank you to address me as Edwin Adams Lowell Kirkland Quincy Winthrop Eliot Englebarth IV, Esquire.
  • We go through this every time someone prints something criticizing, or praising, or analyzing: Harvard's admissions practices in general or admission of blacks or admission of Jews or admission of Asians or admission of legacies or admission of rich kids or admission of poor kids or napalm or nuclear weapons or McCarthyism or Sacco & Vanzetti or ROTC or Vietnam or academic freedom or Gina Grant or the Secret Court of 1920 or the Salem Witch Trials or profits from slavery or Theda Skocpol or diversity on campus or relationship with the surrounding community or environment for LBGTQXYZWABC students and faculty and staff or sexist failure to promote women or sexist preferences for women or favoring of athletes or neglect of athletes or carbon footprint or the sheltering of regicides or the Charity of Edward Hopkins or the gay Plummer Professor of Christian Morals or the Allston land grab or investment practices or South Africa divestment or fossil fuel divestment or unionization or theft of the Sacred Cod or the all-male social clubs or the Gov 1310 cheating scandal the handling of Covid or handling of Ebola or the quality of undergraduate education or the handling of sexual assault allegations or Increase Mather being a crusty old fart. (And those are just a few off the top of my head from the last few years.) Every time something's in the news, someone thinks it urgently needs adding a 400-year-old institution's article already bursting with too many things to say.
  • Your sources are indeed opinion pieces, one from the editorial board of the Harvard undergraduate newspaper and one from a freelance journalist. (The latter's shock head is "Turns out, Harvard students aren’t that smart after all". Now, there's a lot that can be said about how it is that X gets into Harvard College and Y doesn't, but anyone who seriously proposes that "Harvard students aren't all that smart" is making a fool of themselves.) The kind of modeling done in the underlying paper they are relying on (without naming it) is far from cut and dried, and is extremely sensitive to underlying assumptions and selection of variables – methodological issues which your sources are not, to put it charitably, in a position to evaluate critically. And not to put too fine a point on it, but the lead author testified as expert witness for the plaintiffs in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College – who failed to convince the presiding judge.
  • This is a Harvard College matter (i.e. a different article), not Harvard University (this article), and the topic's already covered there – see Harvard_College#Admissions.
For the record, I am neither a legacy, an athlete, nor a faculty/staff/donor offspring; nor have I children to be advantaged by my status as an alumnus. You may think Harvard is prioritizing ... the university's income over fair access, but that depends on what you think is fair. The income Harvard so skillfully solicits from the wealthy not only pays for the faculty, programs, and facilities that make it the place everyone (admit it, Yalies [19]) wants to get into, but is also what makes it possible for 20% of its undergraduates to pay nothing to attend once they're admitted [20]. Not sure that's a bad thing. EEng 04:28, 24 November 2021 (UTC) P.S. Could you go easy on the paragraph breaks?

Semi-protected edit request on 24 November 2021

Change "Harvard has more alumni, faculty, and researchers who have won Nobel Prizes (161) and Fields Medals (18) than any other university in the world and more alumni who have been members of the U.S. Congress, MacArthur Fellows, Rhodes Scholars (375), and Marshall Scholars (255) than any other university in the United States."

to

"Harvard has more alumni, faculty, and researchers who have won Nobel Prizes (161) and Fields Medals (18) than any other university in the world and more alumni who have been members of the U.S. Congress, MacArthur Fellows, Rhodes Scholars (375), Marshall Scholars (255), and Schwarzman Scholars (53) than any other university in the United States.

Schwarzman Scholars is a program of comparable prestige to Rhodes and Marshall and adds nicely to the point above. Number retrieved from https://www.schwarzmanscholars.org/scholars/?u=Harvard+University Jfk1999 (talk) 04:01, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

No, it's not. EEng 04:29, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:46, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Citation 94

[94] reverts to a 404 page. Turtleshell3 (talk) 23:48, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

fixed Lallint⟫⟫⟫Talk 00:44, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of The Harvard Gazette into Harvard University

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result of this discussion was merge. There is a consensus that The Harvard Gazette is not independently notable of the University and that the article should be moved into that of Harvard College one as an alternative to deletion. (non-admin closure) — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:42, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

It's extremely unusual for a university's house publication or alumni magazine to be notable for a stand-alone page (Category:Alumni magazines has only 16 stand-alone entries, many of which are likely non-notable), and Harvard doesn't get a free pass just since it's Harvard. This stub currently only includes one reference, a mention in The Harvard Crimson slightly under WP:100 words. On a WP:BEFORE search, I was unable to establish that sufficient sourcing exists for the Gazette to pass the heightened WP:NORG standard—the only significant coverage I found was in the Crimson, e.g. this story, and per NORG, attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability; at least one regional, statewide, provincial, national, or international source is necessary. As a student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson is clearly in the "limited interest and circulation" category.

There might be further coverage of the Gazette somewhere, but until that's established and added, this page should be redirected to the university's article and given a mention there. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 20:19, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

DON'T MERGE I'm not sure what alumni magazines have to do with the Gazette. There is currently no category for university official newspapers (not student newspapers, which are often confusingly called "official"), but a quick search finds MIT Tech Talk and Columbia University Record, which are perfectly reasonable articles -- even if they're short. This article already covers a large amount of material, and I don't think it makes sense to add in the Gazette. I'm also not sure that WP:NORG applies here -- the organization is, I suppose the Harvard News office, but this article is about the publication. Here's a mention of the Gazette in an independent publication:
If weekly reading suits you best, the most comprehensive and authoritative medium is the Harvard University Gazette. -- John T. Bethell et al., Harvard A to Z, 2009, ISBN 9780674020894 p. 157
Best, --Macrakis (talk) 22:28, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
NORG begins This page is to help determine whether an organization (commercial or otherwise), or any of its products and services, is a valid subject for a separate Wikipedia article dedicated solely to that organization, product, or service. The Harvard Gazette is clearly a product of Harvard University, an organization, so NORG applies. There's well-established precedent for this at any number of newspaper AfDs.
Your examples of MIT/Columbia are WP:OTHERSTUFF, but to entertain them, MIT Tech Talk looks highly questionable on notability and every single reference at Columbia University Record ends in columbia.edu, so perfectly reasonable articles is way off the mark.
A house publication is a significant enough part of an institution that I don't think it'd be undue to give it a one-sentence in the institution's article.
Lastly, the Harvard A to Z reference is a stronger argument than the other things—it's about a page long, and in a book, albeit one written by Harvard people and published by Harvard. I'd prefer to see more, but it's something. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:55, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
Doesn't a publication become notable through references to it as well as discussions of it? Google Books finds hundreds of mentions of it. Of course, they're often simply memorial minutes (i.e. obituaries) of professors, and often official publications of the university.
But it's nice to have a single article to point to for the bibliographic details. --Macrakis (talk) 00:28, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Trivial mentions don't count toward notability. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:58, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that trivial mentions don't count toward notability in general. But the fact that the publication is referenced over 300 times on Wikipedia and over 500 times in Google Books seems to indicate a different kind of notability for publications. (Compare that with a dozen or so references in WP to Mme. Saint-Ange, mentioned below.)
That said, if we had some place to put strictly "bibliographic" articles other than the Wikipedia main space, I would use that. It would be nice to have a single standard place to go. For publications that are clearly notable, like the Oxford English Dictionary or La bonne cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange, we have a place to wikilink in footnotes for full bibliographic info, but for other publications, we don't (or do we?). --Macrakis (talk) 14:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Meh As currently written, the subject doesn't appear to merit its own article. I don't know that "university has an official publication" is critical information to share with readers. In most other similar articles I would be totally fine with adding a sentence or two. But this particular article easily becomes (and arguably already is) bloated with trivial information just because the subject has routinely attracted a tremendous amount of coverage from many angles (press, popular media, scholars, etc.). ElKevbo (talk) 22:45, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
@ElKevbo, so is your preferred outcome redirection or deletion, then? I proposed a merge here as an ATD. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 22:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
I wouldn't lose sleep over either outcome but I suppose the responsible course of action would be to try a merge first and see if it adds to the critical information in the article without making it too long and detailed. If it's not critical or can't be added without bloating the article, leave it out. In either case, it doesn't appear to merit its own article. ElKevbo (talk) 01:44, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
Merge - The Gazette is not notable enough to warrant its own page and should be merged into the main Harvard University page into a smaller section. elijahpepe@wikipedia 16:42, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Merge or possible delete, in agreement with the arguements by Sdkb and ElKevbo.Eccekevin (talk) 00:57, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

  • Comment Sdkb, WP:NORG covers all groups of people organized together for a purpose with the exception of non-profit educational institutions, so presumably WP:GNG is suffient. If GNG is not established the article could be merged to the university article. I found another hundred words of coverage on Page 352 of WordPress For Dummies, including the unsurprising information that "The Harvard Gazette, on first glance, looks like an online magazine". TSventon (talk) 09:11, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Merge. The gazette is not notable enough and the article does not have enough info to prove its notability. HelpingWorld (talk) 03:15, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Merge. As a current student here attending Harvard, I can definitely say The Gazette isn't at the level to garner its own Wikipedia page, its notability factor is no way near as lofty as other societies here present at Harvard, as demonstrated by the amount of information written on its page right now, there isn't enough of a talking point for The Gazette and I vote to merge, I am against however deleting the entire page since it is one of, if not the biggest, competitor to The Harvard Crimson, but the prominence and significance of The Crimson far outweighs that of The Gazette. Merge, dont delete. Wiki-helper (talk) 16:33, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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Wiki Education assignment: Research Process and Methodology - RPM SP 2022 - MASY1-GC 1260 200 Thu

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 February 2022 and 5 May 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aashima99 (article contribs).

Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering

I noticed the article for the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering was recently put back into draft space. Looks like it needs a bit of cleanup. Thriley (talk) 22:27, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Should be improved to a Featured Article

Don't you think as the biggest and most famous university and a level 4 vital article this should be improved to at least B? Lallint⟫⟫⟫Talk 19:24, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

A peer review would be nice, too. So somebody could at least figure out why it's only a C Lallint⟫⟫⟫Talk 19:27, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
It is tagged as C at the Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team because that WP requires to be manually assessed as B. However, the article is a B. The article is not a FA/GA because no one attempted to improve the article in the last 10 years. (CC) Tbhotch™ 19:47, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
Well shouldn't we change that? Why can't we actually start improving it now? Lallint⟫⟫⟫Talk 20:48, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
This university isn't anything close to being "the biggest" but if you want to improve this article then you are more than welcome to do so! I encourage you to review our advice for college and university articles and the previous reviews of this article that we conducted quite a while ago (liked at the top of this Talk page). You might also find it helpful to look at Featured and Good articles in the Higher Education Wikiproject's purview, especially some of the highly rated articles about U.S. colleges and universities such as Georgetown University and Pomona College. ElKevbo (talk) 21:01, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
I think student life should actually have details about, y'know, student life, instead of like 40 words of stuff about sports Lallint⟫⟫⟫Talk 00:29, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to change it. We encourage you to be bold in updating pages, because wikis like ours develop faster when everybody edits. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. You can always preview your edits before you publish them or test them out in the sandbox. If you need additional help, check out our getting started page or ask the friendly folks at the Teahouse. ElKevbo (talk) 00:47, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
I'm not even remotely new, I have over 1.5K Edits but I'm worried that i'll do all that research and spend all that time only to get my edits reverted because a single paragraph was worded unprofessionally instead of just fixing it themselves Lallint⟫⟫⟫Talk 23:13, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
You're welcome to write a draft in your sandbox or here in Talk to get feedback before adding material to this article. ElKevbo (talk) 00:33, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
You'll find much more on student life at Harvard College. That covers undergraduates. Graduate students, of course, have no life. EEng 03:36, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
Agreed with EEng.
Student life is organized by school/faculty, and certainly there is a lot more going on at the College than in the grad schools. The Law school has its own dances, for example (or used to). The GSAS has its Gato Rojo cafe. I have no idea what they do over in the Medical Area -- do the Public Health people talk to the Dentists? Or maybe they just work all the time. In any case, I don't think there's anything to be said in this article, which is about the University as a whole. --Macrakis (talk) 14:32, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
OOOOHHH Burn! Lallint⟫⟫⟫Talk 23:12, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
That - student life is typically organized and takes place in colleges and graduate schools with few activities that span the entire university - sounds like the kind of information that needs to be included in this article. ElKevbo (talk) 00:33, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
I've taken a stab. That said, almost everything at Harvard is decentralized and specific to the various schools: faculty, admissions, academic buildings, residential buildings, endowment, operating budget ("Every tub on its own bottom"), ... and even though there is a single Commencement ceremony in Tercentenary Theatre, each School has its own diploma granting ceremony. Perhaps that point isn't made clearly enough further up in the article. --Macrakis (talk) 16:51, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Rating

This article, as it now stands, with missing in-line citations, references to blog(s), and other shortcomings, is no longer a "B" grade article. It needs quite a bit of help and updating. Knocking it back down where it belongs. GenQuest "scribble" 19:38, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Maybe you didn't get the memo: no one cares about these ratings anyway. EEng 00:49, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
So THAT'S why you put the article back into a crap state after my style fixes. Got it. Did you even review the change backs you made? GenQuest "scribble" 03:03, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Presumably you're talking about my reversion of this edit of yours [21]. For some reason you removed scores of linebreaks in the source text (which are nonsubstantive changes -- they don't affect what the reader sees) and mixed in here and there substantive changes (which do affect what the reader sees). The resulting diff is an unintelligible mass in which it's impossible to see what you actually did -- thus my edit summary summary: sorry, but all the nonsubstantive changes to the source text make it impossible to see what substantive changes are mixed in. Just make the substantive changes and leave the rest alone. EEng 05:27, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
@EEng: The implication in your edit summary seems to be "I can't understand the diff of your edit, therefore I've reverted it." That's not acceptable under AGF — reverting should be done only as an active decision when you understand and disagree with an edit. If you're confused by it, just ask about it. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 13:36, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
That's not an AGF failure -- I have every confidence that the intent was well-meaning. But when an edit is such that a skilled editor of extensive experience can't understand what it does, then reversion is certainly justified. GQ can easily "explain" his edit by doing it again in an intelligible manner.
Meanwhile, if there's nothing posted here to explain the "grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling" problems, or what in the world is meant by "Non-standard citation/reference style", then I'll be removing that banner in a few days. EEng 14:20, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Former name: Harvard College or Harvard Colledge?

Hi everyone,

I noticed the former name here is currently listed as Harvard College but I've noticed several sources list it as "Harvard Colledge". Should the former name be changed to reflect this? Or is this difference negligible because of language during that time? More curious than anything else.

Image 1 Wozal (talk) 22:33, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine today, but the idea that there's only one correct spelling of a word is only about 200-300 years old; before that each person pretty much spelled a word in whatever way popped into their heads -- sometimes spelling the same word in multiple ways on a single page. So trying to identify "what the spelling was back then" really makes no sense. (When quoting old documents it's fun to use their archaic spellings because ... well, because it's fun.) EEng 23:13, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

No sources say that Harvard was a university before 1890.

GSAS described Harvard as a university when it was founded (around the time of Harvard's first PhDs) in 1890. Where else would sources even mention Harvard University, as sequential from Harvard College, besides the Fellows still using that name? Altanner1991 (talk) 10:19, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Harvard University seems to have been first neologized as such at Harvard's 1936 tercentenary event: [22] Altanner1991 (talk) 10:49, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest following the Yale model and placing in parentheses the dates of the former name Harvard College 1636–1890. The only other schools were the professional schools (but I suppose they could provide argument to the neologism). Altanner1991 (talk) 11:19, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

peculiar absence of information critical of harvard

I find it odd that this article has few, if any links to any of the numerous controversies Harvard has been involved in over the years. The only one properly referenced is the endowment. I think the others should be noted, simply because they are a large part of the public dialogue surrounding this institution. Some of the issues I would like to see included are:

  • Occupy Harvard (there is an entire Wikipedia article about this, but this article doesn't link to it)
  • Admissions controversies, including legacy admissions and affirmative action (much has been written about the former in the media, and there was a massive legal battle over the latter)
  • Associations with slavery (also the subject of intense media attention)
  • Controversial donors and building names (has been the subject of on-campus debate, especially in the Harvard Crimson)

In lieu of any serious objections, I will begin constructing and sourcing a section on these issues. Remember, the inclusion of properly-sourced critical information should not be seen as some kind of attack on an institution, it is simply a matter of fairness and completeness, which Wikipedia should strive for. It should be noted that this is not an issue exclusive to the Harvard University article, I am concerned about the apparent sanitization of higher education articles in general, and I would like to work on those as well. Dibromoindigo (talk) 20:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

  • Serious objections. The is the main article on a 400-year-old institution, and cannot possibly even name -- much less describe or narrate -- what you perceptively characterize as the "numerous" (my word would be numberless) controversies Harvard has been involved in over the years, such as: admissions practices in general or admission of blacks or admission of Jews or admission of Asians or admission of legacies or admission of rich kids or admission of poor kids or napalm or nuclear weapons or McCarthyism or Sacco & Vanzetti or ROTC or Vietnam or academic freedom or Gina Grant or the Secret Court of 1920 or the Salem Witch Trials or profits from slavery or Theda Skocpol or diversity on campus or relationship with the surrounding community or environment for LBGTQXYZWABC students and faculty and staff or sexist failure to promote women or sexist preferences for women or favoring of athletes or neglect of athletes or carbon footprint or the sheltering of regicides or the Charity of Edward Hopkins or the gay Plummer Professor of Christian Morals or the Allston land grab or investment practices or South Africa divestment or fossil fuel divestment or unionization or theft of the Sacred Cod or the all-male social clubs or the Gov 1310 cheating scandal the handling of Covid or handling of Ebola or the quality of undergraduate education or the handling of sexual assault allegations or Increase Mather being a crusty old fart. (And those are just a few off the top of my head.)
It is inappropriate for articles to carry "Criticism" sections featuring parades of horribles; rather, issues should be described where they naturally arise in the normal NPOV coverage of the article's subject, whether in the main article or a subsidiary article. For example:
  • The admissions issues you're referring to are a Harvard College matter, and are already addressed in that article.
  • Occupy was one of scores of student protests over the decades (or, really, centuries), and a pretty forgettable one at that -- no one was injured and no one got expelled, among other things (see, for contrast, Harvard University and the Vietnam War). Every school has them. The important ones might be briefly described in History of Harvard University, and the less important ones simply listed in Timeline of Harvard University (if the latter existed -- might be time to start it). But there's no room for them at all in this top-level article.
  • I'm actually not aware that Harvard's relationship to slavery has, in modern times, been any kind "controversy". To the contrary, Harvard has been quite proactive in going to extensive lengths to come to terms with its history in that regard: [24] [25]. This topic definitely deserves its own article, with a brief summary at History of Harvard University.
  • Every institution has taken money from people who, in retrospect, turn out to have been not so nice. Information on such issues belong (with WP:DUE weight) in individual articles on buildings and so on involved.
EEng 08:36, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

The Prestigious Dilemma

As many of you who have had experience with this article know, there has been some controversy around this one sentence. “it is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and one of the most prestigious and highly rated in the world.” I have analyzed the past event with this problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/?oldid=591304650#Use_of_the_word_prestigious), but my point of view is different. I do not wish to delete or superimpose the word. I wish to rephrase it. Specifically to “and regarded as one of the most prestigious and highly rated in the world.” This does not conflict with the tenet in (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Unsupported attributions), being that a sourced statement can include subjective terms; however, it is also important that the user understands it is coming FROM a source, not from the article. That is why I am so adament on this. Even if it is a redundant statement because “prestigious” already denotes the need for recognition, Wikipedia must maintain its unbiased tone at all times. Senomo Drines (talk) 02:15, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

  • I disagree: It is redundant as prestige is inherently subjective and the sources in the article make it clear whose opinions we are summarizing with this sentence. ElKevbo (talk) 02:19, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
    Before I go on, I do apologize for editing without discussing first. That was a bad habit of mine. Anyways, if prestige is inherently subjective then it should not be taken in an environment like this. It should be clear to the reader that it is coming from an opinionated source, even if that source is credible (there are plenty of secondary sources which use subjective terminology to enhance their message) While it is true that some readers will infer that it is not Wikipedia itself that is not saying that, just the source, others will not get the message. If you were a newcomer in the site and you wanted to know more about Harvard university, then came across a slightly subjective (but still subjective!) sentence, it would come across as biased. Even if it’s a little bit. Also, they wouldn’t look into the sources themselves. They would just read the article, from the perspective of an interested individual. You can see where I’m coming from with this. It doesn’t hurt to clarify. Senomo Drines (talk) 02:30, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Prestige itself isn't subjective; it is an objective state of affairs that is a result of people's subjective opinions. If we were to describe someone as "widely admired", for example, then people's admiration for that person is a matter of their subjective opinions, but it is a fact that they do hold those opinions, and that fact can be described objectively. The same holds for describing a university as prestigious. AJD (talk) 05:26, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
    Perfectly stated. EEng 05:36, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
    I find that point to be kind of odd. How can something objective be derived by subjective opinions? I find that to be too broad of a statement. What I think about prestige is a manifestation of the achievements of that subject, which is then recognized by others and praised for those achievements. Finding out what is an “achievement”, however, is subjective to everyone. If I am able to draw an arm, that would be impressive to some, but not to others, especially to experienced artists. Furthermore, many of the cited articles don’t elaborate on what makes Harvard university “prestigious”. That makes it subjective, at least to me. And even if they did elaborate, whether or not those achievements are “impressive” enough to warrant recognition and therefore be “prestigious” is also subjective. Even if it’s a minority that are not impressed by Harvard, it is still another point of view on the subject. Senomo Drines (talk) 14:31, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
    "How can something objective be derived by subjective opinions?" Because, although the opinions themselves are subjective, whether or not people hold those opinions is an objective fact that can be empirically verified. AJD (talk) 15:23, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
    I see. I understand what your coming from, and I completely agree. But my initial point is that the sentence needs to be in Wikipedian tone. If I say “Harvard university is prestigious”, that’s me talking. If I say “Harvard university is REGARDED as prestigious” then that’s from other experts. You get what I’m saying? I suppose we didn’t need to go on this tangent about whether or not prestige is objective. Senomo Drines (talk) 15:54, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
    By your reasoning, everything has to be stated as "considered": "When water is cooled sufficiently, it is considered to become ice." There comes a point at which something is so well established that it's simply fact, and WP states facts as facts, in its own voice. For example, an individual's regard for various schools is largely or wholly subjective; not subjective, however, is that Gallup's sample of the public, when asked "All in all, what would you say is the best college or university in the United States?" answered Harvard, Stanford, and Yale at rates 24%, 11%, and 11% respectively [26]. Do you see now? EEng 17:04, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
    You are twisting my words. I am not at all saying that everything has to be stated as considered. When it comes to objective facts, you can say with absolute certainty on the subject that it just simply is. Your example is an objective fact that water condenses to ice; it has been SCIENTIFICALLY proven. You cannot scientifically prove that Harvard is a “prestigious” university, nor can you scientifically define what “prestigious” is. See the difference? When you address subjectivity, you must maintain that subjective quality. In order words, you must show to the reader that it is a matter of opinion and is not a fact. That is what makes prestigious a loosely defined term. It is a matter of perspective, not a matter of science. Senomo Drines (talk) 19:09, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
    other, not “order”, I made a typo Senomo Drines (talk) 19:11, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
    Also, addressing the survey, I said beforehand that saying that Harvard university is prestigious is agreed or disagreed upon by many on it. A lot of people would say that it is prestigious, and many do; however, you don’t seem to look at the other majority. 24% is a lot, but it’s not the majority. Also, it wasn’t asking if it was prestigious. It was asking if it was the best, which is not the same. Best is even more vague than prestigious, so it’s not what I consider a good example here. Let’s say that, oh I don’t know, that 99% of people agree on Harvard being prestigious. That’s good enough, right? No. You’ll have to factor in demographics, general knowledge, and most importantly, bias. The biggest problem with surveys is the underlying opinions of other people. Harvard is, after all, very popular, so many would assume that it must be prestigious right? Many don’t even bother looking at the data and making a conclusion. If you collected research from experts, then it would be a lot closer, but the data collected was from other colleges; businessmen who clearly are very opinionated on it. Many of the people I know consider Harvard to be prestigious. But many others don’t. Colleges may see Harvard as the future for America. But many others don’t. You can even interview Harvard students in the campus and they might say that it’s prestigious. But, yet again, many others don’t. As long as there’s controversy, you cannot state a definitive answer on it in Wikipedia. Collegeboard has a history of mistakes and many don’t trust it. Harvard also didn’t have a pretty history, especially with segregation. And even if it is somehow “objectively” prestigious, how will you prove that? How do you prove an opinion as fact? You can have opinions on facts, and you can have facts on opinions, but you can’t have an opinion that is a fact. To answer the question: Is Harvard university prestigious? I don’t know. I’m probably just overthinking this. Many would regard it as prestigious, though. Senomo Drines (talk) 19:47, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
    You are indeed overthinking this. I should have left it with AJD's explanation: "How can something objective be derived by subjective opinions?" Because, although the opinions themselves are subjective, whether or not people hold those opinions is an objective fact that can be empirically verified. Beyond that I give up. EEng 22:10, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
    I agree with @EEng. Opinions would be for more demonstrably controversial content. Sources would need to weigh on Harvard being non-prestigious to back @Senomo Drines's NPOV argument. Altanner1991 (talk) 22:20, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
    Oh, I understand. You are saying that my claim is undue weight. Ok, I will withdraw from this argument. Senomo Drines (talk) 22:42, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
    Thank you; your edits are in good faith but yes that is what I believe and others have argued as well. Due weight is an important policy that describes the procedures regarding the tone used in articles. Altanner1991 (talk) 00:33, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
    I actually don't understand what Altanner's saying, but it seems to have done the trick so let's enjoy the rapprochement. EEng 04:54, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
    If someone doesn't understand something, I believe that careful discussion would be better than a mere blunt "rapprochement". Altanner1991 (talk) 09:14, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
    Here's something I don't understand: Why you take offense at seemingly everything. EEng 19:16, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
    What? Altanner1991 (talk) 05:39, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    I give up again. EEng 14:03, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
    @Senomo Drines Late arrival here, but I found the issues you had raised very interesting, in fact a bit philosophical. Statistically speaking, none of those surveys or rankings is unbiased because of the methodology or metrics they prefer. What an article does is to report the consensus of these surveys, similar to "Statue of Liberty is an icon of the United States". Some may consider Empire State Building or White House, but people generally agree the Statue is in their minds when it comes to US icons. We drop the word "considered" from "considered as an icon" because this agreement is a fact backed up by abundant sources of surveys, despite their imperfection. I believe the prestige claim of Harvard has multiple citations as support. RoyalRover (talk) 07:37, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Verita$: Everybody Loves Harvard

This is a critical documentary documentary about Harvard University. The director died in 2012. The film is online for free. There are no commercial interests involved. The deletion is therefore not justified. Abc2005 (talk) 23:34, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Actually, you're going to need to justify the inclusion of this particular work among zillions. Anyway, this section is for literary and artistic depictions. 14:36, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Non-NPOV material in the lead

The statement in the lead that Harvard is "one of the most prestigious universities in the world" is presented in the editorial voice, contrary to the WP:NPOV policy. Specifically, WP:SUBJECTIVE states that "it is sometimes permissible to note an article subject's reputation when that reputation is widespread and informative to readers". What it doesn't allow is for is for us to state opinions in Wikipedia's WP:VOICE: "Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc." We can say that an opinion is widely held, e.g. "Harvard is widely considered one of the most prestigious universities in the world", but "Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world" is staying this opinion in Wikipedia's voice, which breaks NPOV. Note that "is widely considered prestigious" is not tautologous; it is reporting that this opinion is widely held. That prestige is based on perception is unimportant for this: it is still an opinion and needs to be discussed as such. Robminchin (talk) 01:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

one of the most prestigious universities in the world Robminchin (talk) 01:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

This has been discussed a great deal already, in a section visible further up this talk page. Saying that Harvard is prestigious isn't a statement of opinion; it's a statement of fact about the opinions people hold, and therefore appropriate to state in Wikipedia's voice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ajd (talk • contribs)
It's a fact that the writers cited hold the opinion that Harvard is prestigious, but that it is prestigious remains their subjective assessment. There is no objective measure of prestige, thus it is not possible to state it as a fact. There is also no indication that any of the sources cited have attempted to make any kind of empirical verification that Harvard is prestigious (which, given the lack of a generally-agreed objective measure would end up being subjective). Rather, these are universally presented as expert reputational opinions, and need to be discussed as such. Even if it is possible to establish prestige as a fact, which I would dispute, the sources cited do not do this. Robminchin (talk) 16:30, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
It's tedious to have this same discussion over and over. If you disagree with the prevailing consensus, open an RfC. ElKevbo (talk) 23:54, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
We've already had one. WP:HIGHERED REP has already established that 'to include text on "reputation, prestige, or relative ranking(s)" in a lead section, such material must be compliant with generally applicable policies, including ... following the general principles applicable to describing reputations'. That's saying, quite clearly, that there is a higher consensus that text about prestige falls under WP:SUBJECTIVE, thus cannot be stated in WP:WIKIVOICE. Robminchin (talk) 01:00, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
What should be said?..... every academic journal and ranking system places them as one of the most prestigious Schools? Would be interesting to see if there's a source out there that disputes this fact....... over the thousands that as a general introduction would make this fact. Should do what is best for our readers and represent the sources over pushing a specific guideline. Moxy- 01:22, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
The amount of consensus on an opinion doesn't change it from an opinion into a fact. As it says in the Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View policy 'For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action" but may state that "genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil."' As it also says there, "This policy is non-negotiable". Robminchin (talk) 04:05, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
The amount of consensus on an opinion doesn't change it from an opinion into a fact -- That's dead wrong. And in citing SUBJECTIVE you're showing that you don't actually read guidelines closely -- SUBJECTIVE is about works of art and so on. Finally, I'm beginning to wonder if you really know what the word prestigious means. 1 EEng 06:45, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
The policy cites the example of Wikipedia not saying that genocide is evil precisely because there is general consensus on this opinion. It doesn't become a fact simply because it's an opinion everyone holds – that's a matter of Wikipedia policy.
SUBJECTIVE is about 'Describing aesthetic opinions and reputations' (emphasis added). The earlier RfC made it clear that this applies to descriptions of prestige for universities.
According to the definition from Oxford Languages that Google gives above the search results when you search for 'prestigious', i.e. the one that most people will find, it means "inspiring respect and admiration; having high status". We cannot say this in Wikipedia's voice. Robminchin (talk) 16:28, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
No, that section is specifically about works of art, from start to finish. EEng 02:25, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
@Robminchin: As others have said and the hidden text indicates, this is a much-discussed issue here, and I don't see anyone agreeing with you. However, you have a point. So I have moved the statement in the note into the actual text, so that we are now explaining the point without the reader looking at a note, and I've turned the note into a footnote; our normal methodology with points that are in the introduction, may be challenged, and are not referenced in the body of the article is to footnote them with references in the introduction, and since you and others have in essence challenged the factuality of the statement (that Harvard has high status), it seems to me this qualifies. I hope that allays the concern. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:12, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
The issue still remains that this is describing something in WP:WIKIVOICE that is, as you said in your edit summary, summarizing opinion. Nobody is challenging that Harvard has a high reputation, but reputational statements are a matter of opinion, not fact, and must be described following WP:SUBJECTIVE. We've had an RfC that confirmed that statements about prestige follow WP:SUBJECTIVE. Yet the attitude here seems to be that local consensus can override all of this. As it stands, the statement remains a non-NPOV presentation of WP:SUBJECTIVE opinion as fact. Robminchin (talk) 23:36, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
You're the only editor here making this argument. Either make appropriate attempts to get input from other editors or accept that you're in the minority and move on. ElKevbo (talk) 23:43, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
At the moment, the only argument being made against it seems to be that the earlier RfC was wrong to say statements about prestige have to follow WP:SUBJECTIVE because that section only applies to works of art. Robminchin (talk) 02:52, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Nobody is challenging that Harvard has a high reputation -- That's what prestige is: a high reputation. By saying what you just said, you're admitting that the lead's statement is unchallenged. We're tired of trying to teach you the meaning of words. Keep editwarring and you'll be at WP:ANEW. You have been warned, Robminchin. EEng 02:25, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
As I said in the second half of that sentence, "reputational statements are a matter of opinion, not fact, and must be described following WP:SUBJECTIVE." Your only response to this has been to claim, in the face of the title of the section it links to and of the result of an earlier RfC, that SUBJECTIVE "is specifically about works of art". Is this really the position on which you defend the statement standing as it is in the lead? Robminchin (talk) 02:42, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
You've made your point, many times - we get it. Now please step back and let others weigh in. ElKevbo (talk) 03:35, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Look, I feel almost sorry for you, so I'm going to try one more time, and then that's it. Higher up on this page someone said:
Prestige itself isn't subjective; it is an objective state of affairs that is a result of people's subjective opinions. If we were to describe someone as "widely admired", for example, then people's admiration for that person is a matter of their subjective opinions, but it is a fact that they do hold those opinions, and that fact can be described objectively. The same holds for describing a university as prestigious.
If you can't understand this, then we've got a WP:CIR problem. We're done wasting time with you, really and truly. And I mean it about the editwarring. Go do something else. I won't reply further, and I suggest my fellow editors adopt the same policy. EEng 03:40, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
As above, "prestigious" by itself envelops opinion and fact, and thus meets the guidelines. Previous wording is fine. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:21, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 August 2023

add Gates Cambridge Scholars to the list with Marshall and Rhodes Scholars 69.173.127.108 (talk) 19:58, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Please be more precise and clearer on where you want the changes to be made. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 12:46, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Slave trade and Harvard

https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2017/09/04/shackled-legacy Xx236 (talk) 07:46, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

  • Wait, you're not actually suggesting that many of the men and families associated with Harvard's first 150 years owned slaves, or somehow profited from slavery? Or that Harvard itself so profited, directly or indirectly? No way! Why, next you'll be telling me that there were Harvard folks involved in the Salem witch trials, or that Harvard's Puritan founders were intolerant of other religions! The mind boggles. EEng 08:21, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
This article is quoted in several other articles, why not here?Xx236 (talk) 08:45, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
https://legacyofslavery.harvard.edu/ Xx236 (talk) 08:47, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
See above, #peculiar_absence_of_information_critical_of_harvard. EEng 08:48, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
You are right, the History of Harvard University badly needs rewriting.Xx236 (talk) 09:36, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
That's an understatement. Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 21:48, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Blaming Israel for War Letter

I tried adding a section about this to the page and it was removed by an editor saying it's not news. There's literally hundreds of articles about this and the ongoing brouhaha it's caused. Anyone else care to chime in? MaskedSinger (talk) 17:39, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

  • No, I didn't say "it's not news"--I removed it because WP:NOTNEWS: we are not the news. Also, separate "Controversy" sections are discouraged. Drmies (talk) 17:40, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
    There is a scandals section on the USC page and this is the equal of any of those events.
    The students wrote a highly offensive letter blaming Israel for the events that transpired. If this was the end of the story fine - it's borderline to add it to page.
    But what's happened since:
    CEOs dont want to hire the students
    A number of signatories took their name off the statement
    1000 students marched on campus against the letter
    Donors will no longer give to the college
    The President put out a statement
    Given all this, I don't think WP:NOTNEWS applies here. MaskedSinger (talk) 17:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
    By your logic, the 2023 Israel–Hamas war page wouldn't exist.
    What about the 11 pages devoted to the massacres in this war?
    Also WP:NOTNEWS?? MaskedSinger (talk) 18:00, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
    2012 Harvard cheating scandal isn't on Harvard but gets its own standalone page. So what if I created a standalone page for this? MaskedSinger (talk) 18:35, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
    Saying even a word about this in this article about a 400-year-old institution would be preposterous recentism. No matter what happens, there will always be some idiot undergrads shooting their mouths off about it. You can try creating a separate article, but I doubt the transient coverage merits it. EEng 23:54, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
    EEng, thanks--I agree. It's been a while since I ran into you; hope you're doing well. Yes, MaskedSinger, NOTNEWS is directly related to recentism. The relationship between the history of the institution and the recentism of this factoid is precisely what makes it UNDUE. How do you know it's not just news? You wait. There is no rush here. Drmies (talk) 00:33, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
Hey, doctor. EEng 13:47, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Notability of US Supreme Court justices

In the lede, I think it’s notable that 18 of the 116 Supreme Court justices in US history graduated from Harvard Law (22 attended). Can this be added? 203.167.249.226 (talk) 03:21, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

That seems like a factoid more appropriate for the article Harvard Law School than this one (with appropriate citations to a reliable source). AJD (talk) 16:44, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 December 2023

The suggestion is to add a subsection called "Student Code of Conduct" to the section called "Student Life":

Student Code of Conduct

The Office of Academic Integrity and Student Conduct is responsible for enforcing the administrative rules for Harvard College. It deals with disciplinary matters, student conduct, and academic integrity.[1] The guidelines for student conduct and academic integrity are found in the Student Handbook.[2]

The reason for this addition is that there are frequently discussions of how Harvard deals with student conduct. For an example from 2015, see here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/06/the-hunting-ground-a-closer-look-at-the-influential-documentary-reveals-the-filmmakers-put-advocacy-ahead-of-accuracy.html and for a contemporary example, see here: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/05/1217459477/harvard-penn-mit-antisemitism-congress-hearing. Sansan100 (talk) 05:04, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

 Done Lewcm Talk to me! 08:57, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
Sorry but I reverted this addition. I disagree that this meets WP:DUE. ElKevbo (talk) 13:23, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
I agree with ElKevbo; conduct policies are nothing special, unless of course, they are wildly creative or unconvetional in their approach, which does not seem to be the case at Harvard. --Melchior2006 (talk) 14:02, 6 December 2023 (UTC)
+1. EEng 19:41, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Whitewashed

This article reads worse than an advertisement. It reads like neocolonial/neoliberal propaganda. Little is mentioned about Harvard's role in land theft, slavery, genocide, and environmental destruction, not just in the US, but across the globe. That's not to say that resistance has not been a part of Harvard's history, but that too is largely ignored. Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 21:47, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Just as I figured, brief entries acknowledging Harvard's oppressive history are deleted. Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 17:15, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, a vague statement with no context or additional information for readers was deleted. ElKevbo (talk) 23:01, 7 December 2023 (UTC)
How graphic can I make it? The academic literature on this topic is available--and growing. Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 02:56, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
See edit summary [27]. EEng 06:02, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
So what you are saying is that everyone who reads Wikipedia knows about Harvard's brutal history? Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 14:22, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm saying Harvard was a creature of its time and place, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but mostly about the same as other institutions. Your edits make it seem like it's been a mainspring of evil throughout history. EEng 20:01, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
That was not my intention. My concern is that the average reader of articles like this has little understanding of what has happened in US higher education history and what is happening today. Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 20:17, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
I'll take you at your word that it wasn't your intention, but you sure could have fooled me -- your addition to the article being Harvard College was built on a foundation of British imperialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. If you want to enlighten readers about what has happened in US higher education history and what is happening today, you might do so over at History of higher education in the United States, but keep it WP:DUE, please -- again, institutions reflect their times, so while it's fine to point out that women were excluded and non-whites were excluded, but to go on and on about white supremacy and patriarchy, when those were the ethe (Just learned that word -- plural of ethos) of the times, is axe-grinding. Same for British colonialism -- New England was a British colony (English, actually), so ... DUH!, colonialism! EEng 23:01, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
Got it. So what you are saying is that readers should already know about Harvard enslaving people for a century and a half, just like the other elite schools of the time. So how about the Harvard endowment and its donors? Is that also out of bounds? Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 23:24, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
No, you apparently don't got it. I'm pretty sure not just the elite schools, but the average everyday schools had people who did bad things too. Nothing's out of bounds, but everything should be put in perspective and context. You want to vilify people and institutions of the past because they don't conform to the standards of today. EEng 12:52, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I think that this information would be worthwhile to include in this article (and many others). But it's not something that can be added with just one sentence, disconnected from the rest of the article. The contention made by scholars is that this has permeated the institution and had long-lasting consequences so this should be documented in the relevant places in the article, especially throughout the history section. That raises another challenge, though - the length and level of detail appropriate for this article. We can't just keep adding information to this already long article. So it's necessary to balance additions with what's already here and what can or should be trimmed. ElKevbo (talk) 23:00, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Good points. Should we start paring down this article, especially aspects that read like an advertisement? If so, where do we start? Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 23:03, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Paring down this article

This article reads too much like a long advertisement for Harvard--and it should be pared down. Why can't the second paragraph be removed, for example? Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 01:33, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Unionization efforts

Is it ok to write about unionization efforts at Harvard?

[28]https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/10/27/undergrad-workers-unionize-feature/

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2023/02/07/harvard-postdocs-other-non-tenure-track-trying-unionize Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 23:40, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, but very briefly if in the 'History' section, which should avoid recency bias in talking at length about current events that would not get such attention in summaries of previous decades. – SJ + 19:23, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Legacy Preferences

Following the thought that Harvard was built on land theft and slavery, but that it's too obvious to mention, is it too obvious that Harvard has a significant number of legacy preferences? If not, can we put a sentence or two in the article? [29]https://www.newsweek.com/harvard-faces-another-legal-fight-over-its-admissions-1810585 Collegemeltdown2 (talk) 02:00, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Refactor recent Congressional hearing from History

Removed this paragraph from the 21st century section for recentism. Mention is warranted, perhaps a sentence that links to a detail article which provides full context for the coordinated pressure on the three universities:

In a December 2023 congressional hearing on anti-semitism[3], Gay came under international media attention[4], when asked whether calls for genocide would be against the university's code of conduct or rules on harassment.[5] Gay's response drew criticism for answers that were perceived as evasive[6] This hearing was related to the protests at Harvard, following the October 2023 attacks in Israel.[7][8]

Refs

  1. ^ "Harvard College Office of Academic Integrity and Student Conduct". Retrieved 6 December 2023.
  2. ^ "Harvard College Student Handbook - Academic Year 2023-2024" (PDF). Retrieved 6 December 2023.
  3. ^ Haslett, Cheyenne; Hensley, Sarah Beth (December 5, 2023). "Presidents of universities grilled on efforts to counter antisemitism on campus". ABC News. Retrieved December 7, 2023.
  4. ^ Hensley, Sarah Beth (2023-12-06). "Harvard's president answers backlash over response to calls for genocide". ABC News. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  5. ^ "Stefanik Asks Harvard's President If 'Calling For The Genocide Of Jews Violates Harvard's Rules". Forbes. December 5, 2023. Retrieved December 7, 2023.
  6. ^ Borter, Gabriella (2023-12-06). "College Presidents Under Fire After Dodging Questions About AntUS House committee opens probe into Harvard, Penn, MIT after antisemitism hearing". Reuters. Retrieved December 8, 2023.
  7. ^ "How are Harvard, Penn presidents responding to campus anti-Semitism row?". Al Jazeera. 2023-12-06. Retrieved 2023-12-07.
  8. ^ Belkin, Douglas; Ellis, Lindsay (2023-10-11). "Blaming Israel for Hamas Attacks Sparks Backlash Across U.S., Exposing Deep Rifts". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2023-10-13.

Proposed alt:

Following campus protests at Harvard in response to the 2023 Hamas-Israel war,[1][2] a congressional hearing in December 2023[3] called on Gay and the presidents of MIT and UPenn to describe how campus policies addressed rising anti-semitism on campus.[4] The hearings received international attention.[5] All three presidents faced calls to resign; as of NN president Magill of UPenn resigned, while Gay received support from the faculty and university board.[6]

Refs

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Al-Jazeera-1206 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference WSJ-10-11 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference AB-1206 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Reuters-1207 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Comment

  • This still feels like too much detail about one facet of the media blitz + political messaging, not enough about other context.
  • This is an important moment in the history of Congressional relationship w/ universities, less so in the history of the individual university (so far; obviously not true for UPenn).
  • Nominally a hearing on anti-semitism, but cf. the rest of the questions asked in that session, much of it + the origin of the tension w/ free speech activists have not been about anti-semitism

On the other hand, Harvard is definitely being treated as a figurehead for that cohort of universities; perhaps a clarification that it is in the spotlight of the social + political moment. – SJ + 19:23, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

I partially agree with the comments, but for now this is probably good enough to be added. FortunateSons (talk) 11:46, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Luc Frieden / Harvard

Why removed? Džeilan Pepić (talk) 00:08, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Re-instatig the prestige statement in lede and cut the bashing.

I've been observing this article and the discussions here for a while. I would like to argue for re-instating the removed (and pretty substantially sourced) prestige statement in the lede as well as ask you to cut the bashing. For the former: I think in the case of Harvard, calling it prestigious is not POV but an encyclopedic fact. I mean, come on, it's the oldest and richest school in the US (plus all the other "glamorous" stuff like being in the Ivy League, the alumni, the prizes, the selective admissions process etc.). I think in the case of Harvard, calling it prestigious can hardly be seen as promotional but rather factual, despite the recent scandals in its almost 400-year-history - which kind of is a good transition to the second issue I want to highlight here and thus leads me to my latter point: to kindly ask to cut the bashing.

I feel the most recent scandals have somehow, for whatever reason (jealousy? Sour grapes of any sort?), "motivated" a few individuals to systematically discredit the school (here on Wiki) (e.g. removing the fact its prestigious, digging out a decade old cheating scandal and putting it at the forefront of the see also section etc.). Certainly, scandals occurred but now magnifying recent negative events and digging out older ones; in the grand scheme of things (an institutional history spanning almost 4 centuries); plus almost denying the school's prestige; that just isn't right.

Look at the controversy sections of Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. And? They are still prestigious companies; or do you want to tell me otherwise? Look at the controversies and conspiracy theories surrounding the US government. And? The US government is still perceived as prestigious and the most powerful in the world. Look at all the financial crises of the US economy throughout its history. And? The US economy is still perceived as prestigious and as one of the wealthiest and most successful economies in the world (if not THE wealthiest and most successful). What I'm trying to get at with all those different examples is that, no matter what the context is (school, company, economy, country), something simply is or isn't prestigious, independent of controversies or scandals. Harvard simply IS prestigious - not POV but fact. It simply is. Period. Instead of now trying to find flies in the ointment and look at them with a magnifying glass, it's arguably more advisable to look at the broader picture. I think those who now emphasize and inflate the negative events of the school throughout its centuries-old history, I think those individuals don't see the forest for the trees. 2A02:1210:2C5A:AE00:B8F6:6D44:2A6A:3C2B (talk) 22:14, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors should be committed to revealing the necessary complexity in order to understand subjects better. Harvard is certainly a famous school, but many have pointed out that it is over-rated. Here are three examples: "Turns out, Harvard students aren't that smart after all", "Harvard Is Over-rated", and "A Harvard Education Isn't As Advertised". So I think it is ok to question the adjectives "elite" and "prestigious." --Melchior2006 (talk) 06:56, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
Let me see if I have this right: your evidence is student-written opinion pieces? EEng 15:00, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
Look a little closer, and then be more honest. And by the way, I could have easily listed ten sources here. People don't take the Ivy League as seriously as they used to, that is part of the Gay story. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 15:14, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
If you think for even a moment that any of those "articles" are relevant to this discussion, then you're not competent to participate here. Seriously. EEng 22:11, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
In addition to what User:EEng said about the quality and substance of User:Melchior2006's sources, I would also add that, quite frankly, from a logical standpoint, User:Melchior2006's point is absurd that the recent events surrounding Gay automatically mean that Harvard is therefore not prestigious anymore. A quick Google search reveals that other schools of a similar calibre faced similar scandals as Harvard. Stanford's former President resigned last year because of manipulated research data. Yale had a cheating scandal involving 81 students a few years back. And? Do you seriously want to tell me that these schools are therefore also not prestigious anymore? The assumption that such scandals automatically equal a decrease in the prestige of these schools is just ludicrous. If anything, one could even put forward that those scandals, as paradoxical and surprising as it may be, increase the prestige of these schools - as in when people admire villains, known in sociology and psychology as the Bad boy archetype or Hybristophilia (a.k.a. Bonnie and Clyde syndrome). 2A02:1210:2C5A:AE00:DD9D:4293:4314:8B4F (talk) 00:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
I think the current formulation in the lede is very apt: "Its influence, wealth, and rankings have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world." I can't imagine how even the most nervous defendants of keeping themselves prestigious could have a problem with that. --talk:Melchior2006|talk) 04:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Well, @Melchior2006, that is because this formulation was removed and restored again just recently as this conversation was going on. That is, as you put it, the "formulation in the lede" which I was referring to when I wrote "reinstating the prestige statement in the lede". Anyway, now that it's back and no-one else chimed in, I think we can close the case. 2A02:1210:2C5A:AE00:DD9D:4293:4314:8B4F (talk) 07:52, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

21st Century History Section

The 21st century history section mainly consists of explaining (or rather listing) the last few university presidents. Is this really a historic event when a president assumes office, steps down or retires? To me, this is WP:NOTNEWS or [[WP:EXCESSDETAIL]kmvdskccklcmkdmckd2A02:1210:2C5A:AE00:D4C6:1398:98F8:A7E5 (talk) 23:32, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

History 

Colonial Era
 See also: (Incorrect link lists Nathan Easton, a baseball player. Please change link to Nathaniel Eaton.)
    2601:547:CB00:3D40:CC87:B428:5151:642D (talk) 12:15, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
Got it - thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 14:45, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
 Done MaximusEditor (talk) 04:28, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
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