Talk:Tulane University/Archive 1

Archive 1

Campus Design

Tulane University's designed landscape features an article and landscape architecture master plan that implements Beaux-Arts and Neoclassical principals, which allows the university to be classified as a 'City Beautiful Campus. The design of the campus today dates back to 1894, after the university's relocation to its current site on St. Charles Ave. In 1938, landscape architect William Wiedorn worked with architect, Moise Goldstein for Tulane, and returning again in 1950 to work with architect, Richard Koch. After Hurricane Katrina, in 2005 the campus closed temporarily. Then Christner Inc, was hired to develop a strategic master plan for the university which was completed in 2006. Then in 2014, Sasaki Associates prepared a master plan for the university. The campus which extends 110-acres (main campus) and contains 80 buildings, multiple quads, and a park is surrounded by primarily residential neighborhood. The long/narrow campus extends the length from St. Charles Avenue to Claiborne Avenue. "The campus is characterized by mature live oaks and its intimate scale, a product of its neighborhood setting. The vegetation selected for the campus consists of many species indigenous to the region." The oldest portion, the Romanesque Quad includes lush plantings and is laid out irregularly with various patterns of grass and sidewalk. The Newcomb area of campus though, is very open taking the axial form. In 2017, an article published in TIME, listed Tulane University as the most beautiful campus in Louisiana. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kyla Reid (talk • contribs) 16:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Very promotional "the Romanesque Quad includes lush plantings" for example is not neutral tone, the sources are primary, we would need secondary sources, we have no interest in what they want to say about themselves. Theroadislong (talk) 16:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Undiscussed additions to lede and deletions from rankings section

@EditorHeaven: Why are you deleting material from this article without any discussion or even an edit summary? And why are you trying to insert material into the lede that says that this university is "one of the most prestigious...universities in the United States" when (a) the lede is supposed to be a summary of the body but there is nothing in the body about this and (b) your cited source doesn't support that statement? ElKevbo (talk) 16:42, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: The source does support that claim. With a 9.73% acceptance rate, Tulane is one of the U.S.’ most selective universities. Moreover, as the only institution in LA with the distinction of “most selective,” it is one of the most prestigious universities in the state and therefore the country.EditorHeaven (talk) 16:50, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

First, stop edit warring. You do not own this article and you do not get to unilaterally dictate what is included in it. You made a bold edit to add this material and that's great. But now another editor editor has objected to your edit and removed so you need to discuss it here in talk to come to a consensus, not continue shoving it into the article because you disagree.

Second, it may be helpful to review our advice about college and university articles and our guidelines for the lede of an article: Those guidelines state that "[S]ignificant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article" and nowhere in this article is "prestige" discussed; that is simply your own interpretation and that is not acceptable in Wikipedia articles. If you believe this information should be in the article, you need to find reliable sources that explicitly discuss that topic and add them to an appropriate section of the article. Then we can figure out if the information is so critical that it should be placed in the lede.

Finally, it's not clear to me why the acceptance rate needs to be in the lede at all. What you've written is one classification from one magazine for one year of data. That really looks like undue weight and a recentism, neither of which belong in the lede of an article. Moreover, this information is only about undergraduate admissions but nearly 40% of this university's students are graduate students so I'm not sure why we'd want to emphasize this in the lede anyway. ElKevbo (talk) 17:01, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@EditorHeaven: Why are you still edit warring to add this to the article before reaching a consensus here in Talk? Why do we need an entire paragraph about (an outdated classification for) the university's undergraduate admission rate included in the lede of this article? Why do we need to mention other universities in the lede of this article? ElKevbo (talk) 19:08, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

@EditorHeaven, thanks for your efforts to improve the article, but please don't edit war to add the material in the lead—Wikipedia operates on a consensus system, which means that, when newly added material is challenged by another editor, we retain the status and discuss here at the talk page until we arrive at agreement. I'm going to revert you to enforce that process—please don't continue edit warring or you are likely to encounter sanctions.

Regarding the addition, there are two questions here, sourcing and due weight. Regarding due weight, based on the result of the previous norm-setting discussion at Wikipedia:HIGHEREDREP, I think one sentence on the university's prestige would be warranted, but not a whole paragraph; that level of detail should be reserved for the body. Regarding sourcing, the U.S. News sentence is supported (enough), but for the first sentence, there is a primary source, so it can only be used to support simple, uncontroversial, objective information. "one of the most selective universities in the United States" doesn't fall into that category. If the information is condensed to a sentence and better supported, I'll probably be able to support restoring it to the lead in some form. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:04, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

@ElKevbo: I changed it from “one of the most selective universities” to “among the most selective universities.” I think that is a more than sufficiently objective statement. If you disagree with that, then tell me why. Moreover, it is not uncommon for Wikipedia pages to have selectivity information in the lede. See the articles for Williams and Colgate for a few examples. Additionally, I think it is more than relevant to include that selectivity information with reference to other southern schools because Tulane’s name isn’t just Tulane University, but Tulane University of Louisiana. There is a very clear southern tenor to that and it should not be ignored. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EditorHeaven (talk • contribs)

Stop edit warring and revert your most recent edits; I will not talk with someone who believes they own this article and incessantly edit wars with multiple editors to preserve their preferred version and content. ElKevbo (talk) 00:50, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

@Sdkb: King of Hearts has said that it's okay for EditorHeaven to own this article so I'm removing it from my watchlist. Best of luck! ElKevbo (talk) 06:27, 26 July 2021 (UTC)