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List of Presidents of Washington & Jefferson College

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like some feedback on a few questions before sending this to FLC…

  1. Does the format make sense? I constructed the "Founding and early leadership" section in prose, because there isn't a lot of information about these men to fill in the list. Also, the job wasn't very strongly defined then, so there really aren't a lot of hard dates. I felt that the prose section could give a sense of the ad hoc nature of the early leadership.
  2. What to do about the Birth/Death column? Should we keep it or not? I'm not convinced either way...
  3. In addition to indicating which presidents were alumni of W&J, I'd like to show which ones were clergymen. Is that a good idea, and what other symbols could be used? Certainly the "†" would be appropriate for clergymen, but then how would alumni be designated?
  4. What should be the lead image? Ideally, I would have wanted to use a picture of the President's House, but we don't have one. So, what is the next best choice?
  • The building that houses the Office of the President and is named after a founder?
    The building that houses the Office of the President and is named after a founder?
  • A building named after a former president?
    A building named after a former president?

Thanks, GrapedApe (talk) 17:10, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Bencherlite
  • Can you explain somewhere what the College President does or what his role is, and / or find an appropriate wikilink? Different educational systems and establishments have different terminologies; sometimes for example the "top dog" is a purely ceremonial role (e.g. in the UK, a University's Chancellor is senior to the Vice-Chancellor, but the Chancellor will generally be a figurehead while the VC is the most senior executive officer).
  • President pro tempore seems to have nothing to do with the subject: a "constitutionally recognized officer of a legislative body who presides over the chamber in the absence of the normal presiding officer" (!)
    • Yeah, that's a biggie. Piped the link in Pro tempore, which is a broader description of temporary positions.-GrapedApe
  • Any particular reason, on this theme, why John McMillan doesn't qualify as a pro tem?
    • I wondered that myself, and I concluded that being named "president pro tempore" was an action by the board, while McMillan apparently just filled in on an ad hoc basis. The other ones were officially named "president pro tempore."-GrapedApe
  • Alden and Riddle are both #8 --fixed
  • Who was in charge of W&J, if anyone, from charter date in 1865 until Edwards started his term of office?
  • Matthew Brown's end date is after Breckinridge's start date. Ditto for Hinitt and Slemmens, and Slemmens and Black, and Case and Patterson, and Burnett and Mitchell, and Mitchell and Rembert. Did they actually overlap, with there being two Presidents / a President and a pro tem? That sounds odd to me, so if these dates are right some explanations if possible would be good.
    • Yeah, that's because the start date is the date of election to the presidency by the Board, while the end date is the date of resignation. All of the sources on the presidents have dates of election, while I was able to locate dates of inauguration for about half of the presidents. So, that's why I went with the date of election, rather than date of inauguration. I suspect that a number of these presidents (especially the early ones) didn't have formal inaugurations, and the transfer of authority occurred in a non-official way. Does that at least make sense? If so, I'll add some kind of explanation in there.--GrapedApe
  • Rather a lot of links to U. Grant Miller Library Digital Archives in the refs; perhaps just the first one?
    • I know that's standard for text, but is that applied to references as well?--GrapedApe
  • Surely this could be added to a couple of non-W&J categories e.g. Category:Lists of people by university in the United States, Category:Lists of educators

And to try and answer your questions:

  • No real preference on the image
  • I'm not a great fan of the birth/date info; I'm not sure it adds much in this context
  • You could turn the birth/date column into a notes column, with a brief comment on each where possible; clergy could be noted here. If you want a symbol instead, there are plenty around e.g. ¶ ♦ § – as I don't know how many you'd be marking in this way, I'm not sure whether I'd prefer symbols or text
    • Thanks, I'll play around with that later.--GrapedApe

That's all for the moment. BencherliteTalk 23:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from ImGz
  • The width the tables is bumping the pictures up and causing massive amounts of white space (using FF (not full screen) on a Mac with a rez of 1280x800 but I see it when setting it to 1024x768 as well). Try setting the width at 80%, though 83% displays just fine for me as well.
  • You have periods after some pages (eg. pp. 400–401.) but not others (Coleman 1956 p. 21) consistency?
  • I think the EL would be better labeled "Presidential History of Washington & Jefferson College".--agreed
  • Rev. John -> Reverend or per WP:CREDENTIAL just disregard it completely (though that pertains to in-article work, not sure if it applies to references as well).--cleared
  • Biographical dictionary of American educators -> Biographical Dictionary of American Educators.--cleared
  • General book reference cites "pp. 230–231" other more specific references go beyond that.
  • Prefer File:McMillan Hall western front.jpg if only because it's less blurry.--me too

--ImGz (t/c) 04:23, 5 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Second request for comments from GrapedApe
  • I have switched the "Jefferson College" section to the new format, with the notes in place of the "Birth/Death." How does that look? Frankly, I'm not wild about the "Notes" section, either. What would people say about cutting it altogether?--GrapedApe (talk) 05:20, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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