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Predatory publishers, fake conferences and academics who find them a way to succeed

I've raised this at User talk:Jimbo Wales#Predatory publishers, fake conferences and academics who find them a way to succeed. To make it easier, here's what I posted there. I hope interested editors will respond there. At World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (WASET] an attempt by an editor to speedy delete it, then an AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (2nd nomination) and discussions raised at RSN and NPOVN spurred me and other editors to look for current sources. Some of these sources discuss OMICS and Allied Academies, recently acquired by OMICS along with Future Medicine.

These have sparked a number of articles in the mainstream media and complaints by academics, while at the same time some academics are cooperating.

A study reported in the Japan Times[1] by James McCrostie looks at fake conferences in Japan. McCrostie discusses submitting fake papers generated by SCIgen to fake conferences all of which were accepted. It also discusses both the cost to attendees for these conferences (which are cheap to run) and the damage that can be done to reputations.

The New York Times published an article last month[2] called "Many Academics Are Eager to Publish in Worthless Journals". It also discusses aspects of predatory journals such as using names almost identical to prestigious ones, the fact that many or most don't have paper publications or do serious reviews, etc. And the fact that publishing in them is a way for academics to get promoted. "Many faculty members — especially at schools where the teaching load is heavy and resources few — have become eager participants in what experts call academic fraud that wastes taxpayer money, chips away at scientific credibility, and muddies important research." Senior academics publish in them -- 200 McGill University professsors, for instance.[3]

They also run fake conferences where by paying a hefty fee an academic can be listed as a presenter even if they don't attend. It's also easy to become an editor of a fake journal. A fictional academic with ludicrous credentials applied to 360 open-access journals asking to become an editor, with 48 accepting her, 4 making her editor-in-chief.[4][5] See also this article.

There are now more predatory conferences than scholarly ones.[6] Many of these are run by Waset: "research into Waset, which is registered in the United Arab Emirates, shows that it will hold some 183 events in 2018, although these will cover almost 60,000 individual “conferences” – averaging 320 at each event. Conferences are scheduled almost every day up until the end of 2030." These take place in small rooms with multiple conferences held in each room but few attendees, although many will have paid a large sum to attend.

An article last month in Die Zeit[7] says the ownership of WASET is unknown, and "website of Waset does not give an address anywhere. Interested parties can only fill out an anonymous form or send an SMS - with the United Arab Emirates dialing code." "The purpose of a waset conference is to extend the CV by a conference as well as a contribution in a scientific journal. Because every lecture is published in an online publication, which is also published by Waset. Over 40,000 articles are said to have come together since 1999, according to the website."

There are more sources of course, I could go on and on. And warnings from academics.[8][9][10][11]

This raises serious issues from Wikipedia. The obvious one is that it is now very difficult for most editors to distinguish between reputable journals and predatory ones, especially when the contributor seems "normal". My other issue is whether Wikipedia or the WMF has a role to play in the fight against these. Maybe we don't, I'd like to think there is something we can do. We do have Predatory open access publishing which oddly doesn't linketo Predatory conference. Perhaps one of the relevant wikiprojects should set up a working party to improve all the related articles?

Mild rant over. Please read the sources, they are pretty alarming and go into much more detail than I can here. Doug Weller talk 20:17, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

I would offer that none of this is new. There have always been impostors in academia. In the past the major issue was diploma mills and fake credentials. With the rise of the digital era these issues only became more complex. Now that employers are finally beginning to verify academic credentials the next frontier became fake journals and publishing. This issue has become more acute with the trend of fewer tenure jobs available and more competition for them. I don't know that wikipedia will able to independently determine whether each and every journal is a fake or not unless there are specific credible sources identifying them as one. Just thinking of some ways to address further AFDs. Is there an agreed on database that identifies generally accepted fake journals? We could add them to speedy delete criterion. Or conversely we could create a category for notable fake journals... Randomeditor1000 (talk) 17:07, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Endowments for Institution pages and College System pages

Hello Everyone,
One of the issues we have identified on the Texas A&M University article that impacts a number of large institutions that are part of a university or college system. That is to say that the NACUBO annual commonwealth endowment study reports system endowment totals and that is being listed as the overall endowment on the specific institution page - but not on the system page. This would affect Texas A&M University and Texas A&M University System, University of Minnesota and University of Minnesota system, Texas Tech University and Texas Tech University System and others.

How can we address this issue?

I propose a potential solution would be to list the system endowment on the system page. If a specific source for the institution page is does not exist the endowment figure should not be included. An alternative solution would be to list both the institution specific endowment and the overall system endowment within the university template.

What are everyone's thoughts on this? Randomeditor1000 (talk) 04:06, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Listing the system endowment on the system page and not including an endowment on the institution page unless the actual endowment for the institution is known sounds like a sensible solution to me. Robminchin (talk) 21:02, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Disambiguation links on pages tagged by this wikiproject

Wikipedia has many thousands of wikilinks which point to disambiguation pages. It would be useful to readers if these links directed them to the specific pages of interest, rather than making them search through a list. Members of WikiProject Disambiguation have been working on this and the total number is now below 20,000 for the first time. Some of these links require specialist knowledge of the topics concerned and therefore it would be great if you could help in your area of expertise.

A list of the relevant links on pages which fall within the remit of this wikiproject can be found at http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/topic_points.py?banner=WikiProject_Universities

Please take a few minutes to help make these more useful to our readers.— Rod ^talk 19:51, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Disagreements about content in Western Carolina University

Can a few editors please stop by Talk:Western Carolina University and offer input on two disagreements between two editors? The discussions are in the two most recent sections, "YouTube video in "External links" section" and "2017 solar eclipse." Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 00:46, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

Legacy admissions

In Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It, Richard Reeves explains that legacy admissions prevent the working and lower classes from attending elite colleges and living the American Dream. I have noticed that most (all?) of our articles fail to mention the rate of legacy admissions. We have legacy preferences, but that's not enough--the information should appear at Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University, etc. (This is tangentially connected to acceptance rates because if a college only admits 15% of their applicants but 90% of them are legacy students, the system is rigged.) Is anyone able to find reliable third-party sources about this please? Perhaps on the United States Department of Education website?Zigzig20s (talk) 04:53, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I doubt anyone has that info. Definitely not the Department of Education, maybe not even the schools themselves. Very difficult to calculate. Also, many it's not at all advertised, schools keep it on the DL. This article, for example, put Harvard at 30%, but is it reliable? Eccekevin (talk) 06:16, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Why wouldn't the USDE have this info? They give millions of dollars to colleges every year. The CNBC link says 29% for Harvard, but they use The Harvard Crimson as a source, and that's not third party.Zigzig20s (talk) 07:00, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Of course institutions have this information (for applicants who reveal it, anyway)! In my experience they are also quite transparent about releasing it although I don't recall if it's included in any IPEDS or Common Data Set variables.

I am quite opposed to making any widespread changes to articles based on one book, particularly one published by a politically biased think tank. However, the topic should certainly be included in articles that specifically address college applications and admissions in the U.S. ElKevbo (talk) 12:11, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, this book made me think of it but that's not really the point. The rate of legacy admissions gives a sense of the culture of a given school. If lots of legacy students attend a specific college, it's more likely to be a traditional and privileged (and unwelcoming/exclusionary) enclave. That's why I think it should appear in articles about specific colleges.Zigzig20s (talk) 13:27, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

I think that's a particular point of view that would require substantial evidence to support. (If you're genuinely interested in learning more, I recommend looking into NACAC's materials to see if they have anything to say about this topic. I think there is also some discussion of this topic in the many court documents, particularly the amici curiae, related to the Michigan and University of Texas Supreme Court cases that focused on college admissions; I think both institutions maintain online libraries of the documents.) ElKevbo (talk) 00:51, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not going to write a thesis about this. I just don't see why it wouldn't be due to add that Harvard has a reported 29% legacy admission rate for example. Colleges may want to keep it on the DL, but we don't have to. We need to focus on relaying facts, not advertising, half-truths or marketing literature.Zigzig20s (talk) 04:48, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

References

Shall we ban the U.S. News & World Report?

The U.S. News & World Report is misleading, and unfit as a reliable source for a serious encyclopedia like Wikipedia. The lede reads, "The rankings are popular in North America but have drawn widespread criticism from colleges, administrations, and students for their dubious, disparate, and arbitrary nature.". Later it reads, "SAT scores play a role in The U.S. News & World Report college rankings even though U.S. News is not empowered with the ability to formally verify or recalculate the scores that are represented to them by schools.", "Some higher education experts, such as Kevin Carey of Education Sector, have asserted that U.S. News & World Report's college rankings system is merely a list of criteria that mirrors the superficial characteristics of elite colleges and universities.", etc.Zigzig20s (talk) 04:13, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

You could say the same about virtually any ranking. Trying to judge which rankings are reliable as indicators of a university's "true" status (if such a thing exists) isn't something editors should be doing. The rankings exist, whether we like it or not, and, as you have shown, the criticisms are there in their articles for anyone to see.

This does demonstrate, however, why it is important to distinguish rankings from statements about how good a university is, e.g. "The University of Coalville is ranked #1 in the state by US News and World Report" is an accurate statement but 'The University of Coalville is the best in the state" (citing the same ranking) is not. This (or similar) is an issue on many, many university pages. Robminchin (talk) 05:00, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

No. ElKevbo (talk) 11:16, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Definitely do not ban. USNews is the most widely used of all the rankings. Some would say the granddaddy. Bollyjeff | talk 00:32, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

No. Widely used and relied upon. One "expert's" statement doesn't make consensus.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 01:23, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

No, it has flaws like all ranking systems. However, we should present a balance of different rankings to readers a non-biased picture. Aloneinthewild (talk) 10:35, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Acceptance rate in the lede

Is it normal/standard to add 2017's acceptance rate to the lede please? It seems to me like this should be in the body of the text perhaps, but not in the lede. For example Harvard University, Princeton University or Yale University don't mention it at all...Zigzig20s (talk) 07:10, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't include that information unless it's particularly important to readers' understanding of the subject. In many cases selectivity serves as a bullshit proxy measure of quality and we should strongly discourage that especially given many editors' proclivity to include POV/OR information proclaiming the greatness of their alma maters. ElKevbo (talk) 22:18, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Completely agree with ElKevbo. Corky ^{Buzz by the Hornet's Nest} 18:53, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Claim to be leading on the basis of global rankings

A discussion has been started on the University College London talk page as to whether it is fair to claim in the lead that University College London "is one of the world's leading universities" on the basis of its global ranking position. If editors were to stop by and give their input that would be useful. Robminchin (talk) 15:58, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

I replied.Zigzig20s (talk) 20:14, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

RM notice

Greetings! I have recently relisted a requested move discussion at Talk:KIIT University#Requested move 7 December 2017, regarding a page relating to this WikiProject. Discussion and opinions are invited. Thanks, SkyWarrior 17:41, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Duke Divinity School deans

Is anyone able to find a list of all the deans of the Duke Divinity School please?Zigzig20s (talk) 13:55, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Tuskegee University is too long

Tuskegee University is too long. Shall we split the notable alumni/faculty off into another page at least?Zigzig20s (talk) 05:34, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that would be a good start. I'd also consider shortening or condensing the section that just lists, without any sources, student organizations. The athletics section could also be tightened especially since there is already a dedicated article for that topic. The history section could also be moved into a separate article and summarized in the main one although I worry about the relative lack of references in that section. ElKevbo (talk) 06:06, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Would you mind doing it please?Zigzig20s (talk) 06:08, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: I'm not familiar with the institution so it would take me a bit to write up a suitable one-paragraph summary for the main article mentioning the most prominent alumni. If you can help with that, I'd be happy to create the new article and move the content into it. ElKevbo (talk) 02:22, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Founders Day (universities)

I am quite surprised to see we don't have an article about Founders Day for universities, even though it is celebrated on many campuses. Would someone like to create it please? Zigzig20s (talk) 13:56, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure how notable Founders Day celebrations are generically, as opposed to specific celebrations (and, even then, they will seldom be notable enough to actually justify a separate article). Looking around, it doesn't seem that there's a lot of coverage outside of the universities themselves. Also, given the lack of sources, such an article would be limited to a list of what individual universities did as drawing conclusions on general patterns would probably be synthesis. If there's a book out there on "Founders Day celebrations in America's universities" (or similar) then this would change things – and it's entirely possible that such a book exists, but I haven't seen it. Robminchin (talk) 12:04, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Don't you think it would be a good idea to create an article with a list of all the specific celebrations held on Founders Days on campuses? If the main concern is the lack of third-party sources, we should be able to find them on Newspapers.com. There are also matches on JSTOR.Zigzig20s (talk) 05:23, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Feel free to start a draft article and ask for feedback! ElKevbo (talk) 02:23, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Deans of students

Do deans of students pass GNG?Zigzig20s (talk) 09:45, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

No, if they are only notable as the dean of students then the answer, in general is no. If there are supporting references that explain why the Dean of Students is notable, then yes, they may be. See WP:ACADEMIC it expounds on the specifics. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 18:32, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. In the U.S. context, deans of students are not even the chief student affairs officer in many cases (at least at larger institutions). ElKevbo (talk) 22:39, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Title of article about doctorate

Can other editors please weigh in on the preferred title for our article about the doctorate? Thanks! (Yes, I acknowledge that some editors may believe that I'm poisoning the well with the title of this section and the text of my request. I find this entire discussion to be so absurd that I'll take the hit.) ElKevbo (talk) 22:51, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Thinking of proposing the removal of "Official athletics website" links from main college/university articles

I'd like to open an RfC to remove the "Official athletics website" link that is in many the "External links" section of many articles about colleges and universities in the U.S. Before I do so, however, I'd like to get a feel for how this may or may not be supported by editors in this project; I'm particularly worried that many editors may feel strongly that this link belongs in articles so such a proposal would be acrimonious and a waste of time.

In brief, I think that having this link in the main article for colleges and universities (a) contravenes our guideline for external links and (b) places undue weight on this one aspect of complex, multifaceted organizations.

What do you think? Would this be a reasonable proposal? If so, please let me know which specific projects should be notified if there is an RfC; I know there are a few focused specifically on college sports but I'd appreciate suggestions to ensure such an RfC gets wide input from interested editors. ElKevbo (talk) 02:31, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I personally I like the links in the university articles, even if they do break the EL guidelines. However, I don't think the Athletics website is needed in the main university article if there is a separate page for the athletics department. NCAA Division I and most Division II articles have separate articles, but schools that in the NCAA Division III, NAIA, NCCAA, etc. do not. I'd favor removal of links from those schools that have a separate athletics article and keep them in the ones that do not have a separate article. Corky 02:44, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

1) I don't think it's a big priority. 2) I would err on Oppose because most people have only heard of specific universities because of their football teams...so when they google it, they may get to the Wikipedia article, scroll down and want to find the right website.Zigzig20s (talk) 10:44, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

It is a low priority but it has the benefit of being very straight forward and simple which makes it appealing. And I think that we should have evidence supporting the assertion that "most people have only heard of specific universities because of their football teams" if we're going to use it as the basis for large scale decision making. ElKevbo (talk) 14:58, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Oppose, I would oppose the specific removal of athletics website links from the main university wikipage. On some pages we have subjects that have multiple official websites that are domain specific under external links. In this case, the child subject is directly related to the parent in a manner that is generally considered 'important'. In my view these pass muster under the criterion on WP:EL 1. The content is usually accessible to the reader (Disability Complaint as well). 2. The site provides context on a major aspect of collegiate life, it is useful and informative to understand why there is an athletics section or sub-page on Wikipedia. 3. The links are generally functional and do not change due to trademark rights, branding and audience consistency. In general they are directly related to the university, are controlled by the university and are one of the reasons that a university may be notable. In any case, this might be something to discuss on the WP:ELN talk-page. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 18:27, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I ran down this path in my own mind but here is where I ran into trouble with this argument: Why does this one aspect of colleges and universities warrant this special treatment? Libraries, for examples, also have multimillion budgets and are incredibly important to their campuses and often the local community so why don't they warrant special inclusion in the EL section? What about specific colleges? Student unions? ...? The only provable difference I could come up with is that many athletic programs have unique URLs that are not a subdomain of the main college or university domain and to me that's not sufficient, at least not by itself.

In any case, I think we're much better off establishing the principle that permits these links to be included instead of just carving out an unspoken, undefined exception for them. That would allow us to make consistent decisions about specific (or general) cases. ElKevbo (talk) 22:49, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

As a thought exercise, sports were described by the University of Alaska Board of Trustees as the "front porch" for members of the American public as they considered effectively eliminating or combining collegiate sports at Fairbanks and Anchorage due to budget gap in 2016. There have been a myriad articles discussing how the American form of collegiate sports is effectively too big to fail, yet spending too much to be sustainable. I would take the position that US collegiate sports are culturally more important than other functions in the public viewpoint. That libraries and other functions related to academia are considered less important due to notions like civic pride. Right, wrong or indifferent the average reader may find having the athletics website useful. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 13:56, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Land-grants and Systems

One other issue: what to do about land grants that were awarded to systems. For example, Alaska, California and Nebraska are all awarded to the system. Should all of the member institutions have statements/type that they are a land grant college and added to the land grant category? Or should those be moved to the system page? (For example, University of Alaska system, University of California system) Randomeditor1000 (talk) 18:02, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Can you please provide some more detailed examples? My understanding of the designation is that it was only to be used for a single institution and this led to some big political battles as alumni tried to convince their state leaders (I don't remember if state legislatures or governors made the final decision) that their institution (and not that other one!) should be named the state's land-grant university. I wonder if there is some confusion or complication if single institutions that were awarded the designation later split apart into multiple full-fledged institutions or became the flagship of a system...? ElKevbo (talk) 18:46, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Partially, it is a popular misconception of the law that only one institution may be designated. Federal law allows University Systems to accept the land grant funding on behalf of states (e.g. "at least one college..."). There are three that have done this: California, Alaska and Nebraska. The integral issue is whether all institutions within these systems are to be considered land-grants and identified as such or should the system page state the whole system is a land grant? I gave the example of California (as in your thought), Berkeley was the original land grant recipient, it spawned branches that led to Davis and Riverside providing extension responsibilities. But should the others be noted as land-grants? Do they receive current NIFA partner research dollars? and what to do about Alaska with Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau... Randomeditor1000 (talk) 13:53, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

(In my defense, *if* that is a misconception of the law(s) then it's a wildly popular one that strongly influenced its implementation!)

It seems like the easiest way to resolve this is to simply accede to the descriptions used by the institutions. If they describe themselves as land-grant institutions then that provides us with reliable sourcing to include that information in our articles.

If someone really wants to figure this out, I wonder if our colleagues at APLU could offer some guidance? ElKevbo (talk) 17:38, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Balanced colors on template

Template:University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee used to have very good balanced arrangement of colors like this good looking. It is also the old original version of this template. But some editors want to destroy this harmony, with this too much yellow colors or this black and white version. There is an ongoing discussion at Template talk:University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. I think the purpose for creating standards is to improve not destroy. At least we should be allowed Not to use the so called standard, if the standards don't improve the template of UWM. Could the members from the WikiProject Universities provide some inputs for this dispute? Philpost (talk) 14:20, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Space Grant notation in the Type field in the University Infobox

Hello everyone, one of the inconsistencies we have out there is regarding space-grant universities. Each state has a consortium. Within the consortium there is a lead university and then there are partners that are eligible to receive space grant funds for aeronautical, aviation, aerospace research. There are over 800 universities that have been identified as part of a consortium. Should all of the infoboxes be updated with space grant so that they are consistent with land grant, sun grant? Should we just identify the space grant lead universities? Or? One example of this issue is California. It has University of California, San Diego as the lead, and University of California, Santa Barbara and University of California, Davis have it in the infobox but none of the others. There is inconsistency. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 17:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

(I've had the beginnings of a proposal about this topic in my head but I haven't shared it yet because I haven't yet done the necessary background work. But I have been thinking about this topic so here goes...) Of the various "-grant" programs only "land-grant" belongs in infoboxes and leads of articles. I can easily provide many scholarly resources that substantiate the importance of the land-grant designation and how it had a profound impact on the specific institutions and on U.S. higher education broadly writ. I don't think I can make that argument for the other "-grant" designations; they're great programs but none of them have had the same widespread impact of the land-grant programs. Put bluntly, only the land-grant designation is integral to the mission and identity of most institutions who have the designation and for that reason I don't think the other designation warrant inclusion in the infobox and lead of most articles. ElKevbo (talk) 18:38, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

I was going to say pretty much the same as ElKevbo. I've never seen or heard anyone you about an institution bring a "Space Grant University", but it's common to see somewhere described as a"Land Grant University". It sounds like the Sun Grant should go in the paragraph on affiliations, etc., for the small number of institutions concerned, if it goes in the lede at all, rather than in the type of university. Robminchin (talk) 12:59, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Robminchin, in the United States we have a series of federal programs that were designed to support research around specialized areas of national need in the format of the land grant process. These are additionally important in that they represent one of the few stand alone increases in federal funding for higher education support. There are a variety of these including space-grant institutions that research aeronautics, aviation and space related technology. sun-grants that research agriculture and solar power related technology. sea-grants that focus on biology and water science research.

ElKevbo, the integral issue I would take is that we already have a broad range of data in the type data field. The infobox purpose is to include data regarding the subject, I'm not sure that level of importance is a factor in deciding the information in it. I'm also not sure how to substantiate an argument that only land grant status should be included. Recall that there have been three major laws that have added institutions to land grant status ranging from University of California, Berkley to Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College. As stated by NOAA regarding the sea-grant program it has provided over $575 million in impact and led to increases in national resilience from natural disasters. I think similar positions can be made regarding the sun-grant and space-grant. Rhetorically, if we provide an exception for land grant typification we should be WP:NPOV and provide the same exceptions for similar programs. In addition, these other programs are a part of the mission as many are carried out by their extension office. Where I think it would be beneficial is to limit for example, the space-grant typification to just the lead universities for each state consortium which would reduce confusion and the breadth of edits necessary. There are generally only one lead in each state. I think it would be appropriate to create a category for each of these as well if one doesn't already exist. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 13:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

I think we already have too much information crammed into infoboxes and that many of the parameters are so ill-defined that they lead more to confusion than helpful information e.g., "affiliation." We need to refocus what we place into infoboxes and article leads to ensure that they contain critical information that is essential for readers and an accurate summary that is relatively and appropriate uniform across similar articles.

I am open to including the other -grant designations but I don't think that anyone has successfully made the argument for their importance. I could easily cite many foundational books about U.S. higher education history that give the land-grant acts a prominent place in the develop and definition of U.S. higher ed including many articles and books that specifically focus just on the land-grant acts. (I concede that most of these focus on the earlier acts, particularly the first two. However, it's also apparent that the earliest acts had as much influence as they did because they were enacted so early in the development of U.S. universities when they had an opportunity to shape institutions who were being founded and beginning to define their curricula and missions.) If someone is interested in doing this, I caution against relying too much on self-serving information provided by the institutions who have these designations and the agencies that award them because those institutions have a natural and understandable need to make the designations seem as important as possible.

I completely support create categories for these designations. And if it's not clear then I do think it's important to include these designations in each institution's article, perhaps in the "Academics" or "History" section. I just don't think these designations have had a fundamental effect on most institutions and thus don't warrant inclusion in the infobox or lead. ElKevbo (talk) 17:33, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Randomeditor1000 I'm well aware of the programs, having had Space Grant funded students and worked for a Land Grant university (Cornell). I fully agree with ElKevbo that the Land Grant is well established by sources as being more important in the development of higher education in the US. I would also note that when I worked for Cornell they advertised their land grant status widely, including a regular section in the Cornell Chronicle, but I would be surprised if anyone outside of the relevant departments knew it was also the lead space grant institution for New York – it just simply wasn't as important.

The evidence appears to be that third parties treat land grant as being much more important than space/sun/sea grant. This means that treating them the same on Wikipedia would be WP:UNDUE. Giving prominence on Wikipedia to something that is given prominence by sources is not non-NPOV. Robminchin (talk) 03:08, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

It is not my position that the land grant acts are not important. Please do not confuse the purpose of my question above. WP:ISNOT a comparison of which is or is not more important. That is the point of WP:NPOV. We do include "less important" academic associations, affiliations for small colleges in the infobox or lead of other institutional pages. Recall that WP:Avoid academic boosterism includes the perspective that we should include facts - not opinions on xyz subject. It is a fact an institution has received designation as a sun-grant. We even thought that was notable enough to have our own sun-grant article. So your stance that this is undue in the lead or in the infobox holds no water in my view. We have numerous data in the infobox and lead that does not meet your stated test of 'importance' when measured against the criterion that land grants are so critical to the mission of the institution. That is a very narrow view. As an aside Cornell advertises it is a statutory land grant because it is a private-non-profit whereby only some of the departments were funded by public dollars. The rest of that type are public universities, with public missions and purposes.

My position is that these designations are 'basic details' about an institution as identified in WP:UNIGUIDE, specific details about the institution and are thus WP:NPOV. So again, my question is not about importance or repute. In relation, Wiktionary defines the word type as meaning A grouping based on shared characteristics; a class. The grant designations are a type or class. There are generally specialized academic departments that exist in these institutions that relate to these grants and their function on behalf of society. As with the entire infobox, it is helpful for the reader to better understand the institution's specialties. So it is reasonable and logical to include type(s) in the type field in the infobox. That is the reason why WP:UNIGUIDE doesn't have specific guidance dictating that only "land grants" should be included as a 'type' in the type field in the infobox. Many of the institutions have separate websites set up to discuss their xyz grant program and even reference this in taglines, news articles etc. So it is not a 'minor aspect' in so far as a university is usually a complex, large organization. In addition, the template guidance specifically states that the type field is for "e.g. public, private, four year, undergraduate, graduate, etc." which is broad and does not align with your stated preference for reducing data in this field. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 14:20, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

As always, the burden of proof lies with the editor(s) who are advocating for the inclusion of information. Can you please provide evidence that these designations are central to readers' understanding of these topics? Please note that in arguing for including information in infoboxes or leads the evidence should be quite strong. (And I don't think that relying on the template guidance is adequate; the guidance for this template sucks; many parameters are extremely vague and are used in many different, inconsistent ways in article.) ElKevbo (talk) 15:39, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

WP:PROVEIT is concerning reliable and verifiable additions to content, not as you state "central to reader's understanding". This isn't an NFFC violation of an image. MOS:LEAD states that "Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." Generally, most US university articles do not expound on land grant status except for maybe some lines in the history section. These information are very clearly a category of basic facts that are generally included in the lead and/or infobox. This conforms to template guidance and WP:UNIGUIDE, when there isn't any other advisement and that simply put is fine. But to your point, there is value in finding compromise. So I think that it would be appropriate to incorporate for this subject just the consortium leaders for space-grants. I will update the sun-grants and sea-grants as well as I mentioned above. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 17:16, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I am challenging whether or not this is a basic fact requiring inclusion in the lead or infobox. Further, I argue that although many articles don't do a good job explaining how the land-grant designation influenced the university (which is one of many things our articles don't do a good job of doing!) the influence is implicit in the academic organizations and offerings of the institutions e.g., many of the universities have agriculture programs and even engineering programs because the land-grant act required them, even the non-A&Ms. ElKevbo (talk) 17:45, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Got that about three posts ago. Yet, you haven't provided anything that states type as included in the university template or in many uni leads are not a basic fact. Or that grant et al. is not a type or group of colleges (when each is very clearly a group or type as defined by APLU, NASA, USDA etc). As a reminder, there are no strict requirements regarding basic data and infobox and lead have different guidance. Just to add to this, all 50 states have land grant university pages that identify Land-Grant in the type field. So too do the sun-grants, missing are some of the sea-grants and some of the space-grants. Based on other edits it would appear that this has already been added to all. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 17:53, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Oh - we can't prove a negative. :) That is why I think it's incumbent on those who want to add or include this information to provide evidence that it's critical information. I don't dispute that it's supported by reliable sources but I think we need some evidence about its importance. ElKevbo (talk) 19:00, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

And please don't think that I'm purposely being objectionable or picking on you! I honestly believe that we should (had) have these kinds of discussions about most of the items in the infobox and the recommended sections in WP:UNIGUIDE including the lead. I don't think that we should include information in articles just because one or two editors think that it's important or interesting; our content should reflect a broader (ideally scholarly) consensus. ElKevbo (talk) 19:19, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

To your first point, yes it is clear by now that I have a different view. I don't view this as requesting you to prove a negative. In fact, as I pointed out the wiki-community has already added this information in an uncoordinated fashion (i.e it ain't just me) to most page info-boxes. To your second point, I understand. It's simply a disagreement. I will drop this for now. Over my time as an editor it has been my observation that most discussions here occur in an adversarial fashion. That isn't how I normally think so to a certain extent this is a challenge to my personal nature. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 20:17, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Userspace content

Hi! I wanted to see if this student's draft article would be useful anywhere - one of the Wiki Education students created a draft on User:Happyweekdays/Chinese faculty in U.S, but it never really went live because we were worried that it would be deleted. Can someone give it a look? There's also a draft on Chinese international students in the United States. I would post it at the WikiProject devoted to expanding education related topics, but that's only semi-active. Semi-active usually means dead as far as WikiProjects go, unfortunately in my experience, so I wanted to post it here and to a few other places. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:07, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

In terms of deletion, the main issue is notability. I took a quick look at the faculty article – the article clearly need some tidying up and improvement (it reads more like an essay than a Wikipedia article), but this shouldn't affect whether it is deleted or not. More problematic is that almost all the sources are about either international faculty or minority faculty, there is nothing to show that people are writing about Chinese faculty specifically, and thus nothing to demonstrate that this is a notable category of people. I would therefore recommend looking for and incorporating references that discuss Chinese faculty specifically.

On a factual note (that I spotted on a quick read-through), the first few sentences mistakenly present Chinese faculty as either on J-1 visa as visiting scholars or as (US) citizens; there are actually a number of different statuses (e.g. H-1B, F-1, permanent resident) so it would be better to simply state visas, permanent residents and citizens. It also isn't clear whether citizens refers only to naturalized citizens or also to "natural born" US citizens of Chinese descent, it is quite likely that different authors (when identified) will draw the line in different places, so this will probably need to be mentioned.

As it stands, the lead is far too long and needs to be better subdivided into paragraphs. This looks like the introduction to an essay rather than the lead of an article.

The notability is less of an issue for the Chinese students article, which does include references discussing Chinese students specifically and others showing that they make up a significant body of students in the US. There are still some quality issues, but these shouldn't lead to deletion. It would be good to address these be releasing it into the wild if possible, however. Robminchin (talk) 03:13, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

What does it mean to be a "research university"

I noticed some Nigerian universities are described as "...research universities" in lede, while others are described simply as a "...university". Does research university mean universities with a reputable postgraduate college? Or a university with a research center for excellence? What criteria do I need to assess before accepting "research university" in lede, because generally Nigerian references do not refer to our universities as "research universities" when describing them, they prefer to use either "federal ...", "state ..." or "private ...". I just want to be sure it is not original research for the schools using it on WP. HandsomeBoy (talk) 15:00, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Although there may be country-specific exceptions, there isn't an agreed upon definition or any sort of regulation of this term. In the past couple of hundred years, "university" for many people has come to refer to an institution that awards undergraduate and graduate degrees. So that seems to rule out using "with a reputable postgraduate college" as a criterion since that should, in theory, include all universities.

In the U.S. context, I would defer to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education especially their definition for R1 or R2 institutions (it used to be easier to defer to the classifications before they screwed things up by reintroducing the R1 terminology... :( ). However, even in the U.S. context I think we'd probably fall back to simple reliance on reliable sources to support this language. Since this is a question of prestige, I caution against simply relying on language that is self-published by the institution or that was clearly supplied by the institution (e.g., press release, boilerplate language); you really should rely on independent sources preferably scholarly ones. ElKevbo (talk) 15:51, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Apartheid/Jim Crow in the lede

University of the Witwatersrand contextualizes the exclusion of black students in the lede. Why shouldn't we do the same for universities in the American South?Zigzig20s (talk) 05:17, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

What do you have in mind? ElKevbo (talk) 02:24, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

For example I think the lede of the University of Mississippi should read, "African-Americans were banned from attending the University of Mississippi until 1962."Zigzig20s (talk) 08:41, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

You would probably need to clarify whether that was an individual decision of the university or simply reflected state law. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:58, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

"African-Americans were banned from attending the University of Mississippi until 1962 due to Jim Crow laws"? But it's not like Southern universities were the victims of state laws; they were educating the very people who passed those laws. Some universities even had alumni in the KKK. I get that the lede shouldn't be too specific, but the sentence I suggested above seems fair.Zigzig20s (talk) 10:21, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that a proposed addition to the lead needs to be very concise. It may be more accurate in some cases to state that admission was limited to white students. More importantly, we could not only focus on race; many institutions also excluded women. ElKevbo (talk) 17:28, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I wonder if that's a false equivalency. Privileged white women went to elite schools, and they did not face the same kind of violence as blacks.Zigzig20s (talk) 17:32, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Besides, blacks applies to black men and black women.Zigzig20s (talk) 17:34, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

I was thinking of something like "As a state university, African-Americans were banned from attending the University of Mississippi until 1962." But I probably don't understand the nuances here, so am happy to leave the precise wording to those who do. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:59, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

When did Samford University accept their first African-American student? They're a private university.Zigzig20s (talk) 20:17, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

The notion that this information should be added en masse to articles about universities in the South strikes me as WP:ACTIVISM or trying to right a great wrong. The lede should be an introduction and summary of the article. Why cherry pick this one particular aspect of a school's history, when it is currently not even mentioned in University of Mississippi#History, and the lede doesn't otherwise mention anything at all about the school's history? If someone adds a well-rounded summary of the History section to the lede, and it happens to include segregation, then fine. Toohool (talk) 20:28, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

That is incorrect. There is a whole section about it called "Integration of 1962 and legacy."Zigzig20s (talk) 20:31, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

It's not activism. It's history. Just like apartheid. We shouldn't censor US history.Zigzig20s (talk) 20:32, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

My mistake, I should've looked more carefully. I stand by my point that what's appropriate for the lede is a summary of the school's history rather than cherry-picked facts. That's not censorship. Toohool (talk) 20:40, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

It is. If the University of Alabama banned blacks from attending for the first 100 years, it should appear in the lede. It's a huge issue.Zigzig20s (talk) 20:54, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

It happened for more than half the entire history of the university.Zigzig20s (talk) 21:09, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

And also, why should American universities be treated differently from South African universities?Zigzig20s (talk) 10:31, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Do I need to start an RfC for this and if so, where's the best place to do it please? This WP talkpage has a limited readership.Zigzig20s (talk) 18:33, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

This is probably the best place to have an RfC on a general university topic. This wouldn't be specific to any individual institution, so individual talk pages are probably not the best place to hold the RfC, but you would want to advertise it on the talk pages of any institution that could be affected so people there had a chance to come here and comment. Robminchin (talk) 18:54, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Medical College of VA?

Does anyone know what the Medical College of VA is please?Zigzig20s (talk) 21:13, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Medical College of Virginia, a.k.a. VCU Medical Center. Robminchin (talk) 00:52, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 01:03, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

In popular culture

Hi, I wondered if any other users would like to add opinions on a discussion started at Talk:University_of_London#Popular_culture. I believe problems with "in popular culture" sections at universities was discussed here recently. Aloneinthewild (talk) 13:05, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Recent edits to Doctor of Management

Can someone (else) please take a look at the recent edits at Doctor of Management and provide input on the article's Talk page? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 23:13, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Bragging about famous/successful alumni in the lede

Isn't it POV-pushing to brag about famous/successful alumni in the lede?Zigzig20s (talk) 18:32, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

No, it is just annoying. Just move is to the section "Notable alumni". The Banner talk 19:26, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

User:The Banner: OK, it was done in this edit, but I am not sure because there is similar content in Harvard University's and University of Chicago's ledes for example, but not as extensively. Maybe it could be trimmed at the very least? I'll let you decide. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 20:07, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

It may be parallel to the "among the most prestigious" issues that we have had in some articles. In those cases, we tried to address it by insisting that the language be very well sourced. In this instance, it may be a workable approach if we insist that a similar mention of alumni in the lead be supported by high quality, independent sources that specifically focus on the (prestige, success, special nature, etc.) institution's alumni. That would also dovetail nicely with WP:SYN if we insist that any such description or listing of alumni not by unique, original content created by Wikipedia editors but be found in reliable sources. ElKevbo (talk) 16:27, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

The problem really is that it's been added to the lede. It could be fleshed out in the body of the text, but not in the lede. I think it needs to be trimmed. We certainly don't need to know that there are "139,000 living alumni, with 38 alumni clubs established worldwide" in the lede. Then there is the entirely different issue of self-sourced content, which we could discuss in another topic.Zigzig20s (talk) 22:25, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

User:ElKevbo: Would you like to trim this lede to match the weight in Harvard's and Chicago's please?Zigzig20s (talk) 00:48, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate you asking but no, I would not like to do that. :) I would be happy to offer suggestions and feedback if someone else drafts something but I have no special interest in or knowledge of those institutions and I'm focused on another project right now. (My default action would be to delete the information, use an edit summary pointing to Talk, leave a good explanation of the issues in Talk, and let editors who are more invested or knowledgeable work it out.) ElKevbo (talk) 04:09, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

We could create a guideline (which would in turn facilitate the trimming). Maybe just mention alumni over three lines (or one sentence) in the lede?Zigzig20s (talk) 20:39, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Please let us know here and at WT:UNIGUIDE when you have a solid or draft proposal that we can discuss! ElKevbo (talk) 21:27, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

My proposal is just one sentence about alumni in the lede. Isn't that reasonable?Zigzig20s (talk) 10:23, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

You'll probably want a bit more, 'one sentence' can be very long – this is a single sentence from the alumni section of Durham University: "[Durham alumni] have included Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury (St John's, 1992), Sir Milton Margai, first prime minister of Sierra Leone (MD, 1926),[280] the 7th Queensland Premier John Douglas (BA, 1850),[281] Henry Holland, 1st Viscount Knutsford, Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1887 to 1892 (Law, 1847), Herbert Laming, Baron Laming, head of the Harold Shipman inquiry and the investigation of Britain's social services following the death of Baby P, (Applied Social Studies, 1960),[282] Dame Caroline Swift,[283] the lead counsel to the Shipman inquiry, and Mo Mowlam, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the time of the Good Friday Peace Agreement (Sociology and Anthropology)."

I would suggest a single sentence summarising famous alumni using verifiable statistics and not normally naming any specific people. It's possible to imagine a small college that is most well known for producing a famous singer or something, but unless a specific former student is a significant part of the institution's notability they shouldn't be in the lead, and once one person is mentioned Wikipedia has a tendency to expand lists to ludicrous lengths as nobody can agree on a good cut-off. The guideline should also be clear that there is no need to mention alumni in the lead at all and that this is a recommendation for if alumni are included there. Robminchin (talk) 13:17, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, definitely no names. But I think it's reasonable to have one sentence with "this university's alumni include two vice presidents, five Nobel laureates, etc.". Harvard has two sentences, "Harvard's alumni include eight U.S. presidents, several foreign heads of state, 62 living billionaires, 359 Rhodes Scholars, and 242 Marshall Scholars.[20][21][22] To date, some 130 Nobel laureates, 18 Fields Medalists, and 13 Turing Award winners have been affiliated as students, faculty, or staff.[23]". I find "several foreign heads of state" a little vague, and a bit confusing to mix alumni with faculty/staff.Zigzig20s (talk) 13:22, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Robminchin in so far as if editors want to add specific notable types of graduates with exact numbers in a single sentence in the lead fine. That might not be WP:UNDUE. But gratuitously open ended statements without specifics or multiple sentences no. I think this guideline should be very specifically added to the text in WP:UNIGUIDE. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 21:16, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! ElKevbo (talk) 23:11, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

User:ElKevbo: Would you like to amend Wikipedia:College and university article advice please?Zigzig20s (talk) 12:42, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I think this probably needs more widespread discussion first. I recommend opening an RfC at WT:UNIGUIDE to ensure that other editors have an opportunity to chime in. I'd definitely notify the folks at WP:SCHOOL. ElKevbo (talk) 13:51, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

How shall we phrase the RfC please?Zigzig20s (talk) 14:58, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Are you sure we need to? It is not particularly controversial...Zigzig20s (talk) 19:13, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

One sentence only, without name, is fine for me. XIIIfromTOKYO (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

I made the suggestion in an abundance of caution. It may affect many articles and editors are more likely to (rightfully) object and push back if there wasn't widespread discussion and clear consensus. We're not in any big hurry here and this is a relatively minor issue so I think there is no harm if we play it safe and ensure that everyone who wants to weigh in on this issue has an opportunity to do so. ElKevbo (talk) 04:24, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

Queens' College Cambridge

In the section on Coat of Arms, could someone please explain who 'he' is in the following: The arms are those of the first foundress queen, Margaret of Anjou, with the addition of a green border for the college. The six quarters of these arms represent the six lordships (either actual or titular) which he claimed.

I'm not sure if it is mistaken gender and should be she to match Margaret of Anjou, or whether it refers to someone not yet mentioned. --Crosej (talk) 16:16, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Compare the coat of arms shown in Queens' College, Cambridge with that shown at Margaret_of_Anjou#Beginnings_of_the_dynastic_civil_wars - the former matches the right-hand half of the latter, and I think the left-hand half variously represents England, so I'd go for "she" instead of "he". (And please remember to provide a link to the article under discussion, to save the lazy rest of us a little work!) Thanks. PamD 17:27, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

On the other hand, note this edit which removed a key phrase from "These arms are those of the first foundress queen, Margaret of Anjou, which she derived from those of her father Rene, Duke of Anjou, with the addition of a green border for the college." with the comment "The arms were Margaret's. How she got them is not relevant here.", which does make the "he" more likely! PamD 17:31, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I have restored that phrase, following the source given. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 19:02, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

2018 UK higher education strike

Would anyone like to start 2018 UK higher education strike, modelled after 2013 UK higher education strike, based on this please?Zigzig20s (talk) 20:28, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

It would have to be wikilinked to Universities Superannuation Scheme. I hope this helps!Zigzig20s (talk) 20:29, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

More POV-pushing in the lede

Could someone please take care of this? It's getting out of hand.Zigzig20s (talk) 15:29, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

And misleading. "graduates were listed as among the most valued and sought-after in the nation and in the world", but when you look at the RS, it's ranked 134. This is ridiculous.Zigzig20s (talk) 17:00, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

And I thought we had agreed not to mention the rankings in the lede anyway?Zigzig20s (talk) 17:06, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

I trimmed the lede back a little bit. But I don't think there has ever been consensus to exclude rankings from the ledes of articles (although I'm largely in favor of it). ElKevbo (talk) 01:17, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

I think so because the RS said it was ranked 108th, not quite one of the best, and they decided to remove it. Being the 134th most sought-after was just lolz!Zigzig20s (talk) 01:23, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Inclusion or removal of complete or extensive lyrics of alma mater

Can some other editors please weigh in on the disagreement about the inclusion or exclusion of song lyrics at this article? If there are other relevant policies that have not been brought up in the Talk page section devoted to this discussion, please bring them up! If there is widespread agreement on this issue or if this is already a settled issue, we should mention it in WP:UNIGUIDE, too. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 02:58, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Well, it is short, but wouldn't it be preferable to create another article with the lyrics and some background information about the song? By the way, President Austin Lane should probably have an article if it is indeed "one of the largest and most comprehensive HBCUs in the nation".Zigzig20s (talk) 16:05, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Help with two articles

Hi all. I have a conflict with an IP and account (Borrelli433) in two articles: IE Business School and IE University. They try to add a paragraph about the reasons for not being in 2018 ranking. Apart from irrelevant (not the ranking but the reasons, in my opinion), why this year?, why only that ranking?, why not include the reasons for being in every ranking?, why only in this university?. It seems an obvious bias. What do you think?. Cheers. --Rodelar (talk) 15:05, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

The reasonal is the following. All european business schools pages show their rankings. So it should be fine for IE to display theirs too. However, IE has not simply got excluded for a academic reasons. It has been excluded because of cheating! Hence, if FT rankings have to be presented in the page in order to reinforce the knowledge about the school's reputation, it is essential to mention the reasons why IE was excluded in 2018. As it can be read in the sources provided, IE has also fired staff as a consequence of this. Not mentioning this would be a partial and misleading information in favour of the school. Wikipedia is not the place to advertise the school and if its alumni/students/staff are unhappy with the exclusion they should discuss with their school. Not trying to "hide" this fact improving (in a dishonest way) the school's reputation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Borrelli433 (talk • contribs) 18:45, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

And why is it essential to indicate the reasons? What does that information provide? Do you explain the reasons why the rest of the schools enter or leave a ranking? You can expose information in a neutral way and without qualifiers, and it will remain equally valid or useful. Your effort to multiply the same paragraph in both articles prove that your sole purpose is to add that biased information. --Rodelar (talk) 21:06, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

That is exactly the point. Other schools enter or leave rankings because of the criteria selected by the ranker (academic ones, research, whatever..). At the contrary, IE has been excluded (kicked-out!) because they were basically providing FALSE data compiled by people who were not enrolled in its programs. That's why the FT (that is also a partner of IE itself) decided to kick them out. The purpose here is not to hide this essential information, and assuming IE ranking are actual ones. In fact, they may be not, as this cheating could have been perpetrated much before but discovered just lately as FT explained. As already said many times, IE has even fired its staff as a consequence of this cheating. It is a MAJOR news about the school. I kindly suggest you to read the sources I attached to get an overview of the issue. I fully understanding how frustrating this may be for a student/alumni who paid a lot of money to IE. However, not showing this information would affect future students not making them aware of what the school has done in comparison to other honest schools. And finally, there are NO qualifiers in my content, just a sourced (6 sources!!!) explanation of this very important fact. Borrelli433 (talk) 07:18, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

First of all, stop accusing me of being a student because you're totally wrong. It seems that this type of information (interestingly, you only edit it in the IE article) is only important to you and Wikipedia is not a place to express our opinion or point of view about something, nor a student guide or a forum about education. This is an encyclopedia. --Rodelar (talk) 22:37, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

You are perfectly right. An encyclopedia should promote fair, unbiased and COMPLETE information. By irony, exactly the one you are trying to orient according your personal opinion. Borrelli433 (talk) 08:20, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

Make no mistake, your edits are not fair and unbiased, but just the opposite. You have a very wrong idea of what a project like Wikipedia is. --Rodelar (talk) 18:31, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

FLC nomination

Hello,

One of the lists that I have concentrated on editing, List of Missouri University of Science and Technology alumni, is currently listed as a featured list candidate, and it could use additional people to review and support the nomination.

Thanks, Jmnbqb (talk) 02:30, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Discussion re lede content for Hillsdale College -- invite

WikiProject members are invited to weigh in at Talk:Hillsdale College#Christian college in lede? Renewed discussion. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 17:11, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorting projects and organizations in university categories

As Wikipedia develops the top-level categories for universities are filling with articles for which there are no appropriate subcategories. I would like to establish subcategories which are useful themselves and which also reduce the number of items in the top-level categories. I am seeking feedback on a model for doing this.

• projects - the organized activities at universities which are not unrelated to university governance or course offerings and not themselves managed as their own organizations. Common projects include high-profile research studies, special collections archiving, or experimental spin-off projects which are more than a student project but not developed enough to require the legal incorporation of an organization.
• organizations - these are like projects except that they resulted in the establishment of a university affiliated separate organization, are typically bigger, and typically organize a project to expand in multiple directions over a longer period of time.

Here are some example university categories.

• Category:University of Washington - 67 items (19 just moved to subcategories in the experiment described here)
• Category:Columbia University - 160 items
• Category:Harvard University - 303 items

I am claiming that there are lots of universities which have 50+ items in the top-level category and that it would be nice to subcategorize these somehow when subcategories are useful and could have 10+ items in a typical use.

I created some sub-categories for the University of Washington as an example and populated them with items from the main category. See examples in

• Category:University of Washington projects
• Category:University of Washington organizations

Since I created those subcategories, I also had to create higher-level categories into which to place them. The tree that I propose is

Category:Universities and colleges

Category:University projects and Category:University organizations

Category:University of Washington projects and Category:University of Washington organizations

Here are some problems which I see with this model:

1. Often projects and organizations are nearly indistinguishable. I hesitate to call projects as organizations or organizations as projects, but I cannot think of a better word which includes both. "Programs"? "Supported activities"? I think that calling organizations "projects" might be best, because all organizations are sort of projects.
2. There are other categories which someone might distinguish, like "programs". A program might be a course set or training offering which the university administration and governance oversees. To me, these seem like they are not organizations, because they are part of the routine university administration, and they are not projects, which I was imagining to be student- or faculty-led initiatives of general interest and not among the educational products which a university sells. There is a nearly unusued Category:University programs which has some of these and other items which might be projects.
3. I do not think there are standard definitions for any of these. No one will understand the meaning of "university organization" or "university project" except in a general way.

If anyone has any thoughts then I would appreciate them. If I went forward with this then I might set it up for 2-3 universities and let it sit for 1+ year to see how it works. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:09, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

The word 'project' has a strong implication of something that is time-limited (or sometimes goal-limited), so I would avoid using it for anything that is expected to be an ongoing activity. A university might have a project to build a new campus, but a special collection (to use one of your examples) wouldn't normally be called a project. Similarly, a specific research study would be a project, but a research centre wouldn't. I'm not sure there is a good catch-all word for this. Robminchin (talk) 22:23, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wayne State University School of Social Work

A pending AfD poses the question as to whether a nationally-ranked and separately accredited school or college qualifies as a "school" for purposes of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. As this issue appears relevant to this project's area of coverage, members are invited to express their views one way or another at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wayne State University School of Social Work. Cbl62 (talk) 23:25, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Rankings from Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Travel + Leisure and Niche

Should we trim rankings from Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Travel + Leisure and/or Niche like this, added by a one-time editor? They are not well-known rankings.Zigzig20s (talk) 23:28, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

User:ElKevbo: Do you think this should be reverted please? Shouldn't we only cite the main rankings?23:57, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Disagreement at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign‎

Can someone take at look at the recent history of University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign‎ and stop by Talk:University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign‎ to voice an opinion on the current dispute between two editors? Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 12:43, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

National Judicial College

I just moved National Judicial College from draft space to article space, after doing some cleanup. The draft was created by another editor who is now inactive. It needs more work to make it a presentable stub at least. It already has a number of incoming links from various articles of Federal and state judges who have attended that institution. Safiel (talk) 21:03, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Ashland Community and Technical College

Ashland Community and Technical College, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. AIRcorn (talk) 07:43, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Is "Notable alumni" as a section title a violation of NPOV?

Can some other editors please weigh in on the dispute occurring at the Talk page of Curry College? It concerns the title of the section dealing with alumni of the college and whether the inclusion of "Notable" in the title violates WP:NPOV.

I'm particularly interested in widespread input because the current recommendations about college and university articles lists this section as "Noted people" which virtually no articles actually use. So we should probably adjust the recommendations to match with actual practice which would probably be "Notable alumni" since that is probably the most common title by far. (That assumption probably needs to be checked first.) ElKevbo (talk) 18:23, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

It's inappropriate for section titles per everything I stated there. WP:College and university article advice is also an essay, and therefore doesn't hold as much power as a guideline or policy (contrary to what your "recommendations" description for the page implies). Snuggums (talk / edits) 18:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Please confine your comments to the discussion already ongoing in Talk:Curry College; it's confusing to have the same discussion underway in multiple places at the same time. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 19:15, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Georgia Tech provosts

Hi. Is anyone able to find a list of past Georgia Tech provosts please?Zigzig20s (talk) 12:44, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Pantheon-Sorbonne University

I made some edits to get the article to be more accurate and neutral (updated info, info more close to the source, no unsourced elogious content, pictures smaller in the campus section, no off-topic history content of before the creation of the university, etc.) but an alumni of the university is reversing my edits. I created an account. --Xuo Tran (talk) 23:47, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Acharya Institute of Technology

Acharya Institute of Technology, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for an individual good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. AIRcorn (talk) 21:52, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Request to remove unsourced content from Full Sail University article

Resolved

Hello, WikiProject Universities. I am currently working with Full Sail University to improve the institution's Wikipedia article. I'll be suggesting content additions later, but first I'd like to start by simply removing unsourced content throughout the article. I've submitted a request here, and I'm looking for an uninvolved editor who is willing to review my suggested content removals and update the article accordingly. Are any project members willing to take a look? Thanks in advance. Inkian Jason (talk) 00:52, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

The edit request has been answered, so I've marked this section as resolved. Inkian Jason (talk) 16:02, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Self-published content

Hi. I have restored the self-published tag here after seeing that there are 82 sources, many used multiple times, out of 284, including entire paragraphs (e.g. two in the "profile" section). I've seen it in a couple of articles but not to this extent. I think a couple of self-published sources about basic facts are fine but obviously we want to avoid PR (especially given the last paragraph in this article and the problems we had with the inflated rankings earlier). Instead, we can/should retrieve sources from third-party sources like books, newspapers, etc.Zigzig20s (talk) 14:55, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I think it's fine to maintain a caution against self-published sources but I caution against naively assuming that other sources are necessarily independent or more accurate since many, likely most, sources that report statistics (e.g., enrollment, endowment, graduation rates) are merely repeating self-published sources. ElKevbo (talk) 16:41, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is always a work in progress but right now there are really too many sources that fail to meet our third-party requirement in that article, and possibly in other articles too. (I am trying to help with Newspapers.com--the best way to fix the "history" sections.) As for being rigged, yes that is probably true of most U.S. colleges, but I doubt Wikipedians can fix that. Some might say institutions of higher learning have become fundraising scams--it is what it is.Zigzig20s (talk) 18:53, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Articles-for-deletion for school-traditions article

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brown University traditions, an article that looks typical of Category:Traditions by university or college in the United States. DMacks (talk) 14:38, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

A content dispute needing a few eyes

Talk:Pantheon-Sorbonne University#Discussion about disputed April 29 to May 2, 2018 edits

Thank you so much. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:02, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject Western Governors University

I thought I'd let you know that I've started WikiProject Western Governors University, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of WGU. The bottom line is we need new members for this project. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks and related articles. We are also working to achieve the GA Article status. Thanks! Paul Smith111977 (talk) 11:13, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Lead image should be a photo

The current practice is for the leading image for articles about universities to be the university's seal. I propose that instead we should use any image, and probably a recognizable photo of a building or location on campus.

University seals are problematic for the following reasons:

1. Most seals are less recognizable than alternative images
2. Seals are less celebrated and enjoyed than other iconic aspects of a university
3. Most seals are copyrighted art, either recently designed for new universities or redesigned for old universities. Wikipedia has a preference for highly relevant, high quality free images.
4. Other information sources, such as university guides and Google, almost always use photos rather than seals to illustrate a university
5. Seals are archaic. Most universities do not have them. New universities do branding either with logos or other imagery, like showcasing a building.
6. The emphasis on seals is crowding out more useful imagery
7. Even though companies identify with logos, universities identify in other ways, and the style of wiki articles for universities versus companies can be different

Previous discussion is in these places. There are a range of opinions. Most of these discussions consider whether to use a university's logo versus the seal, but there are some people questioning whether Wikipedia should use something else.

• Wikipedia:College_and_university_article_advice#Article_structure - "All institution articles should utilize {{Infobox University}} to provide the basic details about the institution, preferably with a lead image of the institution's official seal or coat of arms"
• {{Infobox University}} says the image field should have "University-related graphic, preferably the university's official seal or logo."
• Template_talk:Infobox_university/Archive_2#Usage:_images_and_photos, January 2007
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Universities/Archive_2#Seals,_shields,_emblems, May 2007
• Talk:University_of_California,_Santa_Cruz#Fiat_Slug_logo, February 2008
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Universities/Archive_4#seals_and_logos, May 2008
• Talk:University_of_North_Carolina_at_Chapel_Hill/Archive_3#logo_vs._seal, May 2008
• Talk:University_of_North_Carolina_at_Chapel_Hill/Archive_4#Seal, June 2008
• Wikipedia_talk:College_and_university_article_advice/Archive_2#Why_are_seals_emphasized?, September 2009
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Universities/Archive_7#Using_"unofficial"_logos_in_university_infoboxes, November 2009
• Template_talk:Infobox_university/Archive_5#Policy_on_images_in_the_infobox_(a_sockpuppet_story), November 2009
• Talk:Grand_Valley_State_University#logo_vs_seal, June 2010
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Universities/Archive_7#Proposal_for_university_seals_and_crests, October 2010
• Talk:Saint_Anselm_College#Infobox, January 2011
• Talk:University_of_Notre_Dame#RFC:_Use_of_the_university_seal, December 2017

There are dozens of comments about this but there has not been a broad general discussion about what is best. It might not yet be time to have a broader discussion of this but I did want to raise the issue now for early feedback. Is there anyone who would like clarify the reasons for seals, logos, or anything else to advance the conversation? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

• @ElKevbo, Timrollpickering, Dynaflow, GentlemanGhost, and Hammersoft: @Esrever, Rreagan007, Nasty Housecat, Corkythehornetfan, and Eccekevin: All of you have commented in discussions on university seals in the past. I am pinging to request that you briefly state your image preference for Wikipedia articles on universities - seal, logo, or any photo? How consistent should Wikipedia be? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:16, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for putting together this proposal and pinging many of the editors who have previously voiced opinions on this topic! ElKevbo (talk) 18:06, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

• Yeah I want to echo this; regardless of my opinion below, you did a lot of work putting this together. Well done! --Hammersoft (talk) 19:27, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• Thirded. I had completely forgotten the UCSC logo discussion of 10 years ago. That's thorough research! --GentlemanGhost (converse) 20:29, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• I barely even remember ten years ago; I've had two kids and gone to law school in the meantime. So -- do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. --Dynaflow babble 05:26, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose using image – Where is your source for "Most universities do not have them"? That's like saying "Most people hate jury duty"... we don't know that for a fact nor do we have sources to back that claim up. From when I have looked for school brand guides, I have noticed a majority of NCAA schools have a seal and/or shield, but smaller schools do not (at least not publicly). If a school does not have seal, shield, or logo, then we can place the photograph... however, it can be pretty hard to find a picture of a notable building of each school online that is free and not copyrightable. Corky 16:45, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• Blend. In cases where there are no visual identity standards, sure use an image. In cases where there are visual standards (even if only implied by way of usage on their websites), use what is recommended by the university. I'm not saying this because we owe anything to a college/university, but rather that the prime visual identity mark is the one people will most readily recognize. To give an example; Duke University. We currently have the university's seal there. Yet, the seal doesn't even show up in the identity guidelines at that university. See guide. I took a look at four of the smallest colleges in the country, all with enrollments under 400. All of them had logos/seals. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:43, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose the proposal as presented. I agree with the basic idea that the topmost image should be the one that is most recognizable by readers and associated with the institution. So from that perspective I don't completely agree with the current consensus that focuses on the use of the seal because in many cases the seal is somewhat obscure and is not helpful for readers. However, that does not mean that I agree with the proposal that the topmost image in the infobox should be a photograph. There may be some instances where a particular building or monument is the most recognizable image for an institution but I would bet that the most recognizable image for most institutions is a symbol of some sort e.g., a logo, the seal. ElKevbo (talk) 18:04, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• How would wikipedians choose the representative photograph to appear in the template within the lead? I would oppose this proposal on the basis that the university seal is a standard, reliable, factual representation of each institution. The criticisms above in my opinion do not outweigh the apparent encyclopedic value and use of existing institutional seal or logo across existing articles. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 16:30, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• Somewhat Oppose. As it happens, I work at a university. I promise you that universities as a whole are very concerned with branding and identity. While I don't necessarily think that the lead image necessarily has to be a seal, I think it should be a symbol or stylized text which the school has chosen for itself. This seems to me to be more authentic than a subjective image chosen by someone else. As to your concern that university seals and logos are copyrighted, that's not quite right. In all cases that I am aware of, they are trademarked, not copyrighted. While this doesn't give us Wikipedians free reign to use them in any way we choose, it does give us more leeway. The consensus as I understand it is that we are allowed to use trademarked images within articles which discuss the entity represented by the trademark. And, as stated above, it may actually be harder to find a suitable non-copyrighted image of the main campus. Indeed, not all universities even have a main focal point. The school I went to was deliberately decentralized. It's easy to pick a building if one's school has a giant tower in the center of campus, but if it's spread out and more humble in its construction, not so much. Also, are university seals archaic? Yes, probably. But then so are some universities. In spite of all I've just written, in the absence of available, useful branding material, I'm not so hidebound in my opinion that I would fight to exclude a campus photo. But it wouldn't be my first choice. --GentlemanGhost (converse) 21:01, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose For the various reasons already stated, so I'll keep it short. I'll add this: the seal is the official symbol of the University, even if it is not recognizable. The flag of New York City is obscure, but it is still the flag, and hence goes in the infobox. Buildings change over time, and photos can have different angles and can be more or less representative. Seals are timeless and stylized. Choosing one building will be in most cases controversial (basically, most schools will have lengthy debates on talk pages, and it's gonna get messy), the seal will lead to easy decisions and no controversy, and uniformity (which I am a big fan of). I could see using a logo, but I think that is more appropriate for its sports team. Eccekevin (talk) 00:07, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

SPA reverting Virginia International University.

I've removed the category of Virginia International University being accredited by the ACICS, which isn't mentioned in the article, but have simply gotten reverted with no comments from a user who is an SPA about the school: User:Virintuni. I've tried leaving a note on both the talk page for the article and for the user talk page. Anyone have suggestions or ideas?Naraht (talk) 00:01, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Help requested with DeVry University article

DeVry University (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

I have been doing some major cleanup at DeVry University, since the entire article had (and still has) a large number of issues. Moreover, most of the content appears to derive from edits in 2007–08 and around 2014, and it does not seem to have change much since then. If anyone is willing to help out, even if that means just checking the edits I have submitted over the past week, it would be greatly appreciated. More specifically, if anyone can help me with this (permalink) or this (permalink) on the talk page, or provide input on this matter (permalink) at WP:MCQ, that is where I am stumped. Were it not for the fact that the last live message on the talk page dates from March 2016, I would have kept it there.

Thank you for your time. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 19:30, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

"History" section improvements for the Full Sail University article

Hello again! On behalf of Full Sail University, I have proposed an expanded and improved "History" section for the university's Wikipedia article here. I've reviewed sourcing, provided specific suggestions for expanding the article (such as fleshing out the school's early history, and adding mention of the university's former official names as well as major program developments), and worked to improve readability/organization by creating 2 subsections.

I do not edit articles directly because of my COI, and I'm seeking one or more editors to review the proposed changes and implement provided markup appropriately. The collapsed rendering has color coded suggestions to make reviewing easier. Are any WikiProject Universities members willing to take a look?

Thanks for your consideration. Inkian Jason (talk) 20:03, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   11:02, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Merger Proposal Notice for merging Research I university into List of research universities in the United States

I am proposing that we merge the content currently in the article Research I university into the article List of research universities in the United States. The current content of both is very similar. I have setup a discussion at Talk:List of research universities in the United States#Merger proposal from Research I university. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 14:17, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Informal RfC discussion on WP:UNDUE at Talk:Liberty University

There is an informal/unofficial RfC at the Liberty University talk page found here that members of this project might interested in taking part in. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 15:16, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

• NOTE Discussion has just been made into an official RfC. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 16:02, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Harvard University#Research

Harvard University#Research needs expansion. Is there a way to retrieve their main research contributions over the years? And ideally do this for other universities too.Zigzig20s (talk) 15:10, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Repeated removal of AAU and Big Ten membership from lede of University of Maryland, College Park‎

Can another editor please take a look at the dispute at University of Maryland, College Park‎? An unregistered editor is insisting that the lede not include the university's membership in the Association of American Universities, the university's membership in the Big Ten, and the university's inclusion in Public Ivies. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 19:23, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Ongoing Rfc

There is an ongoing request for comment at Talk:University of London which is relevant to members of this wikiproject. Aloneinthewild (talk) 10:59, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

UVA's Skipwith Hall

I think we should create an article about Peyton Skipwith, a freed slave who became the namesake of Skipwith Hall on the UVA campus. Is anyone able to find his death date please? Not easy because he emigrated to Liberia.Zigzig20s (talk) 15:14, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Category:American academic administrators

Hello. Category:American academic administrators needs a lot of work--we need to create subcategories for each university. Let me know if you are interested. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 20:43, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Category:Provosts of Stanford University is categorized in Category:Stanford University staff. Provosts are not really staff, but administrators. Should I recategorize them as Category:Stanford University administrators?Zigzig20s (talk) 04:01, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Is anyone interested in working on this with me please? And making sure it's not a duplicate of Historically black colleges and universities?Zigzig20s (talk) 02:11, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

The abbreviation "Prof"

Hello, folks!

This is the first time I've run into this particular scenario--the abbreviation Prof seems to be 'owned' by this group, but now might also point to, say, Prof (rapper), which is what I was attempting to look up at the time. There's no disambig, considering the 'final' landing page of Professor, which doesn't really acknowledge the abbreviation beyond noting that it exists (and has for many generations) past the lede--but this also seems a bit off, in that one is very explicitly *only* "Prof" and one is an abbreviated form of the word the page is titled for. So, one (at least this "one") would think the 1:1 'translation' would take precedent--"Prof" is "Prof" only, but "Prof." is also "Professor".

As such, my instinct is to change the redirect for "Prof" entirely (to Prof (rapper), and add the template for the ""Prof" redirects here. For the academic rank in universities, see Professor." redirection to the Prof (rapper) page--but this seems like a pretty significant move to undertake of my own volition. A full disambig page seems like overkill for two entries, though I'd also freely admit that to the vast majority of people, "prof." the abbreviation is the more likely search to be undertaken by most human beings of the world, so I'm not entirely sure what the best solution is here.

There is a Professor (disambiguation) page, but that seems pretty removed from a search for not-"Professor" as a term (ie, for the search I'm referencing of "Prof", I don't think disambiguating a word that is tangential at best is intuitive)

Thoughts? Alternate solutions? FangsFirst (talk) 14:24, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Oppose moving the current redirect. The rapper has stated that Prof name stems from the nickname prophecy. As per the 09 August 2014 requested move rejection I see no reason to move the article from Prof (rapper) to Prof nor move the Prof redirect to point to Prof (rapper) since a majority of the redirects are to the Professor article are relating to the subject of Professor not the rapper. Besides this several other languages use this form as a reference to professor as well. 12:33, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

• I have added a "redirect" hatnote at Professor which I think is all we need. I don't think many people would argue that anything but "Professor" is the WP:Primary Topic of Prof, to which the redirect should go. PamD 14:02, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

References

Low-income American students

A New York Times project let me add a paragraph to Grinnell College about how low-income students fare in admissions. See the last paragraph in this diff (the other changes were mostly re-arranging existing content). There's quite a lot of data, and I think it would be interesting to find ways to incorporate it into articles. The thing that I liked most was that you could see how enrollment compared across similar groups.

As far as I can make out, the fastest way to find the page for your favorite school is to scroll down to the first big table in https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html and put the school's name in the box that says "Add your favorite colleges to the tables in this article". That will add it to the table, which will give you a link to the detail page. You can also guess the URL, using https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/vaughn-college-of-aeronautics-and-technology as the pattern. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:29, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

POV section about race and ethnicity in College admissions in the United States

I have opened a discussion about what I believe is a significant problem at College admissions in the United States regarding the section describing race and ethnicity in the admissions process. Additional viewpoints are welcome. ElKevbo (talk) 15:07, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Tags at Full Sail University

Hello again. I posted above about some proposed improvements to the Full Sail University's "History" section. I've made a bit of progress, but I am still struggling to get feedback about the tags at the top of the article.

I want to contribute constructively to resolve the tags and bring the page in line with guidelines. Are there any specific things that WikiProject members would want to see in the article or that concern them about its current content? Please see this discussion regarding the tags.

@Esrever, Randomeditor1000, and Robminchin: I am pinging you all as some of the more active and recent talk page contributors, at least according to the page revision statistics. Thanks in advance for any help. Inkian Jason (talk) 21:00, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Haven't you forgotten something, Inkian Jason? WP:PAY seems quite specific: "If you receive or expect to receive compensation (money, goods or services) for your contributions to Wikipedia ... you must disclose who is paying you, on whose behalf the edits are made, and any other relevant affiliation ... whenever you discuss the topic". Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:12, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I had disclosed on this page before, and I'm happy to do so here again. I'm here on behalf of Full Sail University, and I'm working to address the article's tags and suggest other improvements on its talk page. Thanks! Inkian Jason (talk) 14:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Inkian Jason, with respect and given your WP:COI, I would prefer to stay removed from editing this article as I am not familiar with Full Sail. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 12:49, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

I've requested a peer review, and invite editors to provide feedback, if interested. Thanks! Inkian Jason (talk) 20:46, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Southern campuses built on former plantations

Do we have data about Southern campuses built on former plantations please? Obviously many colleges have ties to slavery in the North, but I wonder if we could focus on campuses (the land they were built on) specifically.Zigzig20s (talk) 11:51, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, interesting question. There are some articles that detail primarily the links to wealthy, private colleges in the Northeastern states. Some of which were the first founded in America. One example source is http://college.usatoday.com/2017/02/13/yale-university-buildings-slavery-white-supremacy/ and another is https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/09/17/223420533/how-slavery-shaped-americas-oldest-and-most-elite-colleges.

The article you linked to specifically refers to "Dozens of American colleges and universities are investigating their historic ties to the slave trade and debating how to atone." and "Profits from slavery and related industries helped fund some of the most prestigious schools in the Northeast, including Harvard, Columbia, Princeton and Yale. And in many southern states — including the University of Virginia — enslaved people built college campuses and served faculty and students.".

I understand this to mean that institutions primarily in the Northeast and Southern United States have ties to slavery. It be would inaccurate to state that "Obviously many in the North have ties to slavery" specifically because many institutions in "the North" weren't founded until after the United States Civil War of 1861-1865. Additionally, one could also reference the historical fact that nearly all collegiate institutions were built on lands that were held by native american/first nations peoples. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 13:27, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

One of the institutions who investigated this formed a group that is set up to help other colleges and universities investigate this part of their history. I'm sorry that I can't recall which institution set that up but I'm sure that if you search the news articles - I'd start with the higher education-specific media especially The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed - you'll find it. Maybe that organization has resources that could be helpful...? ElKevbo (talk) 14:00, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: I think that this group at UVA is what I was trying to remember last month. If it's not then it's a really good starting point! ElKevbo (talk) 18:04, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

References

Person infobox use of Alma mater

There is a discussion of whether to merge the "Alma Mater" field "with the "Education" field in the person infobox at Template talk:Infobox person#Use of "Alma mater" Meters (talk) 19:09, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

COI guidelines developed for schools (not universities) being used for universities

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines/Archive 3#Conflict of Interest guidance. Doug Weller talk 11:44, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Georgia Highlands College page content

I have added content to the talk page of Georgia Highlands College, a page marked as part of this project and a member of the University System of Georgia. The page was significantly shorter than that of most institutions in the University System. I added several paragraphs and sections modeled on some of the more well developed pages (ie Kennesaw State University) and cited external and reliable internal sources for the information. The content needs to be reviewed by Wiki editors that don't work at the institution and posted to the page itself if appropriate. ProfStv (talk) 19:07, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Didn't see this yesterday, but I've went through and made the appropriate edits. SEMMENDINGER (talk) 01:25, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Talk:Workplace bullying in academia#Examples?

Hello. It would be useful to have a second (or third/fourth/fifth...) opinion about this topic. Please reply there if interested. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 23:06, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Standard wording for Carnegie classification

There's an edit-war on University of Miami and similar edit-changes spreading across other articles about how to state what the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education is in college/university articles. Could WP:UNI help come up with a boilerplate standard? Or should this instead be switched into the infobox, where phrases and token identifiers are common and we don't need to figure out sentence structure? DMacks (talk) 04:42, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I would use the categories directly copied from their website:

R1: Doctoral Universities – Highest research activity R2: Doctoral Universities – Higher research activity R3: Doctoral Universities – Moderate research activity

One can state that a university is classified under "R1: Doctoral Universities – Highest research activity" in the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

The Carnegie Classifications have a methodology:

http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/methodology/basic.php

They state:

"These measures analyze the relative level of research activity. They do not address issues of quality, impact, or significance. The resulting categories do not imply quality differences."Bcf1291 (talk) 04:55, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I would not add Carnegie Classifications ("R1", "R2", "R3") to the infobox. There is already too much information there.Bcf1291 (talk) 04:57, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

We should probably try to avoid country-specific information in the main infobox, so I would oppose putting the Carnegie classification, which is US specific, in there unless a very strong case is made.

In general, "doctoral university" and " research university" are effectively synonymous. Using "R1: Doctoral Universities – Highest research activity" as a direct quote may be a solution if there is a dispute over wording, but could easily lead to clumsy text. Paraphrasing is encouraged generally on Wikipedia – to quote MOS:QUOTE, "While quotations are an indispensable part of Wikipedia, try not to overuse them. Using too many quotes is incompatible with an encyclopedic writing style and may be a copyright infringement. It is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words. Consider paraphrasing quotations into plain and concise text when appropriate". (Yes, I am aware of the irony of quoting a section that says paraphrasing is preferable to quoting!)

Appropriate paraphrases of the Carnegie classifications would therefore be acceptable, e.g. "Big Name University is a research university classified as having "highest research activity' in the Carnegie classifications." Similarly, "Big Name University is classified among 'R1: Doctoral Universities – Highest research activity' in the Carnegie classifications." is fine. But "Big Name University is classified as an 'R1: Doctoral University – Highest research activity' in the Carnegie classifications." is not, it would have to be "R1: Doctoral Universit[y]" if given as a direct quote, so it might be better to reword or paraphrase.

While the "Doctoral Universities" section can be paraphrased, I would strongly suggest putting highest/higher/moderate research activity in a direct quote as only one institution can actually have the highest research activity, and what higher research activity is higher than would need to be defined.

Robminchin (talk) 06:11, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

FYI, the Carnegie Classifications are also on Wikidata. See https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q738258 with property https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P2643 pointing to the various Carnegie classifications for the University of Miami. If the English Wikipedia community decides to include that Wikidata information in its university infoboxes, it would solve the issue. Runner1928 (talk) 16:57, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Reading the article about this classification scheme, it looks like there are lots more orthogonal classes (various enrollment profiles, campus setting, etc.). And although it is US-centric, it applies to all US colleges and universities. Because it is (per our article) designed to allow comparisons, I think it is not as useful to bury it in random places in the prose. If it doesn't fit in the main infobox, maybe it could go as a new box template in the Rankings section? Although it's not a numerical ranking from best to last, that would help put it somewhere that everyone can find it and easily pull the wikidata. DMacks (talk) 20:55, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

For the full classification scheme, rather than just the basic, it might be worth an infobox of its own. All of it seems to be on wikidata, so if anyone can work out how to link things through the infobox should be fairly simple – if that's what people want. I'd keep the basic classification in the text as well though. Robminchin (talk) 02:03, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

We could add standardized text to articles using one or more of the different classifications and it may be worth exploring but I agree that it's easier to begin with a template. Although we could create a template and add it to articles by hand - which is where we'll want to start to pilot this, of course - it would certainly be preferable to either link it to Wikidata or have the template added to articles using a bot. We don't have to make that decision yet so I recommend putting it off for a bit until we come to agreement (a) that this is a good thing to test in a few articles and (b) on some of the wording and placement of this template.

I am strongly opposed to adding this hypothetical template to the "Rankings" section of articles; this is a classification system, not a ranking, so this would not only be an error on our part but misleading for readers. My initial thought is to add it right below the infobox. There are a few articles that already have a template or infobox right below the university infobox; I haven't been cataloging them but I think they're either maps (e.g., Institute of American Indian Arts) or historic program/marker information (e.g., Pennsylvania State University) that would probably be more appropriate in the "Campus" section.

Regardless of what method we use to initially add this template and update it (the classifications have moved to a 3-year update cycle with an update expected this year) we need to figure out how to link Wikipedia articles to the entries in the classification database. The primary key for this should be IPEDS ID. I think that someone added this as a parameter for the university infobox a year or two ago but I don't think that the parameter has been populated for most articles. In January I grabbed a dump of all institutions and some data from the IPEDS database(s) and began mapping it to Wikipedia articles but I'm only about halfway through the list (it's tedious and it's really easy to get sidetracked into editing articles instead of just documenting their existence!). If anyone else wants to contribute to this mapping project (which was primarily intended to document exactly how thorough - or not! - our coverage of U.S. colleges and universities is), please let me know. There is certainly not a 1:1 mapping between (6-digit) IPEDS IDs and Wikipedia articles (e.g., there are some institutions with one ID for which we have multiple articles and there are also institutions with multiple IDs for which we have only one article) so creating this mapping is a manual process. (This lack of a 1:1 mapping and my ignorance of how the resulting mapping decisions were made in the Wikidata data is one important reason why I'm creating my own mapping.)

Finally, I briefly note that there is some apparent confusion on the classification project's webpages. The original classification scheme created the "R1" language that has permeated U.S. higher education culture to denote the largest/most complex/most well-funded research universities. There has long been discontent among some higher ed scholars that this has been used as an implicit ranking and the 2005 classification did away with this language. The 2015 classification reintroduced this language however it's inconsistently used on the program's website; I opine that there is still discomfort with this language so our colleagues at Indiana University are trying to hedge their bets by only using the language in some places but not in others. In any case, it's resulted primarily in confusion that we'll be forced to deal with if we move forward with this template: Do we include the "R1" kind of language or omit it? For what it's worth, I favor including it; despite being somewhat misleading (I never would have brought it back...) it has permeated U.S. higher education culture and although very, very few people could precisely define it the language, especially "R1," is frequently used as shorthand by faculty and administrators. ElKevbo (talk) 03:57, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree that it shouldn't go in the rankings section, there's far too much risk of it being mistaken for a ranking. The idea of a separate infobox in the lead seems best to me, at least as a trial, or in the "academic profile" section, if it exists.

If IPEDS goes in the general infobox, it might be better to have it as a two-parameter "national reference number" and "national reference number name", or some such, so other systems, such as the UKPRN in the UK (and I'm sure other countries have similar systems) can also be added without needlessly multiplying the number of parameters.

Robminchin (talk) 15:35, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

1. Going back to the original topic of this thread, I may have stumbled onto an easy way to describe an institution's Basic Classification: Simply say that "The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education classifies <institution> among "<specific category>."<reference>. This is the language I edited in the lede of University of Wisconsin–La Crosse and it seems work well while avoiding us having to go through elaborate and unnecessary steps to rewrite the classification schemes into language that makes sense to readers and works well in different kinds of sentences.

2. How do we want to move forward with the creation of a Carnegie Classifications template? I recommend we mock one up as a simple table and try it out in a few articles about different kinds of institutions so we can get a feel for what works and what doesn't work e.g., placement in the articles, precise wording, graphical layout and organization. If that works well and we want to move forward, then I'd recommend a formal RfC to get wider input since this is something we would add to a few thousand articles. We could include some of the most pressing questions in that RfC e.g., will the data be pulled from Wikidata or added via a bot, will there be a mechanism for editors to propose that certain articles be excluded/opt out. If this sounds like a reasonable place, I'd be happy to give this initial mock up a shot in project or draft space. ElKevbo (talk) 00:15, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

"Notable people" section at Full Sail University

Resolved

Hello again! On behalf of Full Sail University, I've submitted a request here to expand the "Notable people" section with a sourced list of notable instructors and alumni, similar to other university articles. I do not edit the main space directly because of my COI, and I'm seeking help from editors to review and implement the proposed improvement appropriately. Thanks to any WikiProject Universities members who are willing to take a look. Inkian Jason (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Thanks! Inkian Jason (talk) 17:18, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Swansea University coat of arms is up for deletion

The file File:Coat-Of-Arms-Swansea-Uni.png is up for deletion. Please visit c:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Coat-Of-Arms-Swansea-Uni.png to discuss this deletion. Thank you. --Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 14:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

University of Chicago Law School

Need some eyes on this article. Discussion can be seen at Talk:University of Chicago Law School#Mass reverting of edits. Lorstaking (talk) 08:10, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

• Help is needed as this article is now going through some major discussion concerning the present version that what needs to be preserved and what needs to be removed. Discussions can be viewed here: Talk:University of Chicago Law School#Let's get to work - 2018 updates. Lorstaking (talk) 15:57, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

RfC: Should there be an article on Emma Sulkowicz?

Hello! At Talk:Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) § RfC, there is an RfC on the question "Should there be an article on Emma Sulkowicz?". You are being notified because the page is tagged as being of interest to this WikiProject. :) -sche (talk) 21:36, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

AfD: London School of Business

This article has been nominated for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/London School of Business. Voceditenore (talk) 17:15, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

RfC on WikiProject Georgetown University proposal

Discussion is listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Georgetown University. Ergo Sum 22:30, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Merge notice for Sciences Po

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Sciences Po should be renamed Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines on article titles.

The article will be discussed at the article Talk page until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines. Users may edit the article during the discussion. However, do not remove the merge notice from the top of the article. Mathglot (talk) 01:13, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

Featured quality source review RFC

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:35, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:University of Adelaide#Notable people images

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:University of Adelaide#Notable people images. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:18, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Use start date and age templates in universities?

Hello. Back in January 2018, I tried adding the {{start date and age}} templates into some university articles, but they were removed. Since I don't want to get into an edit war on this matter, I'm following the WP:BRD route and wanted to open a discussion here. As such, is it really necessary to include the {{start date and age}} templates in university infoboxes or not? Thanks, Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 21:50, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I've seen it on some university articles. I wouldn't say it is necessary, but it's unobjectionable (as long as the correct date format is used). It might be worth discussing on individual pages what the objection is; this probably isn't something that should (or, realistically, could) be defined for the while project. Robminchin (talk) 02:22, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Dartmouth College controversy

Hello. Shouldn't there be an article about the Dartmouth controversy?

• Flaherty, Colleen (November 16, 2018). "Bombshell Lawsuit Against Dartmouth". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved November 24, 2018.

Todd Heatherton needs a clean-up, and I suppose we need articles about Paul Whalen (academic) (who resigned) and William Kelley (academic). It looks like the provost stepped down as well. Obviously this should be mentioned in Dartmouth College, but given the extent of the scandal, I think we may have to create a separate article to comply with the weight of RS.Zigzig20s (talk) 08:57, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Infobox US university ranking references updating

One of the problems we have run into is the need to update the university ranking infoboxes references every so often. Recently when I did this at Template:Infobox US university ranking another user proposed a good question about whether we should be revising the US template to have each ranking number require a paired reference as in the Template:Infobox world university ranking? If we don't revise the template how do we indicate if the data is out of date? More thoughts would be appreciated, discussion located at: Template_talk:Infobox_US_university_ranking#References_outdated. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 15:11, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

I was that editor so let me give a bit more context... When you consider the access date... If the template is used on 100 pages and I update 2 of them with newer data, that means that the access dates are in accurate for the other 98... IMHO, provide the refs from the page calling the template and provide a date as well. I.E. These rankings are current as of <Some date>. Food for thought. Again not saying that the references shouldn't be there, I just feel they belong on the data side. If you update the data for a particular page, you would also update the rankings at that time. --Zackmann (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 19:16, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities

The National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities is completely unreferenced. Just posting this in case someone here wants to fix it. Thanks!Zigzig20s (talk) 15:46, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Swiss navbox

Please if you have time share your comment in this discussion on another project.--Alexmar983 (talk) 14:15, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Adolphe Merkle Institute

Together with User:Flor WMCH, User:AntoG AMI, User:Phulzar we are refining this draft. I will remove some parts which are too detailed. Do you have any suggestion?--Alexmar983 (talk) 10:47, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

I reduce the text, we will publish it in 1-2 weeks.--Alexmar983 (talk) 20:07, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

@Alexmar983: I looked over the draft, and I have a concern that you do not establish notability for the institute. You need citations showing significant coverage in independent reliable secondary sources (see WP:ORG), and I'm not seeing that. If published as-is, the page could be vulnerable to deletion on the grounds of non-notability. Robminchin (talk) 22:27, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment, if I knew a proposed date would have triggered one I would have said so before :D Sources are not an issue I showed to the newbie how to find more few hours ago... in any case even if I have no hurry to publish this, I think this content should be shown, it's in enough sources. You could merge it as a paragraph in the UniFR page but it's also part of a network. To me this is an almanac article. We'll see.--Alexmar983 (talk) 22:42, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid I completely missed your original post! It sounds like you have the notability situation under control. It seems like the sort of institution that should be notable to me, but some people like to delete or merge things. On the content side, I didn't feel it was too long or too detailed. You might want to unlink the numerous red links to staff members who don't yet have articles (or WP:WRITEITFIRST). Robminchin (talk) 02:28, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I was still thinking which one to remove... this one and this one are big names. I did not want to keep them all, but some of them looked reasonable. I will read that guideline but as a connectivist, that is an expert of navboxes, red links and wikidata, I still consider "in my heart" a linear removal a poor approach.--Alexmar983 (talk) 19:38, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

i think sources are fine... I can add more but any comments? I need to close this task to focus on new articles in my sandbox, if possible. I think the relevance is quite clear, it's cited and discussed on dozens and dozens of articles in many countries.--Alexmar983 (talk) 17:41, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Template:Research_institutes_in_Switzerland includes AMI as red link and so far no problem after its insertion. Users and readers are seeing it since few days.--Alexmar983 (talk) 15:40, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Examples for good-practice adaptations in the UK

Currently the universities of Oxford and Cambridge are the only two cited as UK examples, however, due to their quite different structure from most institutions in the country (2 out of only 3 with listed constituent residential colleges), I would suggest some other GAs on UK universities also be supplied, so as to provide a basis for writing non-collegiate university articles. Shadowssettle_(talk) 19:39, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Definitely! Cambridge isn't even a GA, so I'm not sure what it is doing there.

Looking at the list of GAs on the project page, the British universities are: Kings College London, University of Bristol, University of Oxford and University of Surrey (Oxford advertises its prestige in the lead, which seems contrary to the WP:UNIGUIDE guidelines, so it possibly shouldn't be a GA). To this, the Wikipedia:Good articles/Social sciences and society#Education list adds Durham University (assessed November 2018, still B-rated in this project, which is presumably out of date). That's a total of five GAs (that I've found – there may be others only listed on their talk pages as these things don't seem to be automated), so we could probably list them all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Robminchin (talk • contribs) 17:29, January 4, 2019 (UTC)

I agree that way too many articles include trivial rankings and weak, insignificant claims about prestige in their ledes. But if the article about Oxford doesn't prominently tell readers that it's one of the world's most prestigious universities then we're doing our readers a profound disservice. ElKevbo (talk) 23:31, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, but we do hit the problem that the guidelines are quite firmly against that kind of thing (and the references given are very weak – an out-of-date THE world ranking and an even older THE reputation ranking, neither of which actually back up the statement), so holding it up as an example when – in this area where we often have problems – it is actually an exception may not be the best idea. However, probably a discussion for a different thread! Robminchin (talk) 03:36, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Seeing as Cantab's B-class and this seems supported and sensible, this is still open for discussion but for now  Done Shadowssettle_(talk) 00:09, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Requested page move

There is a requested move debate at Talk:Université catholique de Louvain that would benefit from your input. Please come and help. Paine Ellsworth, ed.  ^put'r there  06:46, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Use of University Crests in the UK

I have noticed an inconsistent ruling on the use of university crests in the UK, and wouldn't mind there being a thought out policy on the matter. Cambridge, Oxford and Durham all use their crests freely in templates, menus, and even userboxes, whereas other crests have been force-removed according to fair-use policies (despite being noted as public domain). Seeing as some of the crests are clearly stated as public domain, but others are cited as fair-use only, it seems there is an inconsistency, both in license and policies applied. Thought or reasons for this? Shadowssettle_(talk) 14:01, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

The design (or blazon) of a coat of arms is not copyrighted and a version can be made by anyone. The actual image of a coat of arms can be copyrighted, however. This means that if someone makes a version of the coat of arms and releases it to the public domain, them that can be used freely on Wikipedia. If, instead, the image of the coat of arms is simply taken from the university's website, then this is subject to fair-use in the same way as any other image. Some universities use logos rather than coats of arms; these are always copyrighted and subject to fair-use.

What it comes down to is whether an artistically-inclined editor has felt like finding the blazon for the coat of arms, making a version, and releasing it into the public domain (c.f. Wikimedia template: coat of arms). This hasn't only happened for those three universities – the image of the University of Wales coat of arms on Wikipedia is public domain, and there are probably many others.

It looks like the Imperial coat of arms that was removed is an image made by Imperial and not released into the public domain – it certainly looks to be a computer-created image and not, as is claimed in its public domain tag, a photographic reproduction of a public domain work of art. However, that tag should have been challenged/removed as invalid before the image was removed as not being in the public domain! Robminchin (talk) 16:11, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing up the reasoning. Are you saying the Imperial College crest is currently incorrectly tagged, or the old one was and it has been replaced? Shadowssettle_(talk) 21:02, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

It looks incorrectly tagged to me – it is claimed that it is a photo of an old picture of the coat of arms, and that the old picture is out of copyright because the artist died more than 70 years ago. It looks to me like it is a digitally-created image. I've now removed that tag from the Wikimedia page. Robminchin (talk) 02:30, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Someone might want to look at the Imperial crest, as it is now tagged for deletion. Aloneinthewild (talk) 21:29, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Saylor Academy

Greetings! I am seeking editors to review a new draft of Saylor Academy in my user space and at Talk:Saylor_Academy#New_draft_available. Editors at this WikiProject might be interested because Saylor Academy is a non-profit organization offering free and open online courses that qualify for university credit.

I will not be making edits to the article as a result of my conflict of interest. Can someone with experience editing articles about online universities please review this request?

Thanks in advance for your help!

Regards,

Andrewggordon84 (talk) 14:49, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

pictures in list of alumni

There is a discussion here about whether to delete all pictures from notable alumni sections of high school articles.

Since the thinking behind the decision there may apply to deletion of all pictures from university articles as well, you may find the discussion interesting. --2604:2000:E010:1100:F955:25EB:548E:D8B0 (talk) 23:39, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

The IP is attempting to restart an archived discussion from the schools project. The original thread is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines/Archive 2#Pictures in alumni sections and the closure was that WP:ALUMNI (part of the schools project) already prohibits using pictures of people in school lists of people, but that pictures are acceptable in stand-alone lists of people. There was no intention to apply this to the university project, or anywhere else outside of the schools project. Meters (talk) 00:37, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

WP 1.0 Bot Beta

Hello! Your WikiProject has been selected to participate in the WP 1.0 Bot rewrite beta. This means that, starting in the next few days or weeks, your assessment tables will be updated using code in the new bot, codenamed Lucky. You can read more about this change on the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team page. Thanks! audiodude (talk) 06:46, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Is Liberty University's website a reliable source for basic facts about the institution?

A few editors, including an administrator, are disagreeing about whether Liberty University's website can be used as a source for basic facts (e.g., number of degree programs, athletic conference membership) about the institution. Discussion is being held in the article's Talk page and at WP:RSN. It would be helpful if other editors voiced their opinions and recommendations. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 10:59, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

User:ElKevbo: I will reply here because we have the same issue with many universities. I believe most facts should come from reliable third-party sources, which can be retrieved from a simple Google search or Newspapers.com. Otherwise the text should always say "according to the university."Zigzig20s (talk) 11:04, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Let me add that if it's a consistent issue, with more than ten statements "referenced" with self-published sources, I believe the "third-party" tag should be added at the top of the article, although we should strive to fix the issue as fast as we can.Zigzig20s (talk) 11:09, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

This specific article does have that template.

I don't want to spread this discussion across even more Talk pages but I do want to note that (a) we have a policy specifically addressing self-published sources and (b) all of the Featured Articles about U.S. colleges and universities use the institution's website as a reference for this kind of basic information without any qualifying language. ElKevbo (talk) 11:18, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, if it's about the number of enrolled students, I guess we can cite the university website, although an RS could probably be found (but their source could be whatever the university tells them). Perhaps USDE would be a better source?Zigzig20s (talk) 12:04, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, you could easily pull these data from IPEDS; I'd recommend the College Navigator website as it's very user-friendly. ElKevbo (talk) 15:06, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I tend to trust the (USA) school's website if the school is accredited by one the of the standard Regional accrediting agencies. Less so if it is accredited by someone like TRACS.Naraht (talk) 17:22, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

For very basic facts perhaps, but not for much else. Universities do whitewash their histories and 'game' the criteria for rankings...Zigzig20s (talk) 17:36, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

An administrator is edit warring to impose his views on this article and other administrators seem to think that this behavior is perfectly fine so I've removed this article from my watchlist and no longer participating in the related discussions. Best of luck to everyone else involved in this dispute! ElKevbo (talk) 07:50, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Wise move. Perhaps you could help with the trustees below?Zigzig20s (talk) 08:43, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Pace University

Hi,

I am an experienced Wikipedia editor, but I have a declared COI as a paid consultant to Pace University. I've proposed some revisions to the article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Pace_University#Request_Edit and I wonder if an editor from this project, with substantial Wikipedia experience, might be willing to take a look at the Request Edits? Thanks for considering this! BC1278 (talk)BC1278

Done. ElKevbo (talk) 03:11, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Jeffrey Selingo

Jeffrey Selingo may be notable.Zigzig20s (talk) 00:57, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Can you please give us a little bit more to work with? ElKevbo (talk) 03:11, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

He is the author of two books about college and a third book about online education.Zigzig20s (talk) 09:26, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Category:Trustees by university or college in the United States

I am confident we are missing universities with notable trustees in Category:Trustees by university or college in the United States. More sub-categories should be created and past or present trustees added to them.Zigzig20s (talk) 11:07, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

User:BrownHairedGirl: Are you interested in helping us with this please? I know you love categories.Zigzig20s (talk) 09:17, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

RfC on Notability (academics)

There is a discussion on restructuring the notability guidelines for academics, to make it more logical and in line with how academics are evaluated by their peers: Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#Confusing structure and vague metrics While it does not propose any changes in the actual notability criteria, the hope is that the new structure will it will make it easier to use, help to identify gaps, and make it easier to further develop the criteria in the future. Martinogk (talk) 00:03, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

College admissions controversy

• Jaschik, Scott (March 12, 2019). "Massive Scandal Alleged in College Admissions". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved March 12, 2019.

Should there be a separate article about this? We are not a newspaper, but this seems unprecedented. (Will they go after donations from rich parents magically changing student grades next?)Zigzig20s (talk) 16:03, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

It's there: 2019 college admissions bribery scandal.Zigzig20s (talk) 02:03, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

User:ElKevbo: As this is your area of expertise, have you come across RS about similar scandals please? I doubt this kind of bribery/cheating started in 2011.Zigzig20s (talk) 10:52, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't have any deep knowledge of admissions and have never looked into this but I'd be shocked if this were the first incident of this nature. To the best of my knowledge, what makes this case different is its scale as most cheating in the admissions process probably only involves one institution or one entrance exam. Come to think of it, there have been much larger scandals in the specific area of cheating on entrance exams especially in countries like China and India where the entrance exams play a critical role in the admissions process (and, I think, the number of colleges available to the massive populations is proportionally much lower than in many other countries so there is immense pressure to do extremely well on the entrance exam). ElKevbo (talk) 12:12, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Interesting. I tend to think donations from rich parents is what really rigs the system, but it looks like no one will investigate this.Zigzig20s (talk) 14:07, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

There is a bit more, not sure if we could create Academic donations?

• Jaschik, Scott (March 18, 2019). "Just Because It's Legal Doesn't Make It Right". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
• Baum, Gary (March 14, 2019). "Hey, Lori Loughlin: This Is How to Buy Your Way Into USC — and Get Away With It". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 18, 2019.

Apparently there is more in Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World by Anand Giridharadas, but I haven't read it yet.Zigzig20s (talk) 12:50, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Discussion about logos, seals, and images in the university infobox template

There is a discussion about where images, particularly logos/wordmarks and seals, should be in the university infobox. Your input is welcome! ElKevbo (talk) 16:52, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Should details about scholarships be included in college and university articles?

There is a new discussion specific to Gardner–Webb University and the inclusion of details about scholarships that the university offers. I don't recall that there has been any discussion of this specific topic so it may be helpful if other editors can provide their opinion about either this specific article or the broader topic. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 15:46, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

ElKevbo, in my view it does not belong. I've commented on this at length at Talk:Gardner–Webb University#Details about scholarships. In a nutshell: it's basically advertisement and should only be mentioned if the scholarships were so unusual or notable that they have been written about extensively in independent 3rd-party sources. Definitely not the case there. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 17:24, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:External_links#Indirect_links_on_university_pages

I have been challenged on removal of external links to the athletics websites from the wikipedia pages of the universities of which the athletics departments belong to (e.g. Calbears.com from Berkeley university). I have brought that now to Wikipedia_talk:External_links#Indirect_links_on_university_pages and I invite members of this project to discuss the matter. Thanks. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 15:44, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Wagner College seal

Basically, the predicament is to keep jpg or svg in the infobox.
I have done a lot of uploading svg versions of university seals/COA and replacing them, but never been called out of it until in this situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TjBison (talk • contribs) 23:44, March 27, 2019 (UTC)

I reverted and warned the COI editor. ElKevbo (talk) 04:17, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Copyright implications of links to CiteSeerX

Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#CiteSeerX copyrights and linking. Nemo 15:41, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Observation about ledes

I really like the University of Mississippi's lede, and I think it should be the gold standard for all ledes about universities. It does a great job of avoiding whitewashing their history, yet it also highlights their specific research profile. Do you agree and shouldn't we try to update the ledes of similar articles?Zigzig20s (talk) 02:55, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

It's alright, but no better than many others, and of course dominated by largely US-centric issues. So, no. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 07:32, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps for US universities in the South?Zigzig20s (talk) 15:37, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Categories for current students - alumni, people, or other?

Hi there. There is currently a discussion happening at Olivia Jade: Talk:Olivia Jade#Why is she listed as a "USC Alumni"? that I think would benefit from a wider audience. It concerns whether a current student should be listed in the alumni or people category. (Or maybe a 3rd option?)

I did some preliminary searches here and at WP:UNIGUIDE and I couldn't find anything definitive on this topic.

It isn't clear if university "alumni" categories are exclusively for former students (including graduates) and/or if university "people" categories should not contain current or former students/graduates if there is an appropriate "alumni" category present (there usually is). Has there been previous discussion on this point? Thanks for your input. - Paul^T+/_C 18:34, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia article for Alumni says "An alumnus, an alumna, or an alumnum of a college, university, or other school is a former student." So can't be used for a current one. Dream Focus 05:58, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a reliable source. ElKevbo (talk) 11:24, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

You can check any dictionary also. [12] Dream Focus 15:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Alumnus means "a former pupil or student" (OED)[13] or similarly "a person who has attended or has graduated from a particular school, college, or university" (Merriam-Webster)[14]. Current students are thus, by definition, not alumni (unless they are also former students, e.g. a postgraduate student studying at the same institution that they graduated from). A current student would therefore normally come under 'people' rather than 'alumni' if these are separate categories. Robminchin (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

• Note I added language "Alumni" categories are only for former students (including graduates) - current students are not considered alumni to WP:UNIGUIDE to make this explicit going forward. You can see the diff here. - Paul^T+/_C 17:38, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Director of Communications for College editing.

User:Drawlinson has been editing University of Central Florida College of Education and Human Performance as apparently the school has merged that into the new University of Central Florida College of Community Innovation and Education. The Director of Communications for the College is D'ann Rawlinson (https://ccie.ucf.edu/about/administration/) so that falls under paid editing. Does anyone have any suggestions other than adding the Twinkle message for paid editing with a small message to the talk page of the user?Naraht (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I see a lot of these accounts and I usually start with a simple warning (Template:uw-coi or Template:uw-coi-username) before escalating. A lot of them are just new and unaware of our policies so they quickly change their practices or cease editing altogether after one warning. Some don't and then I have to place additional warnings or drop a note - sometimes here and sometimes at WP:COIN - to ask others to help. It's rare that I have to ask an account be blocked (except for those that are obvious username violations). ElKevbo (talk) 17:20, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I am new and unaware of the policies. How should I proceed? Drawlinson (talk) 17:58, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I've talked with Drawlinson on her talk page. I've restored the old copy of the page (we can add the closing at some point) and have moved it with all of her changes to her sandbox. I'm working with her. Username is fine. IMO, this is about as good of a result as can occur from here. :)Naraht (talk) 18:49, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Additionally, you should be aware of our policies regarding WP:OUTING; I know it's natural to look up these editors in online directories or just do a Google search but you need to be careful about what you write here in Wikipedia about the identity of other editors. ElKevbo (talk) 22:49, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

A new newsletter directory is out!

A new Newsletter directory has been created to replace the old, out-of-date one. If your WikiProject and its taskforces have newsletters (even inactive ones), or if you know of a missing newsletter (including from sister projects like WikiSpecies), please include it in the directory! The template can be a bit tricky, so if you need help, just post the newsletter on the template's talk page and someone will add it for you.

– Sent on behalf of Headbomb. 03:11, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Foreign-language mottoes in infoboxes

Hello all, I have a question about the proper formatting of mottoes in university infoboxes. It seems to me that often universities have separate English and Latin mottoes that mean substantially different things, but are lumped together: like (these are silly examples)

• Motto: Carnem hominum devoramus (English: Hungry for learning)

• Motto: Pereant inferiores
• Motto in English: Only the best

I've seen others try to change the English away from the university-endorsed "translations"; I've been tempted myself to tack on a literal English translation as well. Would it be alright to start adding those in the motto field? Otherwise, could we somehow add an additional "Translation" field to better distinguish between official english mottoes and unofficial (but correct) english translations?

• Motto: Melius quam proelium prandium placidum (English: A quiet lunch is better than conflict)
• Motto in English: Peace and plenty

Motto(es): Ebrii scribite, sobrii potite (Latin)
     Trans.: Write when drunk, tipple when sober
Discover the font of wisdom (English)

Cheers, gnu57 20:42, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I think you need to provide some actual examples. In general, I wouldn't think this is justified unless the English motto is not actually a plausible translation, i.e. they are actually two different mottos, but I've not seen that happen. Robminchin (talk) 06:13, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Rankings for Full Sail University

Hello! I've just posted a request to update the "Awards" section of the Full Sail University article. I don't edit the main space directly because of my conflict of interest, so I'm seeking editors who are willing to review my request and update the live article appropriately. The proposed updates include rankings of the university's game design and music programs, and I believe the text is compliant with Wikipedia:College_and_university_article_advice#Rankings. Thanks in advance for any help reviewing and updating the article. Inkian Jason (talk) 15:25, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

This request has been answered. Inkian Jason (talk) 16:48, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

MfD nomination of all university Portals

Not many universities have developed WP:Portals, but the few that have were nominated for deletion en masse which could set a precedent that could affect obvious topics of interest for this WikiProject. See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/University portals to leave your opinion. CrazyPaco (talk) 01:15, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

"Premier liberal arts college on the West Coast" in lede sentence of Pomona College

Two editors are discussing whether the phrase "premier liberal arts college on the West Coast" should be included in the very first sentence of Pomona College. Your input is welcome! ElKevbo (talk) 11:09, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

It sounds completely POV to me. Trim! No need to discuss this.Zigzig20s (talk) 15:08, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

That is a misleading description of the discussion, and I'd encourage editors to familiarize themselves with the context here before weighing in. The wider issue is whether references to the reputation of a university, when backed by reliable sources, are appropriate for articles in this domain. The phrase under discussion is "often referred to as the premier liberal arts college on the West Coast"; those first few words make a key difference, since judging a university directly would be an obvious WP:NPOV violation, but noting the reputation of a university is a factual assertion. - Sdkb (talk) 23:22, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Actually, limiting the discussion to the phrase "premier liberal arts college on the West Coast" is a much kinder way to phrase this discussion as it allows you to pull in any sources you'd like to support it instead of relying on the very weak sources that you are insisting are sufficient to support this extraordinary claim placed in the very first sentence of the article. But if you really want to limit the scope of the discussion to your phrasing and supported only by Fiske Guide to Colleges 2019 and a Forbes contributor editorial/blog post then please be my guest!

When I can make the time, I'll open an RfC on this question as you insist on edit-warring against the prevailing consensus to retain your preferred language and sources. ElKevbo (talk) 00:15, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

List of universities and colleges in Oman

Could someone from WP:UNI take a look at List of universities and colleges in Oman? Over the years, it appears to have been turned mainly into a list of external links to university websites with only a few entires having Wikipedia articles written about them. I've removed the link (that kind of thing is not allowed per WP:EL), and converted those entries which were links to red links. I've tried to find Wikipedia articles for these entries (even under a possibly slightly different name), but haven't had much luck. I'm not sure if some of these entries would even meet WP:UNIGUIDE#Notability for an article to be written, and might be better off removed again. Anyway, a different set of eyes on this article would be appreciated. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:11, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Action plan to combat self-published content

We need an action plan to combat self-published content in articles about universities. A couple of references from the university website is fine for basic information (or for direct quotations), but entire articles or even sections about their histories or alumni are not O.K.. How do we make sure other editors understand this? We can add the "third-party" tag at the top, but it would be much better if all editors understood why that is unacceptable in the first place. Otherwise, we have to go back, remove the sources, look for new sources... It's not very difficult for them to find the same information on Google Books or Newspapers.com, but how do we make sure that is understood?Zigzig20s (talk) 15:03, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

That's a good thought; I'm striking out on potential ideas, though. As I see it, there are two sides to the coin: on the plus side, self-published content by universities is normally at least accurate, if not necessarily balanced; but on the minus side, that accuracy leads many editors not to realize that it's preferable not to use self-published sources for the highest quality articles in this project. Still, I think that's most a concern for the GA/FA contenders — for the many less developed articles, I understand why editors jump to self-published sources on things like history/alumni, since although the information is often available elsewhere if you dig enough, it's normally not compiled in one accessible place except by the institution itself. - Sdkb (talk) 15:40, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. University websites are completely POV. They are advertisements for universities, part of a campaign to compete for tuition, government funding and donations from rich parents/alumni. They often leave out 'bad aspects' of their histories, or rewrite them in a POV manner. They are not neutral at all, except for very basic facts. On the other hand, an encyclopedia needs to tell the full story. It needs to be balanced and as comprehensive as possible. Even for some facts, I find that citing an alumnus' obituary in a newspaper is better than the university website.Zigzig20s (talk) 16:10, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

@Zigzig20s: Agreed entirely. - Sdkb (talk) 17:45, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

If this is how you'd like to spend your time and you can get consensus on these issues then I wish you the best of luck. I don't think that this is among our most pressing problems. More specifically, I don't think that over reliance on self-published materials has necessarily resulted in "bad" articles or ones that are unduly slanted in favor of these subjects. This does happen in some instances and I'd recommend perhaps focusing on those instances where this over reliance on self-published materials has resulted in demonstrable problems e.g., too much coverage of details that are not encyclopedic such as detailed listings of campus buildings or student organizations, inclusion of information that frequently changes and is rarely updated or maintained by editors. ElKevbo (talk) 19:15, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Lots of examples, including this, this, this, this...Zigzig20s (talk) 21:45, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the examples! I haven't looked at many article about colleges that are divisions of larger U.S. universities. I'd be surprised if there are many that are notable by Wikipedia standards; if the articles are primarily based on self-published sources then that would support my guess. Are they worth trying to clean up (as opposed to nominating them for deletion)? ElKevbo (talk) 02:28, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

There seem to be two issues here that risk being conflated. Firstly, there is the issue of using content from self-publisher sources to establish facts about the institution. While third party sources are always preferable, the user of self published sources as sources of information on themselves is explicitly allowed by WP:ABOUTSELF. While we should be seeking to supplement or replace such sources with third party sources where available, content based on such sources that complies with Wikipedia policy can be validly included. Secondly, there is the problem with articles that are entirely need on self published sources, such as the examples above. The issue here isn't the accuracy or otherwise of the information, but establishing the notability of the subject. This can be challenged as normal (in the examples here, the obvious solution is to merge them with the main article unless notability can be shown), but there doesn't seem any pressing need for an "action plan" on this. Robminchin (talk) 03:12, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I think it's reasonable to have separate articles about colleges of art and law/business schools in major universities, but we should try to find third-party sources in newspapers and books... It is usually easy to find articles about the dedications of universities/colleges on Newspapers.com, and alumni's obituaries usually include their alma maters. Then there is fluff--which university websites overhype and we shouldn't--and they leave out so-called negative content like harassment lawsuits, faculty who supported dictators, or even (until recently) their ties to human rights abuses like slavery. We shouldn't.Zigzig20s (talk) 12:07, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Disputes over content in University of Georgia

Two editors are disagreeing about content in University of Georgia. Additional opinions would be welcome! ElKevbo (talk) 15:10, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

We are an international website. The 'see also' is necessary.Zigzig20s (talk) 15:14, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Wikimedian in Residence at Coventry University

I've just started work at Coventry University, as Wikimedian in Residence. Please see Wikipedia:GLAM/Coventry University; and do let me know if I can help in any way. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:51, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Disagree over the inclusion of a source in the lede of School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Two editors are disagreeing over the inclusion of this source to support the statement "In a survey conducted by Columbia University, SAIC was named the 'most influential art school' in the United States" in the lede of School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Additional opinions are welcome! ElKevbo (talk) 15:05, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. ElKevbo (talk) 02:19, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

CfD nomination of Category:Alumni of Royal Military Academy of Belgium

Category:Alumni of Royal Military Academy of Belgium has been nominated for mergingwith Category:Royal Military Academy (Belgium) alumni. You are encouraged to join the discussion on the Categories for discussion page. 22:31, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Dispute at Florida A&M University‎

Some editors are having a dispute over the inclusion of some content in Florida A&M University‎. One of the involved editors has stated that "I'm not going to stop reverting" so other opinions and voices would be very welcome. The relevant section in the Talk page is here. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 16:49, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Dispute about inclusion of recent lawsuit and controversies in University of Holy Cross

Editors are disagreeing at Talk:University of Holy Cross about the inclusion of a "Controversies" section and material included in it. Additional opinions are welcome! ElKevbo (talk) 16:43, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Request for help University of Michigan School of Information

Some portions of this article are inaccurate. I've described them and provided sources for accurate info in the talk page, but as I am currently employed by UMSI, I haven't made the changes myself to prevent WP:COI. The changes should be relatively quick and any help is appreciated! Elplatt (talk) 15:44, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Dispute about "Criticism" section in UNC Chapel Hill article

Editors are having a dispute about the "Criticism" section in University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and whether is should be integrated into the "History" section. Other opinions are welcome in Talk:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 17:54, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Coming to agreement on how we document enrollment numbers

I've opened a discussion in the Talk page for the infobox we use on most colleges and universities asking if we can come to consensus on which kinds of enrollment numbers we use in the template. For those who are unaware, there are two basic ways of counting students in the United States. You can simply count the number of students enrolled at an institution regardless of how many credits/classes they're taking and present that as the headcount; this means that part-time students are counted equally with full-time students. Alternatively, you can require that students are enrolled full-time (by specifying the number of credits that are required for full-time status) to be counted and then proportionally add together part-time students based on the number of credits they're taking e.g., two part-time students enrolled at half the number of credits as the full-time standard together count as one full-time equivalent (FTE) student.

Both standards are commonly used and they're equally valid but useful in different contexts. I don't know if we want to insist that editors only or primarily rely on one standard but strongly believe that we should consistently and uniformly label all of our enrollment numbers so it's clear to readers if we're talking about headcount or FTE. ElKevbo (talk) 21:14, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Merged Universities

I think it would be better not to merge the universities in the 21st-30th, 31st-50th and after the 51st position in one paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GS-216.1993 (talk • contribs) 14:51, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

You need to say what article this comment refers too. Aloneinthewild (talk) 15:21, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

What do schools do about famous dropouts?

Hi editors, we're having a small edit war at Georgetown University about how to include, if at all, President Lyndon Baines Johnson, who attened the university's law school for one semester before dropping out. On the talk page there's a bit of a semantic argument about the definition of alum, and the IP editor wishing to include LBJ points to Princeton and Stanford including dropouts in general numbers when they list "30 living billionaires" and "Two U.S. Presidents" in their intros respectively. Does WP:UNI have a policy on how to include dropouts vs. graduates, or a definition of "alumni/alumnae"? Thanks-- Patrick, _oѺ^∞ 17:46, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Generally, students who attend an institution are considered alumni. Whether that means they should be mentioned in the lede of any particular article is a different matter. ElKevbo (talk) 19:00, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I would agree that alumni includes everyone who attends a university, not just graduates. It would be unusual to mention any individual alumni in the opening section though. Robminchin (talk) 21:37, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Weather sections

Noticed today that some American GA universities have climate sections .with those giant overwhelming charts.....is this normal...seems odd no? Columbia University#Climate.--Moxy 🍁 16:24, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I removed these sections from the three articles in which I found them and asked the editor who added them to stop until we can discuss it here. I don't think the information is appropriate in these articles; WP:UNIGUIDE is our current advice for what material should be included in these articles. ElKevbo (talk) 17:20, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

It seems duplicative to me. Climate tables are already in most of the articles for the towns or cities in which the universities are located. --Ken Gallager (talk) 18:39, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. People can click through to the location to see the climate. Robminchin (talk) 02:07, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Lübeck University of Applied Sciences

Would someone from WP:UNI mind taking a look at this article? There are some minor things which can be cleaned up fairly easily (e.g. MOS:SECTIONCAPS, WP:NOTDIRECTORY, WP:ORDER), but the main thing is that the article seems to be citing de:Technische Hochschule Lübeck as its only source. Actually, it's not really citing the German Wikipedia article about the school per se, but rather the sources cited in the German Wikipedia article, but the way it's doing this is not how it should be done. In addition, it might be a translation of the German Wikipedia article which would require attribuition per WP:TFOLWP. -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:01, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

I've moved the article to Technical_University_of_Applied_Sciences_Lübeck, a user was trying to create a new article for the renamed institution, and cleared up a few of the issues. Someone still needs to look at the attribution issue Aloneinthewild (talk) 19:17, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposed change on using a college seal vs. logo

I've reopened an old can of worms and proposed in the Talk page for the colleges and universities infobox that, for some universities and colleges, it makes considerably more sense to feature a school's logo prominently rather than its seal or coat-of-arms. In some cases, a school's seal isn't used for any public recognition purposes at all, is only used for stamping diplomas and that sort of thing, and so it's strange for those schools to feature it so prominently on the page rather than a recognizable logo. If you have opinions, please contribute. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WorldsApart (talk • contribs) 15:34, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Is a university "affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention" a "Baptist university?"

I've opened a discussion at Talk:Anderson University (South Carolina) asking if a university "affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention" is a "Baptist university." Your input would be appreciated! ElKevbo (talk) 18:29, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Please note there are several other colleges and universities in nearly identical situations e.g., Augsburg University is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America but does that make it "Lutheran" or is that an appropriate shorthand description? ElKevbo (talk) 22:02, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Honestly the larger issue of that descriptor seems like a case-by-case kinda thing (dependent on the nature of the affiliation in relation to financing, curriculum, or culture). Quick search for "Baptist" in Anderson U's financial reports shows that a fair degree of control is held by South Carolina Baptist Convention (provides the funds, and controls its charter through the appointment of the University's trustees), so I don't see anything wrong with calling it a baptist institution. In saying that though, I also don't see anything wrong with how the lead is presently worded (its a private university.... Anderson is affiliated with baptist convention...). Leventio (talk) 04:11, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

As I mentioned on the Anderson talk page, to me "affiliated" has the meaning of a voluntary association, which would not include (in this example) a university funded and controlled by the convention (via the appointment of its trustees) – in corporate terms, the SC Baptist Convention is the parent company of the university. It struck me last night that this could be a US English usage of "affiliated", in which case we should follow MOS:COMMONALITY and "use a commonly understood word or phrase in preference to one that has a different meaning because of national differences" on Wikipedia. Robminchin (talk) 15:22, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

/* Top rankings */ in page College and university Rankings

Hi, I would like some help from other editors; one user some time ago decided that the College and university rankings page was too messed up with over 20 rankings listed up together, making no distinction of those virtually unknown and those well-established, well respected and that every country in the world cares about, as the ARWU Shanghai ranking, the QS ranking and the THE ranking. So the person made a new section about these three specific rankings before all others. Then another user showed up and added the "Leiden ranking" I had honestly never heard of (in years of dealing with education and rankings), in what is obviously a personal move, but as such user is a registered and active editor and I'm just an IP, I understand I'll need more people to seriously look into the issue for my opinion alone won't count much. I would therefore be quite grateful if somebody who is familiar with the topic could participate in its discussion page. Thank you. 213.245.146.78 (talk) 20:35, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Nomination of Portal:Universities for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether Portal:Universities is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The page will be discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Universities until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the page during the discussion, including to improve the page to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the deletion notice from the top of the page. Certes (talk) 16:31, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Merging of Paris I

Hello, I see that many many pages have merge into the main university page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:University_of_Paris_1_Pantheon-Sorbonne . Should that page merge too? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockades_of_the_Tolbiac_center_of_University_of_Paris_1_Pantheon-Sorbonne --Delfield (talk) 10:02, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:ASEAN University Network#Table of Institutions

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:ASEAN University Network#Table of Institutions. -- Marchjuly (talk) 21:29, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

Additional input at Furman University requested

Two editors are disagreeing about content in Furman University, particularly in the Rankings section. Additional input would be welcome! ElKevbo (talk) 17:39, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

The Iona College Pipe Band

Would someone from this WikiProject mind taking a look at this and assessing it for notability? It doesn't seem to meet WP:GNG, WP:NORG or WP:BAND, but maybe there's another guideline it satisfies. Currently, the own source(s) cited is Facebook which is a WP:SPS at best and not really helpful for establishing the band's Wikipedia notability. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:57, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Although extracurriculars generally wouldn't qualify, the age of the band (founded 1966) and the CBS local news coverage make me think it might be salvageable. For now, I'd say a notability tag is fine, since there's only one source of the two needed, but a deletion nomination would be premature unless there's been a more thorough search. If a TV station is willing to cover an org, chances are the student newspaper either has or will get around to it at some point, at which point the article will be safe, so let's give it a chance. Sdkb (talk) 16:06, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring to remove "Controversies" section across multiple articles

Will someone please review ElKevbo's edits, as he is changing edits solely based upon his beliefs. He or she is starting an EDIT WAR to reflect his opinions of fact. If you will please review ElKevbo's edits history you will see the previous attempts at alleged bullying to get editors to conform to his norms and Edit Wars and warnings. The changes that were done are in accordance with WP guidelines. His feelings and likes and dislikes are not my concerns. I could care less about about additional opinions, as WPs cannot have it one way one some university pages and then pages with blatant controversies are hidden with history timelines. Ballastrae (talk) 01:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

A serious allegation, and I will review his comments and give my opinion if relevant. This said, in my experience ElKevbo is an experienced user, who has proven again and again to be professional and knowledgeable in the field of higher education, to which WikiProject he has contributed a lot and have never picked up on any biases, even when we disagreed in the past. Eccekevin (talk) 05:31, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Upon review, I cannot but agree with ElKevbo. These controversies, as historical facts, are most appropriate to fit in the history subsection, when even relevant (which many so-called controversies and judicial proceedings may not be). This WikiProject has delineated guidelines with a limited amount of headers to be consistent, and there is no reason to break them now. Especially, in the case of Baylor, since a whole wiki-page is dedicated to it, there is no need for a separate header. Finally, many of these so-called 'controversies' are normal judicial proceedings than happen at most institutions and require a high bar to be considered notable in itself. Not every crime or every murder in the USA deserves its own Wikipedia mention, same for these kinds of crimes and controversies. Of course, when the scope is such that they receive a particular notice (such as Baylor) they deserve a separate page, but nonetheless, they do not require a specific subsection in the main page about a university Eccekevin (talk) 05:43, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Edit warring to add a separate "Controversies" section to multiple articles

Can someone else please take a look at Ballastrae's edits? He or she has begun edit warring to insert a separate "Controversies" section into multiple articles. There is an ongoing discussion in the Talk page of the first article that he or she edited but now he or she has begun making the same edit in other articles while the discussion is still ongoing. Additional opinions are welcomed. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 23:57, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

It's sometimes hard to avoid controversies sections, but WP:CSECTION, which recommends against them, makes good points. Sdkb (talk) 09:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Article on Brock Blomberg (President, Ursinus College)

Hello! I'm Tom and I work for Ursinus College (as I state on my profile page and at Talk:Brock Blomberg). I've made a Wikipedia account to address some inaccurate and (what I believe to be) misleading information in the article about the college's president, Brock Blomberg. I have two outstanding requests: the first is to remove misinterpreted text, and the second is to add what I think are well-documented and properly sourced details about his career. Most recently, I reached out for help at the biography of living persons noticeboard, and at WikiProjects Education and Pennsylvania, but I have not yet received a reply.

Might any members of WikiProject Universities be willing to take a look and update the article on my behalf? I'm avoiding editing the article directly because of my conflict of interest. Thanks in advance for your assistance--or any guidance you're willing to provide. TY Ursinus (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

How to describe contradictory classifications of a U.S. university

Editors are discussing how to describe the classification - for-profit, not-for-profit, or something else - of Grand Canyon University. Additional opinions and recommendations are welcome! ElKevbo (talk) 23:46, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Help with submitting new article

Hello, I'm a newcomer and have submitted my draft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Seattle_University_Albers_School_of_Business_and_Economics) for review. How do I include it in this Universities WikiProject? (EastIrving (talk) 21:20, 19 November 2019 (UTC))

Edit: I added the WikiProject tag to the Article's talk page, and that seemed to work. (EastIrving (talk) 17:02, 26 November 2019 (UTC))

Yep, adding that tag to the talk page is all you need to do. Best of luck with the draft! Sdkb (talk) 18:14, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Philippine university athletic team articles

Would someone from this WikiProject mind taking a look at Adamson Soaring Falcons and some of the other similar team articles listed in Category:University Athletic Association of the Philippines? There seems to be quite a bit of unsourced content (including some WP:FANCRUFT) and well as some other pretty detailed information which might need to be re-assessed. I can understand out it's beneficial to readers to list some general information about a school's athletic teams and their accomplishments, but I don't think listing team rosters (including player heights and other personal information) are really helpful to the reader. Perhaps such information would make sense in an article about a particular team for a particular season, but not really in a general article about a university's sports teams as a whole. Wikipedia notable players can be mentioned as part of the prose or in a list of notable athletes, but not every player who was a member of one of the school's teams needs to be mentioned. It seems that a lot of this content is being added by IPs or WP:SPAs who probably mean well, but are really just WP:Namechecking people who don't really warrant being mentioned. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:54, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Dispute about including a section about "Tunnels of oppression" in Lee University

Editors of Lee University are having a disagreement about the inclusion of a section about "Tunnels of oppression" in the article. Input from other editors would be appreciated. ElKevbo (talk) 15:19, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Lyon College Article Improvements

Hi, I'm Keli, an employee of Lyon College. I started working for the college within the last year, and I noticed this article was missing relevant information. It also contained a notice about the need for additional citations, so I have been working on a new draft to improve the page and add the necessary citations.

You can see my entire post with details about my draft here, on the Lyon College talk page.

Since this is a WikiProject for universities, I'm hoping someone here will have an interest in working on the Lyon College article to make fair changes. You can find my full draft here. Can someone please take a look and offer any feedback, or if you agree that it significantly improves the article, copy my version over?

Since I am employed by the college and here in that official capacity, I will only post on designated talk pages, and I will not directly edit the Lyon College article or related articles where I may have a conflict of interest. Please do not hesitate to leave me a message if you have questions or feedback. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by LyonCollegeKeli (talk • contribs) 16:39, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Merging discussion

Hello, there was an AfD about deleting Sciences Po Law School but some suggested the discussion should have been about merging. The AfD is closed so I am opening a discussion about merging at Talk:Sciences Po Law School. When is there consensus? --Delfield (talk) 10:14, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Me and another people are in favour of merging, none have expressed something against it. What to do next? --Delfield (talk) 23:34, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

You should probably make the merger discussion clear by adding Merge templates ({{Merge to}} and {{Merge from}}) to both the law school and the target. This will open the discussion more and bring other interested parties into the conversation. Shadowssettle_(talk) 23:58, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

The recent AfD was closed as "Keep" and not "Merge" so I don't think it would be a good idea for an editor to unilaterally merge the article. I don't know about mergers but it's usually viewed as disruptive to nominate an article for deletion soon after an AfD so my recommendation is to wait at least six months before formally proposing a merger. Alternatively, you could contact the closer of the recent AfD for an opinion about whether "Merge" is a viable result of the discussion. ElKevbo (talk) 02:22, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Editor encouragement and appreciation

Hi all! I was wondering if anyone would object to me starting up a few project-wide barnstars or other awards to recognise different important contributions to Wikipedia coverage of the field? I've noticed it's been relatively quiet around here, and was thinking what the project could do to encourage contributions to university pages and appreciate people who've been editing; there's many good editors I've seen across managed articles, and it'd be good to recognise that, but a lot of articles still suffer from out-of-date information, puffery, or the like, and thanking helpful editors could also encourage uni contributions. Shadowssettle_(talk) 12:08, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:UST Growling Tigers#Team rosters

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:UST Growling Tigers#Team rosters. — Marchjuly (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

National Association of Scholars - Your thoughts requested on Talk page

I created a section on Talk:National Association of Scholars titled, NPOV January 2020. Would you share your thoughts on the article there? (Or edit the article to improve it.) ¶ I read a Commentary in the Wall Street Journal Opinion section today that included this sentence: "Wikipedia describes us as a 'conservative' organization." That mention prompted me to look at the article. I did not know about the National Association of Scholars before today. I reviewed other Wikipedia articles about nonprofit (or trade union) educational organizations and none of them used an adjective denoting a political ideology in the article's short description or in the lede (introductory paragraph). Calling the National Association of Scholars a "conservative" organization struck me as neither consistent nor neutral. What do you think? (Please discuss at Talk:National Association of Scholars#NPOV January 2020—not here—so we're all on the same page.) Thanks! ¶ Citation: Peter W. Wood, "‘Cancel Culture’ Comes to Science", Wall Street Journal (January 13, 2020): A17.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 10:54, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Draft for Joseph I. Castro

Hi all! My name is Patti and I am the Director of Communications at California State University, Fresno. I have created a new article draft for the president of Fresno State, Dr. Joseph I. Castro. Since I have a financial conflict of interest, I will NOT directly publish the article and instead request assistance from volunteer editors. To provide some background, Dr. Castro has been featured in the media on several occasions, especially on the topic of his work with minority communities to improve educational programs. He also received Mexico's highest honor, the Ohtli award, in 2016. I encourage anyone interested in assisting to take a look at my proposed draft here. I enjoy working in collaboration with others, so I welcome questions, feedback, and suggestions. Thank you! PW at Fresno State (talk) 17:58, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

This is how to do it with integrity and respect for Wikipedia! Thank you PW at Fresno State. :0)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 10:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Request for feedback on COI rewrite of Bank Street College of Education

Bank Street College of Education has a number of issues. I have a disclosed conflict of interest (I work for a marketing agency retained by Bank Street), but I'd like to see the article improved in a way consistent with this wikiproject's goals.

I would greatly appreciate review and feedback from other editors.

The rewrite is at User:Danielklotz/Bank_Street_College_of_Education. I made a good-faith effort to keep it neutral and to make it better conform to WikiProject University's guidelines. Where possible, I kept the content and the wording consistent with what's in place now. Here's the comparison: existing vs. rewrite.

In this rewrite, I focus on:

1. Adding citations.
2. Restructuring the article.

When it comes to the article structure, Bank Street (the institution) is unusual because it is half grad school and half K-8 school. So, I used the article guidelines from this wikiproject and from WikiProject Schools. When there's a section in common (e.g., both guidelines suggest a "History" section), the rewritten article has just one section. For other sections, I created two new sections (with subsections) -- one for the grad school and one for the school for children.

My hope is that this new version will improve the existing article and serve as the "bones" for future expansion. Again, I appreciate review and feedback on how to make this rewrite suitable. Thank you.

-- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 22:04, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Update: Bank Street College of Education is an article with a practical tie to the active discussion about the boundary between WP:UNI and WP:WPSCH. That's because Bank Street is both a grad school and K–8 school. Since User:Spintendo informed me that I can't do a userspace rewrite unless it's an actual rewrite, and since one of my goals as a COI editor is to respect the work other editors have already put in to the article, I'm breaking my requests into smaller steps. The first step is to start a discussion on the Bank Street talk page, which I invite you to join. At heart is the question, "When the subject of an article falls under both WP:UNI and WP:WPSCH, how should the article be structured?" My proposal is to use a structure that shares sections that both wikiprojects recommend (History, Campus, External links, etc.) but then divide much of the rest of the article into two major sections – one "mini article" about the grad school and another about the children's school. I'm interested in input and consensus. Thank you. -- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 18:40, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 18 January 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher Education. There is a clear consensus to rename this project page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher Education. (closed by non-admin page mover) NNADIGOODLUCK (Talk|Contribs) 15:16, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities → Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities and colleges – More accurate to scope, and in order to not risk misunderstanding of distinction? Cf. Category:Universities and colleges. PPEMES (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC) —Relisted. PI Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 11:40, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Relist note: do not yet see general agreement herein, and discussion still seems to be ongoing at this point. PI Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 11:40, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Oppose [edit: changed to "support alternative", see below]. College is a far more general term, taking in secondary, further education, professional education, trade schools, adult education, etc. As a result, Category:Universities and colleges includes many pages not currently within the remit of this project, such as Lufthansa Flight Training, Afghan Mobile Mini Children's Circus, City Literary Institute, etc. The proposed name change would be substantially less accurate in scope and would have a much higher risk of misunderstanding. Robminchin (talk) 06:40, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Support some alternative I agree with the nominator that the current project name is insufficient. Take, for instance, liberal arts colleges such as Williams College that are very clearly covered by this project but also very clearly not universities. I'd prefer Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher Education for the rename, though, per Robminchin's concern above. Sdkb (talk) 07:18, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind that. I may as well support your ALT. PPEMES (talk) 09:12, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

Support alternative Since terms like colleges and universities are used differently in different countries, i.e. in many countries outside of USA, "college" often refers to prep schools. That could create too much overlap with WikiProject Education and Wikiproject Schools. I would prefer leave as is or to rename to the alternative Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher Education to create a distinct project boundary and reduce overlap confusion.--Bhockey10 (talk) 19:47, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Support alternative WikiProject Higher Education addresses my concerns about the use of "college", and gives a clearer indication of the scope of the project than "universities" alone. Looking at the ngrams (as ElKevbo suggests), it also appears that "higher education" is substantially more common than either "universities and colleges" or "colleges and universities". Robminchin (talk) 22:16, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Support alternative It seems to me that Higher Education may be the best alternative given the current trends in English nomenclature. Randomeditor1000 (talk) 18:52, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment It would be helpful to clarify the distinction between Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities and Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools. WikiProject Universities includes "universities and colleges" while WikiProject Schools "includes polytechnics and vocational colleges that do not award degrees or which are affiliated to universities who issue the degree on their behalf. Colleges, universities, and other organisations that are authorised to issue their own degrees are covered by WikiProject Universities." I would in principle support a change to include all colleges including those mentioned by Robminchin, which would be consistent with Category:Universities and colleges. TSventon (talk) 13:41, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Is tertiary education what you are looking for? If so, "universities and colleges" seem to be the working name that scope within the category tree. I think it could work for the WikiProject name as well, although would support higher education as secondary best if consensus here points towards that. PPEMES (talk) 13:46, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

No. Although tertiary and post-secondary education are both technically correct, they're unfriendly jargon that would be unfamiliar to many editors. We must keep it simple. ElKevbo (talk) 15:43, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Support an alternative "Colleges and universities" is the more common construction. "Higher education" is an alternative if we believe it's important to communicate that we're not focused only on the institutions themselves but other related topics e.g., faculty, higher education pedagogy, history of higher education. ElKevbo (talk) 15:46, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Weak Oppose It feels like any change to the name is likely to dilute or confuse the project. Also, I don't really see the point of going through and changing the name on a weak basis for the WikiProject; it's not encyclopædia content, just a way of editors organising themselves, so it'd be better to keep it less confusing than go for pinpoint accuracy. Shadowssettle_(talk) 22:58, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose. I don't see at all where 'College' is a particularly common term for university, or at least not as common in this context as 'university'. There are also Engvar distinctions to take into consideration and the project should have a name that embraces these differences, which in my opinion 'WikiProject Universities' does perfectly well. Otherwise, per Bhockey10, there is a risk that some users might be led to believe that schools such as, just to cite two examples, Malvern College and Eton College and the UK's many Sixth Form Colleges and Colleges of Further Education are within the remit of universities. As TSventon points out above: WikiProject Schools "includes polytechnics and vocational colleges that do not award degrees or which are affiliated to universities who issue the degree on their behalf, and that includes non degree awarding tertiary education such as Colleges of Further Education and various job schools that call themselves 'college'. I don't see any real reason for this change after all these years, and and we should not necessary be guided by broader use of the terms by Goggle - if anything, Google should be following the lead by Wikipedia which being an encyclopedia and not a search engine, is (supposed to be) the more academic authority, the move request is a solution looking for a problem. I also believe it would be appropriate for more members of WP:WPSCH to chime in.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:53, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Oppose. Before making a decision please read and study International Standard Classification of Education. Wikipedia is not the first to discover that there are difficulties in classifying post-secondary education. The UN came to a decision in 1997, but revisited it in 2011- and the sticking point was that post 16 there was a University Route and a non university route. As a WP:WPSCH coordinator I recognise that college is term used for some schools, ancient, modern, state and private, in UK and Australia. ISCED#2 ISCED#3.See Village college and Geelong College. It also commonly used for ISCED#4 further education colleges in the UK, who also often teach ISCED#3 courses. But in common with every student at Oxford University my wife was a member of an individual college, in her case St Anne's College, Oxford ISCED#6-ISCED#8. Vocational short cycle higher education colleges exist teaching ISCED#5.

So that was long and technical but I think I have made the point that the word college is just too ambiguous to use in a project title.

What is the perceived scope of WP:UNI; the formal definition is ambiguous using the word college. It seems that needs to be revised using the language of the UN before we attempt to give it a title. From the discussion above, we seem to agree that WP:UNI just includesISCED#6-ISCED#8 and there is no desire to push it down and embrace ISCED#4 further education.

What is the perceived scope of WP:WPSCH. Again it does not include the ISCED levels but it does explain. It also includes further education schools and sixth form colleges, and vocational and job schools that do not award recognised degrees in their own right and is clear that degree issuing institutions are within the scope of WP:UNI. Yes clean up the words- I see these are the areas we must address first, Wikiproject:Universities is still less clumbersome than Wikiproject:Universities and degree issuing colleges. ClemRutter (talk) 11:45, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Oppose as above. Kudpung and ClemRutter articulated this very well- it's not a forward step, after all. tedder (talk) 15:43, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Oppose per above Steven (Editor) (talk) 18:34, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment @Kudpung, ClemRutter, Tedder, and Steven (Editor): I'm assuming you all came over from the invitation at WP:WikiProject Schools. It's nice to have your input, and your concerns about maintaining a clear boundary between the two projects are merited. The proposal to rename to WP:WikiProject Universities and colleges has clearly failed, but from your comments, it looks as though you may not have noticed the discussion we had above, where we reached a solid consensus to rename this project to WP:WikiProject Higher Education and were basically just waiting for someone to come along to close. If you have any input on that proposal, that would be much more useful. And to the closer: please be careful here — this still reads to me as ready to close the same as before, and the viewpoints of those at WikiProject Schools should be given weight but not mistaken for uninvolved input representative of the wider WP community. Sdkb (talk) 20:37, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment @Sdkb, Kudpung, Tedder, and Steven (Editor): I have many failing- please add 'failing to read a post´ to the list' I make big play on following the ISCED2011, I happy to use the WP{Universities for all colleges, academies and universities that offer course that lead to a degree.ISCED#6-ISCED#8 I can live with WP:Higher Education too. WP:WPSCH cam mop uo ISCED#1-ISCED#4 but who takes on ISCED#5- The sector that is known in the Uk as the Higher Education sector?ClemRutter (talk) 23:28, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. From a US perspective, most of ISCED#5 occurs in what we consider "higher education" with much of it occurring within community colleges. Many US colleges and universities offer courses and credentials that are not degree programs and are more vocational in nature e.g., certificates, continuing education. There is a little bit of overlap for those credentials and that kind of training between these two projects as some of that is offered in secondary schools (high schools) but that's true at the ISCED#5 level, too, (e.g., dual enrollment) and it's not a problem.

What isn't clear to me is that "universities" and "colleges and universities" appears to be limited to the educational institutions and their constituent organizations and campuses. The phrase "higher education" is much broader than the institutions and encompasses individual faculty members, scholarly disciplines and organizations, student groups, educational models and theories, and nearly everything else related to the broader enterprise of tertiary education. In my experience, that is what many members of this project are addressing so I think explicitly acknowledging that with a name change is fine. However, I am asking whether that is correct because I don't want to be projecting my own personal and professional interests onto this group. If the intent of the project is to only focus on colleges and universities with no inclusion of other related topics then the proposed name "higher education" is not appropriate and I withdraw my support. ElKevbo (talk) 00:13, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

I would agree that the project includes ISCED#5 and above education. In the US there's some gray areas in that community colleges often offer both apprenticeship/vocation education programs as well as associates degrees and some even offer a select number of bachelor degree programs. It does seem that true vocational schools are not currently part of this Wikiproject, i.e The Apprentice School. If we are going to change the name, I prefer the main alternative, Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher Education. Like ElKevbo, it seems like this project does cover subcategories of university history, campus designs/geogrpahy, university life, and related topics important to the focus university articles, looking at the FA]] and GA top articles of the project, there are often Sub-articles that go into further details of the sections we've outlined in WP:UNIGUIDE. I feel those sub-articles are relevant and should be included in the higher education project.--Bhockey10 (talk) 00:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

"WPHE" seems like a good proposal. And yes, I'm here from the evil canvassing by kudpung, who does a great job of helping us be aware of things that are going on. tedder (talk) 00:23, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Actually at the very best I'd prefer "WP Higher education", since that's a noun to me. PPEMES (talk) 01:55, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment: @Sdkb, Kudpung, Tedder, and Steven (Editor): with all due respect, I don't think this is quite ready for a close - and for several reasons. First off, a good read of the separate articles at Higher education, Vocational education and Tertiary education is recommended. Secondly, I don't know why Clem needs to apologise, and thirdly, the most active users at WP:WPSCH, i.e. the coords, naturally do not represent any opinions that might be held by the broader community. But therein lies the question: Is the broader community really very interested in what we call our Wikiprojects? This is more of a backroom issue and one which those of us who are actively engaged in finding the right names for our categories and projects while at the same time thinking in terms of what our readers might be searching for, or what project label a new user should put on a new article's talk page. All that said, I would be happy for WikiProject Universities to call their project anything they like as long as it avoids overlap and possible confusion with WP:WPSCH. It's basically all a matter of semantics but it would be good to get it right. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:35, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 18 January 2020: follow up

• Emailed received (as a participant of the council) - have no comment on the above outcome or request. - here as a request was made to unsure data and categorization is not lost for bots. Is the intent to move project banners and categories to the new title? If so ping me I can help.--Moxy 🍁 15:46, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

@Moxy: thanks for the offer, I will ping some editors for clarification. Is there a checklist for how to move a project, I fear there probably isn't. TSventon (talk) 16:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

@Kudpung, PPEMES, Bhockey10, Tedder, ElKevbo, ClemRutter, Sdkb, Steven (Editor), Steel1943, Randomeditor1000, Shadowssettle, and Robminchin: The RM has now closed and WP:Universities has been moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher Education However I don't think the discussion reached a conclusion on the scope of the new project and whether WP:Schools can be adjusted to match. I would suggest

• "universities and colleges" should be changed to "universities and colleges of higher education" on the project page to minimise the amount of rebadging needed, unless there is consensus and volunteers for a bigger exercise are available.
• WP Schools should be adjusted to include colleges of further education but not colleges of higher education.
• I will ask User:Moxy to move project banners and categories to the new title, unless anyone says they intend to object to the discussion closure.

Any alternative suggestions? TSventon (talk) 12:39, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

The terminology seems even more confusing, but if the bots are happy with it, and the division line is now being set between ISCED#4 and ISCED#5 we committed editors will carry on as before. ClemRutter (talk) 16:54, 28 February 2020 (UTC) (edited) ClemRutter (talk) 19:51, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest "universities, other institutes of higher education, and related topics". "Colleges of higher education" refers (at least in the UK context) to a specific sort of college (basically the British equivalent of the US Community College). Also, I think the scope of the project includes related topics such as degrees (and other HE qualifications), not just educational institutions. Robminchin (talk) 07:03, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

RfC opened asking if University of Pittsburgh should be described as "public" or "state-related"

I've opened an RfC asking if University of Pittsburgh should be described as "public" or "state-related" in the article's Talk page. Please participate! ElKevbo (talk) 05:23, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Armorial of British Universities

I began this project last summer but it lapsed after a while. I would much appreciate anyone else wishing to take it on. Robin S. Taylor (talk) 12:59, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Looks interesting, although I'm not sure how much time I would have. Where did you get the "matriculated" date from, it doesn't seem to always agree with the known dates of the grants? Robminchin (talk) 02:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm assuming they are mostly from

• The book of public arms : a complete encyclopædia of all royal, territorial, municipal, corporate, official, and impersonal arms by Arthur Charles Fox-Davies. [[15]]

as those I have checked do match. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:28, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Mention or discuss coronavirus-related closures in institution articles?

Like many other institutions, colleges and universities in multiple countries are being temporarily closed or otherwise impacted by the coronavirus. Broadly speaking, does this merit any mention in articles of institutions or do we consider this to be run-of-the-mill news that we typically don't include in articles? Of course, we'll deal differently with institutions that are uniquely impacted but it's worth seeing if we would like or should have a common beginning point for those discussions. ElKevbo (talk) 01:15, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Classic case of WP:NOTNEWS. No need to mention. Sdkb (talk) 01:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm with Sdkb on this – unless it turns out to have long-term implications for the institution then it's not something to mention. Robminchin (talk) 02:01, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree with this being an instance of WP:NOTNEWS. Too many articles will be spammed with news that is not necessarily about the uni itself. GreaterPonce665 (talk) 03:43, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb, Robminchin, and GreaterPonce665: Just a quick note that I think this may be untenable and undesirable given the scale of the crisis and its impact on institutions. I'm seeing a few recent edits to articles that do a good job of succinctly mentioning this as part of the institution's history and I'm not inclined to revert or remove those edits (alrough others are certainly free to make their own decisions). ElKevbo (talk) 19:10, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

@ElKevbo and Robminchin: So, considering this from a WP:RECENTISM standpoint, I know that in 1969, many colleges shut down part way through the spring semester because the Vietnam protests became so intense it was untenable to continue. How much space should we devote to that? My answer would be one sentence in the history section for a FA-length university page. This seems like a comparable impact that ought to be afforded comparable weight. That's my stance in an idealized world in which consensuses made at this WikiProject automatically get applied to all pages under this project's scope. In the actual world, I don't think it's worth fighting a losing battle to keep the mentions that short. I'd say let's only patrol the most egregious WP:WEIGHT issues, and once this has blown over, then go around hacking everything back down to size. Thanks for all your efforts maintaining the pages during this time. Sdkb (talk) 20:38, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. Some institutions have received coverage in national-level media for their responses, which (particularly for institutions that aren't normally mentioned) does indicate that their response is probably noteworthy. There's certainly no need to end up in edit wars now – possibly in the future some of the edits could be trimmed back when we have a better perspective on this (or we might be saying that this really was an epoch-defining event that should be mentioned everywhere). Robminchin (talk) 20:39, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

There certainly will need to be an improvement in balance, possibly by mentioning similar earlier events. For example, UNC's president and his successor both died in the 1918 flu pandemic[16] but this isn't currently mentioned. Robminchin (talk) 21:15, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 29 February 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved. @BrownHairedGirl: Your work with categories is always appreciated! Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 12:27, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher Education → Wikipedia:WikiProject Higher education – Noun. Accepted convention in most WikiProject titles I have come across. Wikipedia titles aren't usually carried out as Big American Commercial Advertisment Notifications. PPEMES (talk) 11:23, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

• Procedural note. While this discussion is underway, the project's title remains unstable. There is no point in renaming all the project's assessment categories while the final name is uncertain, so I have reverted the good faith edits by Timrollpickering to Template:WikiProject Higher Education, in which the category names were correctly updated to "Higher Education".

This is purely an interim measure to avoid multiple renamings, without prejudice to the final outcome. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:26, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

• pinging Tbhotch, who had raised this at CFD. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:28, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:CAP. BD2412 T 19:52, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support and close. This is such a tiny, hopefully non-controversial change that I wish it'd just be carried out directly so we can get to focusing on more important things. Sdkb (talk) 20:20, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support per MOS:CAP. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:51, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
• Note to closer: If this move is carried out, the project's assessment categories will all need to be renamed. There are dozens of them, and the task is a bit complex. If it isn't done systematically, then Special:WantedCategories gets flooded with thousands of pages.
  I did most of the heavy listing for the rename from "WikiProject Universities" to "WikiProject Higher Education", and would be happy to do it again if you ping me. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:58, 14 March 2020 (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.

Disagreement over the inclusion of an image in San Francisco State University

Can someone else please take a look at the recent edit history of San Francisco State University and its Talk page? Two editors - one of whom is me - are disagreeing about whether a specific image should be included in the article. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 04:04, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Neutrality dispute over Imperial College Business School

Hi, there is currently a neutrality dispute over Imperial College Business School (talk) over the neutrality of the content in the article, as well as a few other style points. It would be really helpful if you could join the discussion after checking the page history. Thanks! Shadowssettle_(talk) 09:18, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Filthy tabs and all that

I ran into "Filthy tabs", a redirect to the University of Cambridge. Whilst "Tab" is a not-unheard-of name for Cantabrigians, prepending "filthy" is a clearly ridiculous insult, and there is already a link at Tab for disambiguation.

I am bringing this up here because similar pages exist (Fenland polytechnic, Cowley polytechnic) which may be considered under the same light, although they're arguably justified since they aren't vulgar insults, as per say, and might help someone who runs into the term. If these are find, then should Strand Polytechnic link the UCL–King's Rivalry? How far do we take it the other way, should all insults published be redirected? Also, has anyone noticed similar redirects to other universities?

On a related note, there are many less than helpful redirects, such as Mit ranks, Stanfurd, or (until recently) College of London for UCL. Is there any reason to keep some of these around, I get that Wikipedia is not paper, but Wikipedia is not a search engine, so do these really need to exist? This also goes for some of the capitalisations, are the many redirects of the form University Of Virginia or cambridge university necessary, seeing as the term should always be capitalised correctly, and cambridge university could be referring to any cambridge university uncapitalised. There's no argument based on intra-site searching, the search bar finds all capitalisations, and there's no argument based on "people might use it" as they probably, and if the really should it should be piped anyway, right? Shadowssettle_(talk) 12:13, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Attempt to speedy delete clearly silly redirects, and redirect "weird accusations" to the controversy not the article. Shadowssettle_(talk) 09:09, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Most of those seem like fine candidates for deletion, but uncapitalized Cambridge University seems very reasonable to keep around. I don't participate at RfD much, though. I'd gather up a bunch of redirects and take them there. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 13:46, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Boosterism Standards

To keep this discussion moving forward constructively, I am starting a new thread on the specific discuss boosterism standards. (The last thread is on a broader conversation about boosterism, and so could get off topic from the development of specific standards to use across wikipedia). The idea was raised by several authors that many university pages have some form of boosterism and yet others university pages are not allowed these similar descriptions, so "where is the line drawn?" The question for this thread is do you think boosterism standards are a good idea? And if it is a good idea, to brainstorm ideas here that can be consistently applied across university wiki pages to address boosterism?

Some examples of boosterism to brainstrom solutions for-

1. "XXXX has been ranked by numerous major education publications as among the top ten universities in the world." BRAINSTORM SOLUTION perhaps better to use rankings?
2. The overlisting of great facts about a school - "As of October 2019, Berkeley alumni, faculty members and researchers include 107 Nobel laureates, the third most of any university worldwide, as well as 25 Turing Award winners, and 14 Fields Medalists. They have also won 19 Wolf Prizes, 45 MacArthur Fellowships,[17] 20 Academy Awards, 19 Pulitzer Prizes, and 207 Olympic medals.[18] In 1930, Ernest Lawrence invented the cyclotron at Berkeley, based on which UC Berkeley researchers along with Berkeley Lab have discovered or co-discovered 16 chemical elements – more than any other university.[19][20][21] During the 1940s, Berkeley physicist J. R. Oppenheimer, the "Father of the Atomic Bomb", led the Manhattan project to create the first atomic bomb. In the 1960s, Berkeley was particularly noted for the Free Speech Movement as well as the anti–Vietnam War movement led by its students.[22][23][24]". BRAINSTORM SOLUTION - perhaps better to list what the school actually does?
3. The use of the word prestigous. BRAINSTORM SOLUTION - perhaps it is better to not use the word prestigous to describe university pages, because of the arguments and controversy it draws on wikipedia.
4. Cherry Picking Rankings. BRAINSTORM SOLUTION - It is important to know what is notable and exemplary about the school, but also from a balanced perspective. (how do we have a consistent way to address cherry picking?)
5. The use of synthesis statements - "Stanford is known for its academic achievements, wealth, close proximity to Silicon Valley, and selectivity; it ranks as one of the world's top universities." BRAINSTORM SOLUTION - Could all universities cite they are known for their academic achievements? For example could London School of Economics say they are known for their academic achievements, history, selectivity, and wealth too? This would be fair, or should these types of statements be removed from wikipedia.

These were just possible things to discuss to create a standard. Where is boosterism the norm in yours, and can you brainstorm any ideas that can be consistently applied across university wiki pages to address boosterism? Mikecurry1 (talk) 23:37, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

On point 5 doesn't this just means everyone gets a pony and the pony becomes worthless so we shouldn't have the ponies? Shadowssettle_(talk) 23:47, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

On point 5, interesting point, i am leaving it open for discussion for any brainstorming ideas everyone has to specifically address boosterism consistently across university pages. As well as eggregious examples they see and would like to specifically address. I am not attached to any brainstorm solution proposed above, so please propose your own brainstormed ideas too for us all to be able to gain consensus on.Mikecurry1 (talk)

How does this work without eschewing summary language (#1 and #5), placing arbitrary limits on what can be mentioned (#2), possibly playing whack-a-mole with language (#3; if not "prestigious", then it could become "noteworthy", "notable", "esteemed", etc., or any word not explicitly banned by WP:PEACOCK and supported by sources), or making arbitrary distinctions (#4; who decides what rankings are best and what they actually measure?)? Dhtwiki (talk) 04:10, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not ready. I don't think we're quite ready for this conversation yet. We need to first figure out what is or is not acceptable language for university articles to use, then we can talk about what needs to change with the articles that aren't acceptable to bring them up to some defined standard. You include a cursory nod above to the fact that there's still uncertainty about where the line is, but then go on to list a bunch of examples that you think need fixing and ask us how to fix them. I wouldn't agree that all of them violate WP:SUBJECTIVE in a way that needs fixing (Stanford's line, for instance, looks fine to me). The discussion above has been progressing alright (although I wish, as I often do, that editors were more concise, more civil, better at indenting, and more willing to read each other's comments/engage with each other's arguments), and I don't think we should curtail it by starting another one before it's run its course. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:27, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@dhtwiki. I agree, those are all good points, particularly the use of peacock and summary sentences. I was listing specific examples to make it more concrete and constructive - while I was not advocating any of these are boosterism per say, it was more how we can facilitate conversation by listing specific places we think boosterism can be applied more consistently across wiki pages.

@sdkb. I completely agree 100 percent. The other thread should run and progress to discuss boosterism. I was not trying to propose that Stanford used boosterism in that sentence, instead I was trying to facilitate conversation about where is the grey line that can be more consistent across articles. A question is what are the specific and concrete examples where we think boosterism is now the norm, and leave this as a side textbox where we can list our ideas to brainstorm solutions? Mikecurry1 (talk) 18:33, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'm opposed to formally allowing any form of boosterism. If it exists but is wrong, then we can point to WP:Other stuff exists in discussions, but once it is allowed somewhere it becomes an argument about where a line should be drawn on everyone page, which will be unmanageable. Robminchin (talk) 05:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
• On rankings, my preferred solution would be to have all of the rankings in the relevant rankings infobox given and no others (certainly not in the lead, possibly some in the rankings section). Specialised versions of rankings could potentially be allowed for specialist institutions (e.g. University of Law could have its rankings for law rather than the overall ranking, but still drawn from the same sets of rankings). That centralises discussion as to which rankings to include at the national level rather than leaving out to individual institutions, thus avoiding cherry-picking while not unleashing a flood of minor rankings. Robminchin (talk) 05:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a quick note to emphasize that and push back against the idea that any mention of a positive or favorable reputation (rankings, comparisons, scholarly or professional judgments, etc.) is "boosterism." We need to distinguish between (a) responsible summaries or inclusion of high quality, reliable sources, (b) Wikipedia editors naively including or aggregating low quality sources, and (c) Wikipedia editors including low quality sources to promote an institution. Only the third can properly be called boosterism; the other two are legitimate areas of discussion and editorial discretion. ElKevbo (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Good ideas and points Robminchin and Elkevbo. It does make sense for the infobox to be the primary source of rankings on wiki university pages to reduce cherry picking and the flood of rankings. This would allow for more consistency across articles. As El Kevbo noted, it also makes sense to allow a modest amount of room for other notable and positive rankings about a school. For example, Howard University may have notable diversity rankings, or in terms of stanford entrepreneurship rankings would make sense, or in terms of London School of Economics high income rankings that are particularly notable about a school, without considering any positive ranking as boosterism. Also to keep in mind what elkevbo ideas on distinguishing the sources of these additional rankings. Perhaps wikipedia can be more like an encyclopedia than summary of rankings lists, so the infobox would be the primary place for rankings rather than leaving the majority of the rankings section to individual institutions. That would have more consistency for sure. Perhaps one way to implement this would be to reduce the size of ranking sections. Good ideas. Mikecurry1 (talk) 18:33, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't quite follow what you're saying; can you please rephrase it?

Personally, I'm all in favor of removing rankings from lede sections altogether and relegating them to the "Academics" or "Rankings" section or subsection except in unique circumstances (I've been doing that for a few years now, mostly with success). Keeping those sections up-to-date, reducing the amount of cherry-picking that occurs in them, and removing bullshit "rankings" (there are a huge number of predatory websites that masquerade as ranking systems) is an endless task but articles are a bit better if we keep this mess quarantined to one specific section and out of the lede. ElKevbo (talk) 19:50, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know which ones are "predetory", although I would be interested in standardising the rankings to avoid cherry picking and advantageous ones.

In terms of relegation out of the lead, I am indifferent, although it would do well to avoid cherry picking, so I can see it's merits (i.e. weak support) Shadowssettle_(talk) 20:26, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if much has been written about the many predatory ranking systems that proliferate online; many of them are really obvious once you know what to look for (partly because the owners are pretty lazy so they often reuse large portions of their code across their many websites). But we should limit ourselves to ranking systems that have been extensively cited by scholars and professional journalists or at least have the imprimatur of highly regarded organizations with relevant expertise i.e., just because it exists on a website or has been included in an institution's press releases doesn't mean we should include it. ElKevbo (talk) 23:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

ElKevbo I liked your and Robminchin ideas, so I was trying to synthesize them into something that there could be a consensus on through a middle of the road approach. The rankings infobox could be the primary source of rankings information (to reduce cherry picking). We do not need to have wikipedia be a place for university ranking lists. Then the rankings sections would reduce the number of rankings displayed. As every school has notable things about it - such as Howard University scores strongly in diversity, or Stanford in entreprenuership, we would not need to consider any mention of a positive rankings as boosterism. We could use the three distinguishing charachteristics (a), (b), (c) you listed to determine what to remove from the "rankings" section. One key difference between this proposed ranking section and the current ranking sections, is that it would be smaller in size, where "some" rankings would be displayed, but not as many. We could gain a consensus on the three principles described to reduce the number of other rankings displayed in the "rankings section." Then the infobox becomes a more primary source of standardized rankings. Mikecurry1 (talk) 21:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Got it; thanks for the clarification! I could get on board with this.

One small caveat: I'm not convinced that every institution has "notable things about it" in terms of formal rankings and similar data. There are many very reputable institutions in the U.S., particularly the regional public institutions that usually don't attract any press or adequate state funding but provide admirably adequate educations for hundreds of thousands of students. More specifically, even many of the notable ranking systems have created many categories and divisions that ensure that nearly every institution can boast of stellar performance in some obscure category or geographic niche. So in an ideal world we could have a discussion of this but I think we should first focus on the lede before trying to make specific recommendations for the rankings section. ElKevbo (talk) 23:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking in terms of the lead, mostly. I don't know if this should have no rankings at all (this would be a major change to the current situation), but as a clarification of the current guidelines so that "Rankings should … represent a comprehensive cross-section of major rankings by national and international publications" means the lead should only mention rankings in the relevant infobox (which can vary between countries) to meet "major rankings" and should mention all of those rankings to meet "comprehensive cross-section" (e.g. no leaving out ARWU because it ranks the institution much lower than THE & QS). There could be an exception for specialist institutions to have different rankings in the lead, but this would be a general guideline for most institutions. To me, saying something like Howard is known for its diversity or that LSE is notable for the high income of its graduates is a different question from academic rankings and are fine in the lead (with the usual caveats about neutral wording, etc.) Robminchin (talk) 23:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Relevant discussion on Wikipedia:Files for discussion

A discussion relevant to this project is currently taking place on Wikipedia:Files for discussion (discussion) on the use of multiple logos in Template:Infobox university and per infobox notes, that infobox parameter is "Use for an athletics logo, corporate emblem, or similar graphic." The issue was previously put to bed a few years back at this WikiProject and up to WP:VILLAGEPUMP. The university infobox multiple logos is useful for contextual significance since universities often use logos like that as 1A and 1B to define their brand. Many universities have multiple primary logos and often intertwined with athletics uses, including prominent GA+ articled university such as University of Michigan, University of Miami, and Texas Tech University. This is also true of not just large historical universities but also many smaller colleges/universities with smaller budgets that often have dual-use primary logos for university branding and athletics, especially in North America where college athletics is a major branding tool of universities. As examples Here show, the university uses this logo significantly in conjunction with their other primary wordmark logo as primary university identification, including on major announcements such as COVID19 campus updates. Bhockey10 (talk) 18:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Boosterism Standards

To keep this discussion moving forward constructively, I am starting a new thread on the specific discuss boosterism standards. (The last thread is on a broader conversation about boosterism, and so could get off topic from the development of specific standards to use across wikipedia). The idea was raised by several authors that many university pages have some form of boosterism and yet others university pages are not allowed these similar descriptions, so "where is the line drawn?" The question for this thread is do you think boosterism standards are a good idea? And if it is a good idea, to brainstorm ideas here that can be consistently applied across university wiki pages to address boosterism?

Some examples of boosterism to brainstrom solutions for-

1. "XXXX has been ranked by numerous major education publications as among the top ten universities in the world." BRAINSTORM SOLUTION perhaps better to use rankings?
2. The overlisting of great facts about a school - "As of October 2019, Berkeley alumni, faculty members and researchers include 107 Nobel laureates, the third most of any university worldwide, as well as 25 Turing Award winners, and 14 Fields Medalists. They have also won 19 Wolf Prizes, 45 MacArthur Fellowships,[17] 20 Academy Awards, 19 Pulitzer Prizes, and 207 Olympic medals.[18] In 1930, Ernest Lawrence invented the cyclotron at Berkeley, based on which UC Berkeley researchers along with Berkeley Lab have discovered or co-discovered 16 chemical elements – more than any other university.[19][20][21] During the 1940s, Berkeley physicist J. R. Oppenheimer, the "Father of the Atomic Bomb", led the Manhattan project to create the first atomic bomb. In the 1960s, Berkeley was particularly noted for the Free Speech Movement as well as the anti–Vietnam War movement led by its students.[22][23][24]". BRAINSTORM SOLUTION - perhaps better to list what the school actually does?
3. The use of the word prestigous. BRAINSTORM SOLUTION - perhaps it is better to not use the word prestigous to describe university pages, because of the arguments and controversy it draws on wikipedia.
4. Cherry Picking Rankings. BRAINSTORM SOLUTION - It is important to know what is notable and exemplary about the school, but also from a balanced perspective. (how do we have a consistent way to address cherry picking?)
5. The use of synthesis statements - "Stanford is known for its academic achievements, wealth, close proximity to Silicon Valley, and selectivity; it ranks as one of the world's top universities." BRAINSTORM SOLUTION - Could all universities cite they are known for their academic achievements? For example could London School of Economics say they are known for their academic achievements, history, selectivity, and wealth too? This would be fair, or should these types of statements be removed from wikipedia.

These were just possible things to discuss to create a standard. Where is boosterism the norm in yours, and can you brainstorm any ideas that can be consistently applied across university wiki pages to address boosterism? Mikecurry1 (talk) 23:37, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

On point 5 doesn't this just means everyone gets a pony and the pony becomes worthless so we shouldn't have the ponies? Shadowssettle_(talk) 23:47, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

On point 5, interesting point, i am leaving it open for discussion for any brainstorming ideas everyone has to specifically address boosterism consistently across university pages. As well as eggregious examples they see and would like to specifically address. I am not attached to any brainstorm solution proposed above, so please propose your own brainstormed ideas too for us all to be able to gain consensus on.Mikecurry1 (talk)

How does this work without eschewing summary language (#1 and #5), placing arbitrary limits on what can be mentioned (#2), possibly playing whack-a-mole with language (#3; if not "prestigious", then it could become "noteworthy", "notable", "esteemed", etc., or any word not explicitly banned by WP:PEACOCK and supported by sources), or making arbitrary distinctions (#4; who decides what rankings are best and what they actually measure?)? Dhtwiki (talk) 04:10, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• Not ready. I don't think we're quite ready for this conversation yet. We need to first figure out what is or is not acceptable language for university articles to use, then we can talk about what needs to change with the articles that aren't acceptable to bring them up to some defined standard. You include a cursory nod above to the fact that there's still uncertainty about where the line is, but then go on to list a bunch of examples that you think need fixing and ask us how to fix them. I wouldn't agree that all of them violate WP:SUBJECTIVE in a way that needs fixing (Stanford's line, for instance, looks fine to me). The discussion above has been progressing alright (although I wish, as I often do, that editors were more concise, more civil, better at indenting, and more willing to read each other's comments/engage with each other's arguments), and I don't think we should curtail it by starting another one before it's run its course. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:27, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@dhtwiki. I agree, those are all good points, particularly the use of peacock and summary sentences. I was listing specific examples to make it more concrete and constructive - while I was not advocating any of these are boosterism per say, it was more how we can facilitate conversation by listing specific places we think boosterism can be applied more consistently across wiki pages.

@sdkb. I completely agree 100 percent. The other thread should run and progress to discuss boosterism. I was not trying to propose that Stanford used boosterism in that sentence, instead I was trying to facilitate conversation about where is the grey line that can be more consistent across articles. A question is what are the specific and concrete examples where we think boosterism is now the norm, and leave this as a side textbox where we can list our ideas to brainstorm solutions? Mikecurry1 (talk) 18:33, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

• I'm opposed to formally allowing any form of boosterism. If it exists but is wrong, then we can point to WP:Other stuff exists in discussions, but once it is allowed somewhere it becomes an argument about where a line should be drawn on everyone page, which will be unmanageable. Robminchin (talk) 05:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
• On rankings, my preferred solution would be to have all of the rankings in the relevant rankings infobox given and no others (certainly not in the lead, possibly some in the rankings section). Specialised versions of rankings could potentially be allowed for specialist institutions (e.g. University of Law could have its rankings for law rather than the overall ranking, but still drawn from the same sets of rankings). That centralises discussion as to which rankings to include at the national level rather than leaving out to individual institutions, thus avoiding cherry-picking while not unleashing a flood of minor rankings. Robminchin (talk) 05:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a quick note to emphasize that and push back against the idea that any mention of a positive or favorable reputation (rankings, comparisons, scholarly or professional judgments, etc.) is "boosterism." We need to distinguish between (a) responsible summaries or inclusion of high quality, reliable sources, (b) Wikipedia editors naively including or aggregating low quality sources, and (c) Wikipedia editors including low quality sources to promote an institution. Only the third can properly be called boosterism; the other two are legitimate areas of discussion and editorial discretion. ElKevbo (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Good ideas and points Robminchin and Elkevbo. It does make sense for the infobox to be the primary source of rankings on wiki university pages to reduce cherry picking and the flood of rankings. This would allow for more consistency across articles. As El Kevbo noted, it also makes sense to allow a modest amount of room for other notable and positive rankings about a school. For example, Howard University may have notable diversity rankings, or in terms of stanford entrepreneurship rankings would make sense, or in terms of London School of Economics high income rankings that are particularly notable about a school, without considering any positive ranking as boosterism. Also to keep in mind what elkevbo ideas on distinguishing the sources of these additional rankings. Perhaps wikipedia can be more like an encyclopedia than summary of rankings lists, so the infobox would be the primary place for rankings rather than leaving the majority of the rankings section to individual institutions. That would have more consistency for sure. Perhaps one way to implement this would be to reduce the size of ranking sections. Good ideas. Mikecurry1 (talk) 18:33, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't quite follow what you're saying; can you please rephrase it?

Personally, I'm all in favor of removing rankings from lede sections altogether and relegating them to the "Academics" or "Rankings" section or subsection except in unique circumstances (I've been doing that for a few years now, mostly with success). Keeping those sections up-to-date, reducing the amount of cherry-picking that occurs in them, and removing bullshit "rankings" (there are a huge number of predatory websites that masquerade as ranking systems) is an endless task but articles are a bit better if we keep this mess quarantined to one specific section and out of the lede. ElKevbo (talk) 19:50, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know which ones are "predetory", although I would be interested in standardising the rankings to avoid cherry picking and advantageous ones.

In terms of relegation out of the lead, I am indifferent, although it would do well to avoid cherry picking, so I can see it's merits (i.e. weak support) Shadowssettle_(talk) 20:26, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if much has been written about the many predatory ranking systems that proliferate online; many of them are really obvious once you know what to look for (partly because the owners are pretty lazy so they often reuse large portions of their code across their many websites). But we should limit ourselves to ranking systems that have been extensively cited by scholars and professional journalists or at least have the imprimatur of highly regarded organizations with relevant expertise i.e., just because it exists on a website or has been included in an institution's press releases doesn't mean we should include it. ElKevbo (talk) 23:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

ElKevbo I liked your and Robminchin ideas, so I was trying to synthesize them into something that there could be a consensus on through a middle of the road approach. The rankings infobox could be the primary source of rankings information (to reduce cherry picking). We do not need to have wikipedia be a place for university ranking lists. Then the rankings sections would reduce the number of rankings displayed. As every school has notable things about it - such as Howard University scores strongly in diversity, or Stanford in entreprenuership, we would not need to consider any mention of a positive rankings as boosterism. We could use the three distinguishing charachteristics (a), (b), (c) you listed to determine what to remove from the "rankings" section. One key difference between this proposed ranking section and the current ranking sections, is that it would be smaller in size, where "some" rankings would be displayed, but not as many. We could gain a consensus on the three principles described to reduce the number of other rankings displayed in the "rankings section." Then the infobox becomes a more primary source of standardized rankings. Mikecurry1 (talk) 21:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Got it; thanks for the clarification! I could get on board with this.

One small caveat: I'm not convinced that every institution has "notable things about it" in terms of formal rankings and similar data. There are many very reputable institutions in the U.S., particularly the regional public institutions that usually don't attract any press or adequate state funding but provide admirably adequate educations for hundreds of thousands of students. More specifically, even many of the notable ranking systems have created many categories and divisions that ensure that nearly every institution can boast of stellar performance in some obscure category or geographic niche. So in an ideal world we could have a discussion of this but I think we should first focus on the lede before trying to make specific recommendations for the rankings section. ElKevbo (talk) 23:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking in terms of the lead, mostly. I don't know if this should have no rankings at all (this would be a major change to the current situation), but as a clarification of the current guidelines so that "Rankings should … represent a comprehensive cross-section of major rankings by national and international publications" means the lead should only mention rankings in the relevant infobox (which can vary between countries) to meet "major rankings" and should mention all of those rankings to meet "comprehensive cross-section" (e.g. no leaving out ARWU because it ranks the institution much lower than THE & QS). There could be an exception for specialist institutions to have different rankings in the lead, but this would be a general guideline for most institutions. To me, saying something like Howard is known for its diversity or that LSE is notable for the high income of its graduates is a different question from academic rankings and are fine in the lead (with the usual caveats about neutral wording, etc.) Robminchin (talk) 23:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Relevant discussion on Wikipedia:Files for discussion

A discussion relevant to this project is currently taking place on Wikipedia:Files for discussion (discussion) on the use of multiple logos in Template:Infobox university and per infobox notes, that infobox parameter is "Use for an athletics logo, corporate emblem, or similar graphic." The issue was previously put to bed a few years back at this WikiProject and up to WP:VILLAGEPUMP. The university infobox multiple logos is useful for contextual significance since universities often use logos like that as 1A and 1B to define their brand. Many universities have multiple primary logos and often intertwined with athletics uses, including prominent GA+ articled university such as University of Michigan, University of Miami, and Texas Tech University. This is also true of not just large historical universities but also many smaller colleges/universities with smaller budgets that often have dual-use primary logos for university branding and athletics, especially in North America where college athletics is a major branding tool of universities. As examples Here show, the university uses this logo significantly in conjunction with their other primary wordmark logo as primary university identification, including on major announcements such as COVID19 campus updates. Bhockey10 (talk) 18:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Relevant discussion on Wikipedia:Files for discussion

A discussion relevant to this project is currently taking place on Wikipedia:Files for discussion (discussion) on the use of multiple logos in Template:Infobox university and per infobox notes, that infobox parameter is "Use for an athletics logo, corporate emblem, or similar graphic." The issue was previously put to bed a few years back at this WikiProject and up to WP:VILLAGEPUMP. The university infobox multiple logos is useful for contextual significance since universities often use logos like that as 1A and 1B to define their brand. Many universities have multiple primary logos and often intertwined with athletics uses, including prominent GA+ articled university such as University of Michigan, University of Miami, and Texas Tech University. This is also true of not just large historical universities but also many smaller colleges/universities with smaller budgets that often have dual-use primary logos for university branding and athletics, especially in North America where college athletics is a major branding tool of universities. As examples Here show, the university uses this logo significantly in conjunction with their other primary wordmark logo as primary university identification, including on major announcements such as COVID19 campus updates. Bhockey10 (talk) 18:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Content dispute at University of the People

Two editors are having a content dispute at University of the People; please join the discussion! ElKevbo (talk) 02:05, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Looking for help on improving Draft: Seattle University Albers School of Business and Economics

This draft has been declined for lack of sources/coverage, which I'm having trouble understanding as the sources seem to be pretty substantial. Any advice on how to improve this article would be greatly appreciated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Seattle_University_Albers_School_of_Business_and_Economics EastIrving (talk) 22:47, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

@EastIrving:, the subject needs to meet WP:GNG, i.e. have "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". I would suggest that you look at the references and try to find three or four reliable, independent sources that cover the subject in depth. If you can't, that suggests the subject is not notable. If you can, then ask the reviewer Sulfurboy if they could explain which of the references contribute to meeting WP:GNG. TSventon (talk) 11:18, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Disagreement about material added to the lede of Elmira College

Two editors disagree about material recently added to the lede of Elmira College. Additional opinions and input are welcome; there is already a discussion open in the article's Talk page. ElKevbo (talk) 18:51, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

help! seeking women Wikipedians to interview for research project

Hello! I’m a graduate student researcher undertaking a study on how women learn to participate in Wikipedia and factors that enable them to persist as contributors. I’m currently seeking individuals who self-identify as women and actively participate in Wikipedia authorship (~10 or more edits each month for the past year or more). I'm asking participants to sit down for an hour-long Zoom, Skype, or phone interview (audio recording is required, video optional).

If you fit the above criteria and are interested, please message me or email me from my page for more information. Thank you and hope to hear from you! Feel-flourish (talk) 21:17, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Touro_University_Worldwide

I am asking for input on how to make this draft better so it can turn into a page. ElKevbo mentioned to ask the question here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Touro_University_Worldwide ---- — Preceding unsigned comment added by GTFletch (talk • contribs) 12:37, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Norm for styles and titles in infobox

Is there an MOS regarding the styles/titles, prefixes and suffixes added along with the names in infobox? For example, in San Beda University infobox states chairman “Manuel Vélez Pangilinan, MBA, D.H.L. (Hons. Causa)”. As well as in University of Santo Tomas’ chancellor which indicates “Very Rev. Fr. Gerard Francisco P. Timoner, III, O.P., SThL”. – McVahl (talk) 18:57, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

MOS:DOC appears to be the relevant part of the Manual of Style. In my experience, many editors interpret that policy as "never use post-nominal letters and remove them when someone else has added them" but I think that is not in alignment with what the policy actually says. More specifically, the policy explicitly says that "[p]ost-nominal letters for academic degrees following the subject's name (such as Steve Jones, PhD; Margaret Doe, JD) may occasionally be used within an article where the person with the degree is not the subject, to clarify that person's qualifications with regard to some part of the article" and I think that happens frequently in articles about colleges and universities especially when we're writing about people in their capacity as administrators and not faculty i.e., it seems to be very relevant to note that the president of a university has a PhD as that is often a significant part of their qualifications to hold that position that is not directly related to their academic discipline. Personally, I tend to not do anything about this one way or another; I have other priorities and choose to spend my (volunteer) time on other things in these articles. ElKevbo (talk) 20:48, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the exception about giving an academic degree to clarify someone's qualifications in the text of an article is intended to refer to the infobox (a PhD isn't in any sense a training to run a university anyway) but for when that person is being cited as an authority in the text of an article (e.g. "Joe Bloggs, PhD, said that the new discovery was ground-breaking"). Honorary degrees (as in the first example) are clearly way beyond what should be given. For post-nominals generally, the following WP:POSTNOM section says "Post-nominals should not be added except to a biography subject's own lead sentence, in an infobox parameter for post-nominals, when the post-nominals themselves are under discussion in the material, and in other special circumstances such as a list of recipients of an award or other honor" while the [[WP:HON] section says "In general, honorific prefixes—styles and honorifics in front of a name—in Wikipedia's own voice should not be included, but may be discussed in the article". Overall, the MOS seems fairly clear that the name should be given without adornment unless there is some special circumstance that makes giving this particularly relevant. Robminchin (talk) 23:16, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Doctorates, etc, from unaccredited colleges

How should biographies describe academic qualifications (?) from unaccredited schools? Feel free to join the discussion (and of course to roundly disagree with me) here within WP:BLPN. -- Hoary (talk) 01:39, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Trust me, folks, that link is worth clicking on. EEng 19:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)