Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education

University ratings

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Looking through a good number of UK university articles it sometimes seems as though the ratings cited are far more those that show the institution at its best rather than a common standard for comparison with similar universities locally and nationally. Plus the ratings aren't even year consistent, with many seemingly only citing the highest place in a particular listing in the last few years, making comparisons harder. (Also some of the information about ratings is appearing not in a dedicated section but elsewhere, sometimes even in the introduction to the article, as though making a pre-emptive defence.)

Is there any way that a standard set can be worked out as to which listings should and shouldn't be included? Obviously most of this would need to be country specific (although are there many international ratings?) and even then there are always going to be institutions that don't appear or aren't really relevant to them (for instance a lot of UK newspapers rankings are based on full-time undergraduates so Birkbeck, University of London is often left out) but something firm would make the information far more balanced and easier to compare within countries at least. Timrollpickering 03:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

That is a good point. My experience is UK-only, but it would seem sensible to include the Times GUG and Guardian listings for these where they exist, and they are currently the principal ones mentioned at League tables of British universities, and, from experience, the ones the universities pay most attention to. I suppose the question is whether to include the whole variety of other ones too, and the "regional" (Scotland, England, etc) ones. Is it also worth including RAE/QAA specifications? Then there's the issue of the various rankings for the specific departments within the University - I think this might be going to far, unless the department has its own specific wikipedia article, but within a university which comes fairly low in many rankings, it can still have world-class departments.

From the point of view of what these rankings actually say, they do notoriously add weight to particular features of a university, which may or may not be relevant in each case. However, in terms of NPOV, it would seem best to present the information as is and let the reader decide. Completeness is most likely the best policy. In the cases like Birkbeck, the explanation on the page why it doesn't often appear I think is perfectly sufficient. But if we do that for some universities, the thought then arises that perhaps we should "explain" the rankings of other universities - why they're 2nd in this one, but only 27th in that one, etc, which begins to sound like a fairly major task.

On the international scale, I think there are fewer of these: in the UK, the THES listing is the one I know most about, but then there's the Shanghai Jia Tong listing too. Lies, damn lies... Rlfb 15:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm almost wondering if a specific infobox for UK university ratings would be useful. It could include fields for THES, Sunday Times, Guardian, Shanghai Jia Tong, RAE and so forth. The main advantage would be to focus the statistics to make for clear comparisons between institutions. (For those that don't appear we can include explanations like "not included", "not placed", "declined to participate" as appropriate with a note in the article as to why - e.g. Birkbeck.) Thoughts? Timrollpickering 21:29, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Why not expand League tables of British universities with a section discussing each of the major league tables, creating a central place where the merits of and problems with each are dealt with. Then articles which make a claim based on whatever league table makes them look best can be linked to the relevent section on that page, which discusses the relative merits of the methodology used by the Times, THES, Guardian or whatever. If you can find a consensus for which league tables are 'good'/'recognised', then articles with information from 'bad' league tables can be edited and the bad information replaced with good. Adding an infobox to every single article seems like an awful lot more work than just creating a big table from the List with a column for each league table ranking. — mholland 23:19, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

My immediate thought on the matter was also an infobox. That would allow the reader to be presented with the facts and allow them to draw their own conclusions, rather than any attempt to interpret them which might be original research. Would there be a copyvio risk in effectively republishing the entire lists on Wikipedia (albeit with only one record per article), given that some are published commercially, eg. the annual Times GUG book? DWaterson 23:22, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

There is already a defunct infobox available (seems to be part of an aborted project to standardise this sort of information). {{Infobox World university rankings}} is pretty much what's being suggested here. There's also a sort of guideline (WP:PRESTIGE) from User:Rbellin which, if applied, would weed out the weasel words in articles which do not include ranking stats in a transparent fashion. — mholland 23:46, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Centralised statistics on a page like League tables of British universities is all fine and well and is definitely worth doing, but I suspect people are still going to try and add snippets of such information to pages about specific universities. When people want to do this, an infobox would seem to be the best approach, linked suitably to the central league table page - can we resurrect the aborted project? I am slightly concerned about copyright - would need to check this, as some information is only available by subscription (eg THES). Rlfb 00:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Most league tables are compiled from publicly available statistics (in the UK, mostly from HESA) - the dead tree editions of university guides are only copyrighted and paid-for because of the accompanying analysis. — mholland 00:22, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

There's a table at Imperial College London#Academic reputation that might be a starting model. For the UK I think it may useful to include the National Student Survey as an alternative take on how universities are measured. I agree that all league tables should be treated with some scepticism (you're asking some of the cleverist people in the country who've spent years if not decades training people to pass tests to erm pass a test...) but it seems virtually impossible to keep them off the articles (especially as they are the nearest to a formal source for many places' reputation) and a structured format would make it much easier for people reading different articles to be able to compare. Timrollpickering 15:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The table at Imperial is a case in point. Consistently ranked in the top three universities is weasel, and the tables chosen are selected to endorse that opinion. The Guardian currently ranks Imperial fifth; in 2003 it ranked Imperial seventh; but the chosen statistic is 2005, when they were placed third by the Guardian. — mholland 16:15, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I am following the link from Talk:University of Manchester about the wider debate. I don't think we are seriously going to list every ranking for every university and update them every year. Indeed that would be pointless as one could look up the league tables. So at present the articles tend to mention them if they are interesting, like they rose or fell dramatically, or very good in one and bad in another, or was somebody's "university of the year" and why that year. I must also add that like most academics I regard league tables as generally bollocks. Taking arbitrary weighted sums of including things like TQA and A level scores is pretty much irrelevant. It may be notable if it has some effect, such as student applications going up or departments being closed.Billlion 09:27, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

We, as academics, have a habit of regarding league tables generally as bollocks unless it happens to look upon our own department/university favourably, at which point the result gets posted on the front page of our website and in our articles here at wikipedia, which is really stretching NPOV beyond its limits. I don't see a problem with putting the information in every year - there are many wikipedians giving many hours' work to wikipedia, and this, by comparison, is a fairly straightforward task. Either that or we ban all league table quotes on uni web pages as contravening NPOV. Rlfb 17:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• How about simply mentioning the most recent UK rankings? So obviously all university articles will carry their ranking for 2007. Next year the articles are updated with the relevant 2008 ranking and so on. this prevents selectivity. Magic Pickle 15:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Should there really be a common list used? Different lists favour different Universities. Speak to staff at Universities and ask them about league tables and they'll say they're a joke. The league tables are there for a general impression but nothing more. Each page should list the best position it is at in guides and maybe any other pertinent information such as rating in the research world by industries. A standardised method of ranking Universities here on Wikipedia would add fuel to the fire. Spanky Deluxe 12:15, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't put it as strongly as "Different lists favour different Universities". Different methodologies produce different rankings, but no ranking that is calculated to favour a particular institution should be in use on Wikipedia. Such rankings do exist, and are usually limited to prospectuses (next to claims such as "Did you know that Poppleton University is ranked number one for a low drop-out rate among institutions with a department of Classics and an olympic-sized swinning pool on campus?").

You suggest including the best stat. I don't particularly object to this, but others might, on the basis that there's no good reason to pluck a favourable statistic with no objective reason. Indeed, why not let's include the worst statistic – that would be just as fair. What I do think, though, is that we would still need a consensus on which league tables have sufficient integrity to be included. I could find best statistics from some pretty disreputable sources, if I wanted. — mholland 15:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that there need to be limitations in regards to 'best' statistics, I didn't take that into account in my message above. League tables that could be chosen from are, in my opinion, the league tables of leading newspapers, Times, Guardian, Telegraph etc and reputable rankings such as Newseek 'Top 100' or that world rankings list by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Added information such as being ranked by big businesses or research organisations could be added sometimes but would have to be evaluated on a case to case basis. I think some leeway should be given as to which year's league tables are used. One University might be ranked say 20th in 2005 and then 40th in 2006. Since league tables should only be a rough indication, I'd say that league tables referenced in the last 5 years is acceptable. I do think that less importance should be played on league tables as opposed to things like international recognition of specific departments, which would be more suited for sections on those departments in articles. Some Universities do not do so well in league tables, however, they sometimes have one area of research in which they are world reknown.

In a nutshell, 'best' should be the highest rating a University has had in the past 5 years out of the most reknown league tables published. This should always be followed by more specific ratings and details on reputation in notables areas of study and research. Thoughts? Spanky Deluxe 16:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I may have come to this discussion late, but my immediate reaction would be to include the Times and Guardian listings, and only the most recent of each. These are the tables almost exclusively referenced in the media, and generally the ones used by universities themselves (except for RAE etc, which is obviously a different matter) Modest Genius ^talk 21:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

American institutions

Rankings inevitably crop up in these pages, I was wondering if anyone had previously made an effort to standardize these between pages. For example, I just cleaned out a bunch of booster-cruft from the Northwestern University page and replaced it with:

Northwestern University is ranked 14th among national universities by U.S. News and World Report (USNWR), 33rd among world universities and 26th among universities in the Americas by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 42nd among world universities and 20th in North America by The Times Higher Education Supplement, 42nd among national universities by Washington Monthly, 35th among world universities and 23rd among American universities by Newsweek, and in the 6th tier among national universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance.

These sources are commonly cited and are ostensibly objective and neutral and I imagine this section could be easily replicated for other articles. I have also been debating whether or not to include rankings department-, major-, or program-level entities/specialties (ie art history, physical therapy, mechanical engineering) -- while allowing School/College level entities (Law, Medicine, Business, Engineering, etc) -- as these inevitably attract booster-cruft as editors add programs that are ranked highly but omit including other programs that are ranked less highly. The counterargument, of course, is that schools do excel in certain areas and to omit these in the rankings does do a disservice to the readers. I look forward to your comments. Madcoverboy 17:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I've cleaned up several articles and had similar thoughts. On the one hand, as a higher ed researcher I hate to give these stupid rankings the weight of authority and objectivity since we know there are so many problems with them. On the other hand, I recognize that it's a futile struggle and these rankings will be inserted into university articles anyway so we might as well do what we can to keep them accurate, NPOV, well-cited, etc.

I've two concrete thoughts:

1. Limit this conversation to American colleges and universities for now. Adding in the various complexities and differences between different countries will make this conversation much more unwieldy than desirable at this time. Additionally, many (most?) rankings focus on only one country so that helps make this decision a bit easier.

2. How about a US College and University Rankings template (similar to Template:Infobox World university rankings)? The idea would not to be to limit articles to only using particular rankings but to more easily allow for a standardized presentation of the most commonly cited rankings. It would also allow us to have consistent links to the source material and relevant Wikipedia links (including criticism and limitations of rankings).

Thoughts? Given some initial support, I'd be happy to dive in and do some preliminary work on creating such a template. --ElKevbo 18:24, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I have made such a template at Template:Infobox US university ranking. It is a rip off of the Template:Infobox Scientist and Template:Infobox University which I thought were both appropriate and well-implemented precursors. One noticeable change is that a citation will automatically accompany any filled in field, which should prevent much hand-wringing as it is implemented across articles. Please go vet it and give it a test spin. Issues that need to be resolved include: appropriate scope or exclusion of other rankings, size, usability, policies/rules governing where to put such an infobox and how much of the info to include, aesthetics on articles once implemented. Madcoverboy 21:14, 17 April 2007 (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.

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools) reformed

I've reformed Wikipedia:Naming conventions (schools). It's a slightly different proposal based on more recent discussions at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools. Miss Mondegreen talk  14:52, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Seals, shields, emblems

The common practice of using seals as the primary identity mark in university articles bothers me. Seals are frequently reserved for special uses like officially stamping transcripts and diplomas, not for mass consumption. Most universities have developed separate logos for identity purposes. Logos are usually simple, memorable, and incorporate the school's colors; seals often do not and thus lack power as an identity mark. There are exceptions, but for the most part I think we should start replacing seals with school logos at the top of articles. In many cases it may be difficult to justify including the seal at all due to copyright, trademark, or policy issues. Punctured Bicycle 07:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The logos will also have the exact same copyright problems attached to them. Additionally, many of the logos will often be more symbolic of the school's sports teams than of the school as a whole. Exceptions, such as the semi-official Fiat Slug logo used at the head of the UC Santa Cruz infobox, do exist, but none are really as powerful a symbol of the school as a whole as its seal, the de facto coat of arms. You'll note that the UC seal does appear in UCSC's infobox as well, but as part of the footer image. UC Berkeley and UCLA's do somewhat the same thing, but in the opposite order, with the seal at the top and the semi-official logo at the bottom.

A lot of the articles I've looked at lately incorporate both the seals and the less-formal logos into the infobox in some way. It's great to have both, but I think a serious encyclopedia article, if it is to include any symbols of the school at all, should make sure to at least include the "serious" symbol. --Dynaflow babble 07:43, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Separate "College" and "University" categories?

Should I create separate "College" and "University" categories or should I just group colleges in with the universities? Also, is there a formal way of determining if a specific place is a college or a university? --Abnn 12:42, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Current consensus is for universities and colleges to be grouped together for categorisation purposes (see, e.g., this discussion). There isn't a universal test to determine whether an institution is a college or a university. For the general pattern, see Category:Universities and colleges by country. — mholland (talk) 13:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick answer, it helps me figure out the best way to go about things. --Abnn 17:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I do think it might be useful to have some way of distinguishing between universities and their constituent schools, e.g., between the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School. Perhaps someone with more skill than I could create a navbox or something for that? Esrever 02:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about something like {{University of California, Santa Cruz}}, with the "mother article" as the headline and then the constituent colleges under a subheading, or have I totally misread what you're looking to do? If that's what you're looking for, I can whip you up a navbox in either that style or in the style of {{California State University}} in about ten or fifteen minutes ... less if you already have the would-be constituent articles already lined up someplace. --Dynaflow babble 02:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

On second look, there are enough articles that the navbox would end up looking more like either {{University of California, Berkeley}} or {{San Diego State University}} in terms of dimensions and the number of subheadings. --Dynaflow babble 02:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

D'oh, that should've said infobox. I was thinking of something to use for the individual schools of a university, like the UPenn and Wharton example, or Vanderbilt University and its College of Arts and Science. I don't know what fields one might add to distinguish the two; perhaps {{Infobox University}} is already sufficient in the way that I've sort of bastardized it at the CAS page. Esrever 02:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Heh, I've already started on a navbox for Penn because it seems to need one. I think what you're doing with that infobox is sufficient, except that you may want to ask at Template talk:Infobox University if the template's maintainers can program in a line for "Sponsoring institution" or something like that, or you can program it in yourself if you think you can do it without making the template explode or melt. Come to think of it, Carnegie Mellon West seems to be in need of something like that too. Hmm... --Dynaflow babble 03:02, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

College of...

Here is an articles about colleges of education that needs to find an appropriate category. Is there anything to the effect of "colleges within the university"? Thanks in advance for assistance. - Freechild 17:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The article is already in Category:School types. You could move it to Category:Types of universities and colleges if you feel it would sit better there. If you're looking for something like Category:Academic divisions of a university, you won't find it. To be honest, I'm not sure that School of Education has much potential outside of "A School of Education is a division of a university that teaches Education." It' a bit like "A School of Physics is a division of a university that teaches physics". We're better off having an article on the discipline, Education, and separate articles/sections on individual schools of education etc. — mholland (talk) 17:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Polytechnic, Vocational education, Institute of technology

These currently commonly under Schools or Universities and the template does not fit either exactly. On the other hand there are some that have the Polytechnic in the name but that fit the University category eg Rensselaer_Polytechnic_Institute . A modified Infobox for these or perhaps more than one that would cover colleges of education too? Should this be a child project of WikiProject_Universities? Some examples for a small country are here:

Polytechnic#New Zealand, Vocational education#New Zealand, Institute of technology#New Zealand

• Aoraki Polytechnic
• Otago Polytechnic

TransControl 11:57, 20 May 2007

Hi there. Could you point out ways in which {{Infobox University}} is deficient in catering for the above types of institution? Are there specific fields you would like included in a possible new template, which are missing from the current box? — mholland (talk) 02:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

IIT GA/R

I have nominated Illinois Institute of Technology for WP:GA/R due to inadequate referencing. I hope the article gets the attention it deserves during this process to retain its quality rating. Please see discussions at Wikipedia:Good_article_review#Illinois Institute of Technology. TonyTheTiger (talk/cont/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 17:11, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Should the Esalen Institute be considered a college?...

...And how would we define accreditation of an institution that doesn't grant degrees? This conversation needs new blood badly: Talk:List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning#Esalen Institute. The article in question falls under the purview of this project, and a third opinion will be more than welcome. --Dynaflow babble 20:35, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Campus buildings again

Has a guideline been developed for determining the notability of campus buildings, in particular residence halls and dormitories? I fail to see how most dorms would meet notability standards. While some buildings may be of architectural interest, most of the articles within Category:University_and_college_dormitories_in_the_United_States seem to me to be unworthy of standalone articles. At best, some of the information might be merged with the appropriate university article. However, I recognize that this is just my opinion, so I thought that I should bring it to the attention of the relevant WikiProject. Cheers, GentlemanGhost 18:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)\

Greek Organizations

I notice some universities articles list which the Greek organizations are available on campus. Does listing them alone meet WP:N or is there some other guideline to go by? From the Project page it says

Sports, clubs, and traditions -- Mention the sports team(s) of the college/university and what is notable about them. Here is also a good place to mention specific traditions of the college/university, like students' union activities, a student newspaper, fraternities, regular activities, etc.

is just having fraternities make them notable? --Jerm (^Talk/ _Contrib) 18:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Bowling Green State University

If anyone has the time and interest, Bowling Green State University is in desperate need of significant editing, reorganization, cleanup, sourcing, and...well, nearly everything. It's in bad shape. --ElKevbo 08:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Patrick Henry College

I have just completed a review of this article, and am letting you know that I've listed it as being of GA standard. --Fritzpoll 07:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

What is the dang philosophy and or goal here?

I am troubled by the proposed rigidity of the standardization for entries on universities and colleges. One of the most useful and appealing things about the wiki is the the colorful and authentic descriptions that the authors of these entries often capture, not to mention the fun debates, and even the playful momenst of vandalism (just make vandals haev to use their real names) that ensue. Hamstringing these qualities seems to defeat the purpose and it does make the wiki less interesting, these entries more mindnumbingly boring and much less useful. The way the wiki is going in this area to judge from some of the entries that are most mighly rated is to crush out any sense of life or fun to be had in reading these entries--and people really do read them, and often to get a flavor of a place before deciding to invest in a closer look or egads the 150K or so it will cost for the next four years. What users can do BEST is capture that personality in an authentic way.

So I beg of you to loosen up here and make room for life, for fun, for personality--these are the qualities that make the wikpedia more interesting than any other "authortity" on any subject. It's not as if these places don't HAVE personalities, eh? Because if they all end up in the same dull numbling barren authoratativish hoohah, lordy lord please help us. (Wingnut99 15:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)).

Well, I'll take a moment and respond. The dang philosophy or goal here is pretty similar to most other Wikiprojects: improving articles. I doubt anyone here would be restrictive if people have better ideas suited to particular institutions; I've yet to see a Wikiproject that's stubbornly restrictive and I don't think any of the articles have had the life crushed out of them. Color and personality of a campus will always shine through if it really exists. Even so, this is an online encyclopedia and not an admissions pamphlet, so keep that in mind. Thanks for your thoughts! =) --Midnightdreary 16:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Green rankings

The first ranking of UK universities on environmental criteria has been published: http://peopleandplanet.org/gogreen/greenleague2007. Might be worth a mention somewhere. Cordless Larry 10:50, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

University of Pittsburgh

Ummm... The top part of the article looks absolutely horrendous, in regards to the Infobox placement and the outrageously large picture there. I tried to fix it, but the same IP keeps formatting it that way. I don't want an edit war, but it looks terrible. Regards, Cool Blue^{talk to me} 12:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. First, there are far too many images of the Cathedral of Learning - it's a gorgeous building but, really, it looks pretty much the same from all sides. I'd recommend a gallery because there are just so many images. I'm leaving a similar comment on that article's discussion page. --Midnightdreary 13:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning

Please watch List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning and other related articles. This particular article has grown out of hand in the recent past and drastic action by a handful of editors has been necessary to begin pulling the article into shape. In particular, the list grew enormous with only a handful of citations making it not only an embarrassment but a potential liability as several inappropriate redirects point to this article. Those redirects are being discussed for deletion but that they were allowed to occur without a peep is shameful.

This particular article seems to be destined for another AFD in the near future but we must be much more careful when labeling institutions unaccredited or, even worse, diploma mills. Those are not synonymous and we must be lulled into thinking so or allowing our articles to reflect that kind of lazy and incorrect information. --ElKevbo 03:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The article is now up for AfD. It is, indeed, stunning how out of control that list got. The only reason I can think of for preserving it would be as a case study in the perils of article ownership. --Dynaflow babble 04:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

List Question

I'm fairly new to this, so anyone with more Wikipedia experience feel free to speak up. If the point of Wikipedia is to be encyclopedic on some way, why are there list of alumni separate from the college/university articles? I suppose part of the question is: what is the purpose of these lists? Isn't that the point of our standardised Notable persons section? Do people really just say "hey I want to know every single person with or without a wikipedia article who went to such and such a university"? I feel that having a category of alumni makes sense, but not a list page. Thus, if you want to see a list, just go to the category. And those who truly are notable will be in the notables section of the university page. Furthermore, if someone wants to know if so and so went to said college/university, they should likely see that person on that university's page, or that university on that person's page, or some connexion via a category. It seems useless and superfluous (to me) to have these list articles. If it is determined to be a problem as I see it, it seems to be a rather large one, and would really be a big part of the project to clean up pages. Aepoutre 18:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that when you look at pages of universities that have a long history (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc) and/or major athletics or arts programs in addition to academic research (University of Michigan, Stanford, Duke University, etc.) it is difficult to strike a balance. Do you list all the MVPs of baseball, basketball, and football but not Olympians? Senators and Presidents but not Governors and Congressmen? Nobel Laureates but not Fields Medalists? Pulitzer Prizes but not Tony Awards? What about trade-offs between these groups? There is no standard for these sections. The point is that it is difficult enough to come up with a definitive line of notability for inclusion in the lists themselves, to say nothing of writing a concise section about the "notables" of an article as some lists would easily extend into the dozens. Every university has a different history, strengths, etc and it is far better to keep a separate list of these alumni than subjecting the main article to edit wars over who is or is not notable enough to 1. warrant inclusion on Wikipedia and 2. warrant inclusion on the main college/university page. Madcoverboy 18:58, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. You make a very good point (I went to a very small school). I would say that this problem of very long lists could solved by, say, an alumni category, which would automatically list all the wiki articles about those who are alumni of the school. Yet not everyone will have a wiki article, and it would be far too complex to distinguish just those without as featured on the main page while just adding the category to those with. I suppose that could be done, but that'd be even more complex than the implications of my first question. Agreed? Thanks again! Aepoutre 19:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

SUNY Purchase College

Speaking as a former student, the State University of New York at Purchase article is in pretty bad shape. It's full of unsourced statements, probably added by students and faculty for whom these are common knowledge, and even with my edits deleting some of the more blatantly biased statements, it reads a lot like a pamphlet from the school itself. I was hoping someone here who knows more about these things could look over the article and lend a hand. Several professors there reccomend the use of Wikipedia, I'd like to see that they aren't doing so in vain. Lucky number 49 22:21, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Project example template?

Greetings! I couldn't find anything by a quick glance through your project's page, but do you have anything like an example outline of how a page should be written, beyond the list of FA or good articles? I'm also wondering if anyone with a better understanding of the guidelines could take a look at the lists of student organizations and "notable" alumni at The Evergreen State College. An editor recently tagged those sections with {{notability}}, but I was under the impression that sections regarding the student orgs and notable alumni are, well, notable when in the context of the main page (except for larger universities that have their own list of notable alumni). Thanks! --Rkitko ^(talk) 01:47, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Celebration of an Centennial Anniversary 2007

• • • Please help Celebrate the Anniversary of the U of S Talk Help to bring it to feature status !!! We need to Reduce Red Links....Create necessary college articles...Upgrade Academics Talk SriMesh | talk 05:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

templates

Can someone with more template experience than me add the nocat= functionality to the various project templates (Template:WikiProject Universities and Template:Cleanup-university)? This will prevent the Project's main page from showing up in the "universities articles needing cleanup" category and the like. I did it for the userbox template, but I don't want to screw up any of the "more serious" templates, if you will. Of course, if someone knows another way of achieving this functionality, that'd be great, too. Cheers! Esrever 20:24, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Naming conventions

I have raised an issue at the College Football Project with regards to naming patters. This discussion has not gone well. As that project can be seen as a subset of this project, perhaps some more input would be appreciated. I feel as if that project is using partisan tactics to address issues. Jmfangio| ►Chat  05:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a non-issue to me. If it's an American football team in America, it'll be referred to only as a football team, with a pipelink in the first line to American football. Naming conventions are based on the country viewpoint of the article (See WP:ENGVAR where it talks about "Strong national ties to a topic"... some great examples, Labour Party (UK) and Labor Party (United States)). That's not breaking NPOV, that's staying true (and encyclopedic) to the subject. --Midnightdreary 13:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Although there are American football teams at non American universities - see British Collegiate American Football League and the associated Category:British Collegiate American Football League teams. Timrollpickering 14:00, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

(Dons flame-proof vest) Actually, I think that many articles on individual college sports teams are thoroughgoing examples of non-notability and cruft, which should be merged into a single article about athletics/sports at Institution X. If that. I've read through Wikipedia:WikiProject College football/Notability, and apparently individual games of college football are notable if "Something truly whacky happened". As far as naming goes, I think I agree with Midnightdreary. — mholland (talk) 14:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree but that's a separate issue altogether. --ElKevbo 14:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Ha! Good point, Mholland. Oh, and good point to Timrollpickering, too. In those cases, the answer is still fairly clear, though. --Midnightdreary 15:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

AH - FINALLY - someone has provided a useful Guideline example that supports the current state- THANK YOU MidnightD!!! I read WP:ENGVAR while i was considering this and the problem is that i consider this a WP:D issue as much as I do anything else. These institutions have soccer teams and the the majority of the english speaking world equates the word football equivalent to "soccer" or "association football". What happens if the university is in another country?

With regards to the separation of certain articles: The University of Florida has a rich history in american football and basketball (amongst other things). There is no way to include those in one article, especially when there is a need to address other parts of their athletic department. That aside, I think Mholland is right that a lot of them are not notable. I'm inclined to continue this discussion here and not at WP:CFB as you guys seem to be much more impartial and have done a better job of asserting status quo than the people at WP:CFB. Jmfangio| ►Chat  15:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, you have to put yourself in WPCFB's shoes. To us, when you want us to label every article as "American football," its the same as wanting all English football articles to be changes to soccer. Sure most of the world, calls what we call soccer football. But we don't. As I said, that talk page is probably not a great play to get a consensus.↔NMajdan•talk 19:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• I don't think the two are equivalent as soccer is not ambiguous. Calling the teams soccer teams is not going to create confusion. That being said, I do agree with you on that and I'll let it develop for a bit over there and move forward with an RFC if more valuable input doesn't occur. Jmfangio| ►Chat  22:00, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I am single handedly adding to my ulumni page of North East Wales Institute. It is currently classed as a start page howeverafter looking at other pages with the same class i think I am right in saying that considering it now has twice as much info on the page it should move up a class. Especially as i have seen many pages with the same class which are no where nr the quality of information of this one therefore i would like some feed back as to wether i should move it up to B class, also this institution is incredably inportant to the community it serves and to internation projects therefore I think it should be mid range or high on the importance scale. Plus if anybody would like to give me a nice star for my wonderful efforts feel free. Delighted eyes 16:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

"Pretty" Infoboxes

I'm not sure if this was discussed before, but I was wondering about the colorful, "school-spirited" infoboxes that have begun to appear, especially among Florida's universities, see Florida Atlantic University, University of South Florida, Florida State University (a GA), and one that is difficult to read, University of Florida. I think they are distracting and not very encyclopedic. It also makes them less consistant with the rest of the universities. When the infobox is updated, these universities will obviously not be updated.

Do other people think this should be reverted as well? --Aent 02:24, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I too think they should be changed to the "standard" infoboxes. I think the infoboxes that those articles use are cluttered and hard to read. Esrever 05:51, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

They should be standardised. Hard to read and some of the markup isn't cross-browser compatible. The technicolor navboxes are bad enough, but Infobox University is a widely-held standard. Unfortunately, there's a local consensus for the "school spirit" box. I think we should discuss this with those editors first. — mholland (talk) 16:06, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that uniformity is fairly necessary for any encyclopedic entry. Aepoutre 23:08, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The color of the title of the infobox (where it says the school name) could still be changed, but changing the entire infobox defeats the entire purpose of it. -- Noetic Sage 23:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

University rankings (new, not improved)

Internationally, ARWU 2007 is out. In the UK, the Telegraph has published a new ranking: not in-house, but the first table in the Torygraph since 2003, I think. Editors may wish to push POV on their own alma mater update old rankings where they find them :) — mholland (talk) 14:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)