Talk:University of Pennsylvania

"Penn is internationally known as one of the world's most prestigious universities".....ohhkay there, Tiger. for a moment there I thought I was on the "University of Cambridge" page. someone needs to cut back on their extreme hyperbolic tendencies!!

It is one of the most prestigious universities in the world - US News and World Report recently ranked it the third best university in America, after Princeton, Harvard, and Yale.

I second that Penn is of the most prestigious universities in the world.

• Which school would be considered more prestigious, Penn or Brown?

(I am aware of what the US News and World Report rankings are, but I want to know what everyone's personal opinion is).

I'd say Penn, but honestly, you're not going to go wrong going to an Ivy League School.

Would some one care to tell me how Penn has the largest budget (endowment ~4 billion with ~20 thousand students) in the Ivies when Harvard is at an endowment of ~22 billion, Yale at ~12 billion, and Princeton at ~10 billion? I just want to make sure that the claim is true (and if it's another problem with semantics, would someone please re-phrase it). Thanks.

It's true. UPenn: 4.25 billion (Fiscal Year 2005). Harvard: $2.8 billion (FY2005). And so on. You see, the endowment comes largely from donations, much of which comes from alumni. Harvard-Princeton-Yale tend to really clean up because they are small and have the most name recognition, and at the same time the wealthiest alumni as well as attracting the biggest outside donors. The budget, on the other hand, comes largely from things like tuition, investment income such as real estate, and a smaller portion from endowment proceeds (this portion is larger at schools with outsize endowments like Princeton). Penn is larger in terms of number of students than any Ivy other than Cornell (which is lower on the totem pole than Penn). It has a large hospital system attached (although I think this was spun off in administration a few years ago), owns a big chunk of Philadelphia, and is the largest private employer in Pennsylvania. It's budget, therefore, is biggest in the Ivy League. NTK 20:58, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

oldest university in the United States?

".... However it is the fifth-oldest college and oldest university in the United States..." As said in the article Penn is "the oldest university in the United States". But you can read in the article about "Harvard University" that this university is founded in 1636 in contrast to Penn which is according to the article established in 1740.

It's mostly a semantic issue. Harvard College was the US's first institution of higher learning (Penn was fifth), though Penn was indeed the first to adopt the multi-discipline university model when its medical school opened in 1765 (and the first to actually have the word 'University' in its name). See [1] for example. -Ergative 21:14, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Although Penn may have been the first to offer any higher degree, it was not the first to offer Doctorate degrees, which to many is the mark of being a "true" university. Johns Hopkins was in fact the first to offer Doctoral degrees, and was also the first to conform to the research-style model that is typical of modern universities. While I don't mean to disparage Penn (I actually work there) I do think this needs to be mentioned somehow in the article, lest the claim seem misleading. --Wclark 03:02, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I thought Yale was the first university to offer a Ph.D. Yale claims to have granted the first in 1861, before Johns Hopkins was founded. [2]. btm _talk 19:06, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Btm's latest edit, but have tinkered it myself. If we're going to have the silly "first university" claim the easiest thing to do is source the claim and succinctly state the actual basis for the claim. If people think it's how too long, it could be moved to the History section.

I'm no historian, but I think the American university as we know it was largely a product of the decades following the Civil War. I don't think we'd recognize any institution in the 1700s as being much like a "university," just as I seriously doubt we'd recognize whatever Penn's medical school was teaching as "medicine." (Didn't medical school as we know it originate with, um, William Osler, i.e. wasn't it, too, a product of the post-Civil-War environment?)

Penn is one of several venerable universities and trying to adjudicate which is "truly" the oldest university is an exercise in boosterism and hairsplitting. Notice the tricky wording Penn's claim: 1779, the Pennsylvania state legislature conferred a new corporate charter upon the College of Philadelphia, renaming it the "University of the State of Pennsylvania" (in 1791 still another new charter granted Penn its current name). No other American institution of higher learning was named "University" before Penn." I'm not sure what he has in mind here, but obviously there is some other institution that could lay claim to "Oldest university in continuous operation under the same name."

Couldn't we just say "Penn is reelly reelly old and just awfully good?" No, I suppose not... Dpbsmith (talk) 14:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I moved the "First University" paragraph to the History section. In its current form, it doesn't fit in at all with the rest of the opening section. But I'll probably alter it and move it back at some point.

Also, it's not really our job to define "university" or decide where lay the beginnings of the modern university. Leave that to historians, who have already done so and widely acknowledged Penn to be the first university, both in name and status. (nobody disputes the name part, btw) This is an encyclopedia not a Ph.D. dissertation; we cite other sources, not inject our own opinions into the articles. Personally I think we should just say it was the first university and link to the citation so people can decide for themselves, or add a section in the "criticism and controversy" section about other Universities who also claim to be the first. There's no need to restate Lloyd's argument in this article. -Bindingtheory 17:09, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

As Dpbsmith intimates in his discussion above, Penn probably did not become what we would now call a university until the rapid growth in higher education that was experienced after the Civil War. While it's not hard to find sources that call Penn the first university, and in fact it's not even hard to find a book about it, there are plenty of other sources making the same claim about Harvard University and the College of William and Mary [3]. I think that the claim is fair and should be included in the article (I like it in the History section, but understand the desire to see it in the lead), but the wording used to justify the claim is rather awkward, and it requires an explanation. It's not our place to inject opinion into the article; we also should not omit the fact that it doesn't seem to be universally accepted. I will try to find a quotation from an appropriate authority that supports the claim, but I would really like to see one that doesn't emanate from upenn.edu or a history written about Penn (unless we explicitly say that it comes from a Penn historian). btm _talk 19:10, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I tweaked the wording again. Unfortunately Lloyd doesn't care to spell out Penn's position in comparison to the claims of rivals (e.g. Wclark's point about the distinction between "having a medical school" and "awarding a doctorate"). But that wording "No other American institution of higher learning was named 'University' before Penn" is oddly nuanced and I want to reproduce it exactly as given.

First, we shouldn't say "Penn was the first U.S. institution of higher learning to be called a 'University'" without citing a source. At the moment, that source would be Lloyd. Second, the two statements

No other American institution of higher learning was named "University" before Penn"

and

Penn was the first American institution of higher learning to be named a "University"

are not quite equivalent, and I have no idea what Lloyd had in mind when he chose the weaselly wording. Certainly, in advertising, in a case where there is no provable difference in, say, battery durability, the FTC would allow company X to advertise "no other battery lasts longer than X" and also allow company Y to advertise "no other battery lasts longer than Y." At one time, in fact, the FTC's position was that under such circumstances both companies could say their battery was "best," on the theory that if they were the same, they were both "the best."

Absolutely the safest and fairest thing to do here is avoid judgements of our own and tell the story of Penn's superlative seniority as a university by quoting sources. (Oxford and Cambridge, eat your hearts out...) Dpbsmith (talk) 19:35, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I wouldn't have a quarrel with the lead paragraph saying something like "Penn calls itself 'America's first university'" somewhere. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

P. P. S. I just sent Lloyd an email query about this... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm really interested in Lloyd's response. I've been researching this topic for a while now and would love to know what he says on the topic. I've never seen anyone claim that Harvard was America's first university. (its oldest, perhaps? it is older than all the others, of course, but it wasn't a university til later. Harvard dates their own university status to 1780, placing them after both Penn and William and Mary: "The first medical instruction given to Harvard students in 1781 and the founding of the Medical School in 1782 made it a university in fact as well as name." [4]) William and Mary also claims to be the first university, but uses a different definition than Penn. I've corresponded with their university archivist who told me that "a course of graduate studies was the requisite for the status of university." (William and Mary traces back their university status to 1779, "the first year of our law school and simultaneously our medicine and chemistry chair was still filled."

For the record, i rather like the paragraph in the Penn article as it currently stands ("Penn has two claims...") -Bindingtheory 21:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I want to clarify what I would and would not like to see in the lead paragraph. I think that Penn's status here is worth putting in the lead. In fact, I would encourage putting a proper wording of the claim in the lead, as it is a defining characteristic for Penn and an important milestone in American higher education. However it should be succinct and clear. I like that statement: "Penn calls itself 'America's first university.'" What I would really like to keep out is a carefully (weaselly) worded sentence that finds a way to make the claim seem both definitive and indisputable. btm _talk 21:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:17, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a reply from Mark Frazier Lloyd, in which he says:

Penn's rivals for "first American university" are chiefly Harvard and William and Mary. Harvard claims to be America's oldest university, when, in fact, it is America's oldest college. Harvard did not become a university until 1780, a year later than Penn. William and Mary also claims to be America's oldest university, but, in fact, the state legislature of Pennsylvania named Penn a university one week earlier than the state legislature of Virginia conferred the same title upon William and Mary.

The first institution in the U.S. to award an M.D. was Penn, in 1768.

I do not know the first institution in the U.S. to award the modern research degree, Ph.D., but it was a late development, at or after the American Civil War.

Unfortunately he doesn't give exact dates or sources, but if it's true that Penn received that name one week earlier than William and Mary, well, gosh... that's like one twin insisting that he's the "older brother" of the other because his head appeared first. We should try to pin the exact dates down, and that should be added to the history section... possibly as a footnote. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:17, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I sent him a follow-up email and obviously went back to the well once too often, as his reply was curt. He said that he does not want to be quoted, so do not cite any of the above in the article, please. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:00, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Note that the date he's comparing to William and Mary's is the date it was named a university, not the earlier, "de facto" date. I'm not sure why he did that. Penn still claims to have become a University in 1765, 4 years before Wm and Mary does. Even using William and Mary's definition of "graduate studies," Penn's granting an M.D. in 1768 qualifies. From a historian's point of view, all these universities pretty much appeared at the same time, but claims of "first" this and "first" that are all about nitpicking over dates, whether a week or four years. -Bindingtheory 02:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

There is a book called Harvard, the First American University. As is usually the case with these types of claims, in particular when it comes to the de facto claim, this is all really a matter of semantics. What defines what a university is? When an institutions begins to call itself a university does it become one? Does the faculty need to be differentiated into different schools or colleges? Does the institution need to grant graduate degrees in order to be a university? Need they be doctorate degrees or even Ph.D.s? I find this all very interesting (and fun), but it is an academic exercise at best. One that is probably of more interest to the universities themselves and their alumni, students, etc., than to U.S. historians. I don't think that one would argue the modern American university was born when Penn established its medical school, but, again, it was an important milestone along the way. However, usually if a questioner were to pose the question "What is the first American university?" the answer to their intended question is probably Harvard. With a semantically correct interpretation of that question, the answer is (a possibly qualified) Penn; exactly whether and how it should be qualified is not yet clear to me.

Lloyd's response was very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to ask, Dpbsmith. Unfortunately, it doesn't illuminate us with much more than we already knew. But, I believe I answered who awarded the first Ph.D. above (Yale). Yet, one thing that strikes me is that well-established institutions of higher education in the U.S. (conservative as they are) generally make changes rather incrementally, and this has been the case since 1636. Penn's transition here may or may not have been incremental (and this may also just be an academic exercise), but it will take a number of independent (from each other and from the major players in this drama — i.e., the universities in question) sources to convince me that Penn should indisputably be given rights to its claim needing no further explanation of semantic interpretation. btm _talk 06:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

A way to handle this would be assemble a list of (hopefully) objective facts, without trying to settle the semantic issue of what counts as "being a university"; e.g. William and Mary was chartered under this name on thus-and-such a date, Penn established a medical school on thus-and-such a date, Yale awarded a Ph. D. on thus-and-such a date. In each case the items would be what is thought to be "the first" such item but would not actually claim even that much. This would be a "list of facts that have been used to support claims of being 'the first university.'" Then, for each university for which a "first university" claim is made, the lead section would say "X claims to be the first university" and a footnote would include the list of facts. I believe there would be less than a dozen such facts and that it would be more appropriate to simply put the list in an article footnote than to make it a standalone article which would attract overcasual editing.

I think the most interesting fact is not whether Penn, William and Mary, and Harvard won the race to be officially named a university, but the fact that it was so nearly a dead heat. Given the slowness of communications, I don't think William and Mary would have been a direct reaction to Penn. I wonder exactly what was "in the air" at the time? Dpbsmith (talk) 11:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

The fact that it was a "dead heat" is certainly interesting. However, I sort of suspect that this is, in some sense, all a red herring. Harvard was originally called a college because it reminded its founders more of an individual college at Oxford or Cambridge than a full-fledged university. However, even during the time of this "race," the American universities probably didn't yet much resemble the large European universities, so I think that it was a concurrent expansion of the universities' scope as well as a significant shift toward favoring the term "university" for the major insitutions of higher education within the United States. And the latter must have played a significant role in the more widespread use of the term, giving a likely explanation as to why it was a dead heat. btm _talk 21:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Duh. (Slapping self on forehead). I think I know what was in the air and why it was close to a dead heat. I just needed to read [5] and think a bit. What was in the air was some little thing that happened in 1776. Obviously... the state legislatures wanted to sweep away all those royal charters and replace them with freshly-minted U. S. charters. And (in the case of Penn) with new, non-loyalist governance. I don't know why the word "university" would have been the preferred choice of language, though. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Given the intricacies of this topic, I don't think we're qualified (even if we could actually come to a consensus) to decide which was the first university. Plus I can't believe that a two word phrase is taking up this much discussion (although I've been greatly enjoying it) Anyway, I just created a new page, First university in the United States, specifically to lay out the facts and let people make up their own minds, and I thought we could link to it. I'll do that now from the History section of the Penn article. See what you think, change as you see fit, etc. -Bindingtheory 00:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Moved rest of this discussion and the factoids to the Talk:First university in the United States page so that discussion can continue there. -Bindingtheory 17:16, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Clean up Alumni, etc?

Wonder if it might be a good idea to move the alumni, etc. listings to their own pages (ala Harvard). Keeping them as they are _might_ (and I'm only making a suggestion/observation here) be discouraging people from adding more about the university, as a whole, in fear of making the page too ponderous.

Also, maybe the majors should be placed somewhere else, done in a different manner, or removed all together? I know the majors are _about_ the university, and have a right to be here, but I'm just wondering if this page is better geared for narrative descriptions. Personally, I think narratives are more interesting than just lists of stuff.

Just food for thought..

• There are quite a few editors that abhor that type of expansion and wish colleges would keep their alumni (or notable people) lists on their own page, like Penn, Princeton and Rutgers so adequately do. —ExplorerCDT 18:05, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • O.K.. but.. maybe there are a few/just as many that don't?
    • I hope not. Expansion for the sake of expansion ruined the article on Columbia, and eventually that has to be brought to bear. Let me take a look at the article over the week, and see what can be reconfigured (esp. with the Majors). The 32KB limit is only a guideline. Many of the more comprehensive University pages near 40-50KB...especially those with one or two notable peoples (alumni/faculty) list. Most colleges/universities have their notable peoples list within the article. But most colleges and universities never get bigger than one article. Columbia and MIT, in an reduction to the absurd, have about 20 each. There's nothing more special about Columbia than there is about any of the others and any college guide would only give them the same space as say St. Leo's College in Florida. Not everyone has to be like that community college in Cambridge, Mass. In the long run, sensible people try to keep it all on one page. —ExplorerCDT 13:28, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • P.S. Sign your comments. Otherwise, many editors around here get ticked off. Just follow your contributions on talk pages with four tildas ~~~~ and WP will automatically sign your comments. —ExplorerCDT 13:31, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • It might be worth a look. I wasn't trying to imply that Havard's page was the gold standard, just an idea. Dartmouth's page seems to be a better example of what I'm talkig about--good narrative with few lists. For example, does there even have to be a list of majors, at all? I don't have any connection to Penn, so I just made my comments as a detached observer. I think, at a minimum, the narratives here could be cleaned up somewhat. Madmaxmarchhare 04:39, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • I think the list of majors can be condensed...like i did with Drew University. I didn't put a list of majors when I redid the Rutgers University article. I have no connection to Penn either, so I have no problem with doing away with the list of majors (it's not that important after all...most universities have a typical smattering of majors anyway). I agree with you though....the narratives need to be cleaned up here and at other colleges. There should be a project on cleaning up college pages. Most are filled with boosterism. Harvard, while you mentioned it as an idea, is a page that is wrought with debate over content (i.e. recent Harvard College vs. Harvard University discussion). In the end, better formatting and good writing means we can fit a lot onto the page without it coming across as too long. —ExplorerCDT 04:57, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Sorry re: not signing. Madmaxmarchhare 04:39, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • I think the alumni and faculty list should be moved to a new page or condensed down to just people who are really notable. I confess that when I first stumbled on this page, having found the lost list of people and major very unasthetic, I created the page List of University of Pennsylvania people. I copied the list to the page, but didn't move it. Again, I think it should be moved.
        
        I, like you, think that university articles should be confined to one comprehensive pages with additional pages for in-depth sub-topics. However, that's in Perfect Wikipedia. In the real Wikipedia, loads of hardly-meaningful facts are added to articles. As the alumni/faculty lists on many article are chocked full of marginally-notable people and, in the case of this article, take up up to half of the length of the article, it's just asthetically favorable to either pare down the lists or move the list to another page and keep truly notable people on the main article. To see what I mean, see another article I've done some work on, Duke University.
        --Ttownfeen 22:31, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the comment about MIT's page(s), I think the writers / editors have cleaned up much of the POV etc. IF you read their discussions page you can see they have toned down much of the way they have cited their statistics (even though they could have just flat out claimed #1 for a lot of areas including nerdiness). Since this discussion is about ("cleaning up") I thought I'd mention that such could be an example to follow. --anizzon

"prestige" comment

Watchers of this page should see this poll about whether this page should contain a phrase like "widely considered one of the most prestigious universities in the world". Nohat 15:47, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am eliminating some of the flowery language about Penn's prestige. For example, it's false to say that it "consistently ranks in the top 5"-- it has only ranked in the top 5 for the latter half of Judith Rodin's tenure. Emiao

"Midwestern Ivy League" ?

Contributors to this page may be interested in this article, which has been proposed for deletion:

Midwestern Ivy League

Please review the article and provide your input on that article's Votes for Deletion page. - 18.95.1.22 04:00, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

lingo

Does anyone else think this section should be deleted? Flying fish 00:11, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

yeah i was thinking the same thing myself.,not really sure though. Was thinking it might be a good idea to spin off the tradations section into a seperate article though? --Boothy443 | comhrá 00:46, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know about the lingo section, but the list of majors has got to go. Traditions should stay.

Maybe the lingo and/or majors could be each spun off into new pages - AKeen 00:29, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it should just go. TriDi doesn't exist, JRo isn't the president anymore, and JewPenn is fairly offensive. The whole section is probably only of interest to Penn undergrads, who must already know the lingo (otherwise it wouldn't be lingo...). Shouldn't this page be aimed at people who aren't currently students here, or aim to provide historical information that current students might not already know such as the razing of Black Bottom or 60's protests against secret chemical weapon research ("Spice Rack" and "Summit)" http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0702/timeline.html? Flying fish 20:26, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I am deleting the lingo section. If there are objections please raise them here - we can bring it back if people feel it's important. almost all of the additions were been made by anons, though, so I doubt anyone will care. Flying fish 16:54, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

gramatically incorrect

"The University of Pennsylvania is one of the nation's only private universities"

Pardon me for being the grammar police. But "only" cannot be used with "one of." Only implies one entity, as in "the only one." Read this.

Major cleanup

I am gonna try to clean up the article a bit, several anons have have changed the text to make it read more like a promo then an Encyclopedia article. I am taking out redundant text, tigiting up others, and redoing someof the flow. I am also droping the list of majors, Any problems or sujestions feel frre to drop a not to discuss, or make the changes. --Boothy443 | trácht ar 07:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Crime on Campus

Perhaps someone should write about the abundant amount of crime that has taken place on the Penn campus (which is much higher than other Philly campus' such as Temple and Drexel) and the city's attempt to remedy the situation.

• UPenn - Getting Safer - In the past decade at Penn, overall crime has decreased by 31%. Robberies have decreased by 62%, thefts by 31%, Burglaries by 24%, and Assault by 23%. In addition, 2,500 outdoor light fixtures have been installed, and 8 public gardens and 450 trees have been planted. Penn, being one of only two Universities to receive the Clery Award for improvements in safety in 2003, has proven that it is committed to improving the streets of West Philadelphia and making the area safer for students and local residents alike. Here's a quote from a current student... “It’s very secure! There have been only two ‘violent’ crimes on campus that I know of all year. 10 years ago, that was unheard of. However, Penn has recently beefed up security to the point where I know my female friends have no problem walking home late at night from the library or anywhere else. You can always see a SpectaGuard after dark, and that’s comforting.” (from College Prowler's campus guides, University of Pennsylvania - Off the Record) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hla5 (talk • contribs)

• I tend to agree with whoever wrote the above (please remember to sign your comments with four ~ marks.) Crime is not the problem at Penn that it once was, and i can't imagine the crime rates are any more significant than they are at any urban campus. If crime is a serious issue that significantly affects the campus more than would normally be expected, then add a section on crime, with current, accurate statistics, and add a citation. --Bindingtheory 22:20, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Water Buffalo Incident

I reduced the size of the section on the Water Buffalo Incident, keeping the essentials. It took up over 10% of the entire article on Penn (approx. 512 words out of 4337), which I don't think is fair or accurate. I gave it its own article (which it deserves, given the international attention it received at the time) using the original text of the section and linked to it from the section in the Penn article. Bindingtheory 16:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 19:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

External Links

I arranged the external link section. I think it makes sense to separate the student/campus groups from other links ABOUT Penn. Obviously we can't list every group, but I added a link to Penn's own list of its student groups. I also made the name of that subsection of links "SELECTED student groups." I think it's a nice idea to link to a few repreentative or particularly important student groups (like the ones currently listed), but I'm not sure what criteria we should use to include or exclude groups from that list. Bindingtheory 15:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Criticism/Controversy

Renamed "Criticism" section to "Controversy," which better refects its nature and sounds less negative. Someone (me if nobody else does it soon) should write a VERY SHORT explanation of the effort of graduate students to organize and the university's reaction. Short is important because we don't want the controversy section--although certainly important--to dominate the article. Bindingtheory 15:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

compass/Compass

Um, it's still capitalized... - CobaltBlueTony 17:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't the fact that it was capitalized. It was that the capital "C" wasn't a normal "C". It was the same height but squished narrower. Strangely, when I just went back to the page history so I could paste it here to show you, the weird "C" is gone in all previous versions of the page, too. Oh well. It's fixed now at any rate. Bindingtheory 17:58, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a gritch in your fontmapping. Or something else that sounds technical and nerdy. ;-) - CobaltBlueTony 18:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Established

Please stop changing the "Established" date from 1740 to 1755, especially if you are going to do so without explanation. Penn is an interesting institution in that you could reasonably argue several dates for its beginning, but the institution itself uses 1740. If you want, put a footnote by the 1740 and explain what happened in 1755 that justifies the use of that date instead. -Bindingtheory 16:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

According to this Penn site, the doors first opened in 1751. Would that not be a more appropriate date? - CobaltBlueTony 17:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

If there's more than one relevant date, mention both/all of them and explain them in a footnote. IMHO that would be the neutral thing to do.

BTW I found the http://www.upenn.edu/about/heritage.php reference itself... which says "doors opened 1751" and says "In 1749 in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin presented his vision..." So where the heck does 1740 come from? Oh, wait... click, click... http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/2004/011504/feature8.html summarizes it:

“In 1899, Penn’s Trustees adopted a resolution that established 1740 as the founding date, but good cases may be made for 1749, when Franklin first convened the Trustees, or 1751, when the first classes were taught, or 1755, when Penn obtained its collegiate charter."

Now, have a look at this: http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0902/thomas.html

In the same decade, under a provost trained in the retail world, Penn repositioned itself from an important local university to one with national pretensions. This was symbolized by the simple act of re-dating its founding from 1749 to 1740....

With the 1740 date, instead of being number five or even six in the line of American higher education, Penn was fourth, following only Harvard (1636), William and Mary (1693 first fundraising, 1700 first classes), and Yale (1701), and ahead of Princeton (neÈ the College of New Jersey, 1744), and Columbia (originally New York’s King’s College, whose first college classes were held in 1754, antedating Penn’s by a year). In 1899, to settle the issue once and for all, Penn’s board of trustees passed a resolution declaring that henceforth, 1740 would be the official date of the founding of the University “because that was the date of the earliest of the many trusts the University has taken upon itself. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

That Pennsylvania Gazette article is great, by the way... and for my money, it all but calls the 1740 date phony. It also... and this is interesting... explains why Penn was so concerned about this:

[it] had the desired effect of placing Penn ahead of Princeton in academic processions that in turn represented, in highly schematized form, the pecking order of American higher education. (The year before, in 1895, elite universities banded together to establish a national system of academic regalia that asserted an age- and class-based hierarchy and was most obviously expressed by placement in academic processions.) Dpbsmith (talk) 18:40, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, it's in the article now. I've globbed the details together into a footnote where they won't intrude into the main article.

With regard to the taxobox or whatever we call them now... given the circumstances, in which Penn's own publication refers to the 1740 date as based on a "story" about the "ostensible" founding date of an institution whose connection to Penn is arguable but dubious... well, I think it would be obviously non-neutral to present 1740 without any qualification or explanation, and I think it would be obviously non-neutral not to mention it since it is the date Penn uses itself. So, I think the four candidate years mentioned by Penn's archivist should all appear in the taxobox. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

P. S. Much the same sorts of issues arise with regard to other universities' "founding" dates. Harvard's 1636 seems to be pretty dicey, given that the "President and Fellows of Harvard College" was formed in 1650, but in Harvard's case it hardly matters. Why did they even bother to exaggerate, one wonders? You could handicap them by a couple of decades and they would still lead those academic processions the Penn Gazette talks about. There's at least one inscription in Memorial Hall that dates something as Annum Collegium Harvardensis or something like that, and I suppose once you do something like that you can't change your mind about when you were founded. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• I changed the "established" date back to 1740 and left the footnote, as is done on the colonial colleges page. I also condensed the footnote but left the essential facts and arguments regarding the various possible years of "founding". (A disproportionate amount of this article is spent on the founding of the institution as it is, and all of the info in the footnote is already included in the main text of the article) And added the "Building Penn's Brand" Gazette article as an external link.-Bindingtheory 21:48, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• • You're right about most of those facts being in the article already. If I'd been more careful I'd have noticed that before adding the long footnote. I'm not too happy about the current balance. I didn't know the details until I read the "Building Penn's Brand" article, and now that I do, I think the 1740 date is pretty dodgy and represents too great a concession to Penn's point of view. I won't revert. I believe I'm going to add a description of the "Building Penn's Brand" article, though. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:54, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Yeah, it's me again. So... fourth-oldest. On the one hand, I think it's neutral to use each institution's own officially-claimed date of founding in stating its age rank ("fourth-oldest"). On the other hand, given that Penn, Princeton, and Columbia are so close, that Penn changed its official founding date from 1749 to 1740 in 1899, and that that change affected the rank order, I think a footnote is advisable. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

School Motto

There are 3 different translations for vanae that I know of in Penn's motto "Leges sine moribus vanae": "in vain," "useless," and "empty. "in vain" wins the Google test. It's also how Penn used to translate it in the print publications I've read. They appear to have changed their official translation to "useless" now (although I need to look into that further) so maybe that's the better choice now that I look at it. [6] We should probably use the translation the school uses for its OWN MOTTO. I don't see any reasonable case to be made for using "empty". -Bindingtheory 17:15, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry those are the only three translations that you know for the word vanus (which is the masculine singular nominative for the word, which appears in the feminine nominative plural because it is a predicate adjective). The word, in fact, means, empty, as in not containing anything, as in void, as in full of nothingness. You will not find "in vain" as a direct translation of this word, but only as a idiomatic equivalent. "Useless" is similarly an idiomatic equivalent.

In other words, while I agree that the official translation, as it seems to exist in this case, should be used, and I accept that argument, I think a "reasonable case" could be made for a different translation -- I have some "reasonable" experience translating Latin "reasonably," so I'm wondering what expertise in Classics you bring to bear to cite this as unreasonable and caseless. Amherst5282 21:21, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Please don't take it so personally. I wasn't trying to offend you. We all just want Wikipedia to be the best it can. I am just saying (and you've stated that you agree) is that this is a school motto, and as such we should translate it in the way that the school does and in a way that has significance to its readers, not in a literal fashion. We rarely read word-for-word literal translations of any work in a foreign language. Word order and meaning are adjusted so that the work actually means something to the people who read it in translation. Idiomatic equivalents are necessary to understand any foreign language. If a German is "blau," it means he's drunk, whereas if an American is "blue" it means he's sad. And in that example, a literal translation not only loses meaning, but changes it entirely. Who cares what anything means on word-by-word basis? It's the meaning of a phrase as a whole that matters. A law that is "empty" means nothing to us, even if it did to the Romans. So although you could make a reasonable (and in fact very strong) case for translating "vanae" as empty in a vaccuum (no pun intended), you really can't do it in the context it's in here. -Bindingtheory 22:35, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't the most straightforward wording be "laws without morals are vanity?" as in the Book of Ecclesiastes, "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity." AHD4's definition of vanity is "3. Lack of usefulness, worth, or effect; worthlessness," which is what is meant here. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:12, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Bindingtheory: Thank you for the lesson on dynamic equivalence versus direct correspondence approaches to translation. How did I manage to make it through graduate school without mentors as knowledgeable as you?Amherst5282 00:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Amherst5282, personal knowledge is only relevant to the degree that it enables you to muster good, verifiable, WP:CITE sources in support of your views. Wikipedia does not and cannot depend on the authority of its contributors. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Drexel and Penn snowball fight

I've been a Drexel student for 6 years (currently a grad student) and I've never heard of this tradition. If there is no source for this, it should be removed. The closest source I've been able to find on Google is a site here that says in 1956:

March 19 - snowball fight After about 25 complaints from people pelted by snowballs at 36th and Locust Streets, twelve policemen raided the intersection. When some of the students ran into the Delta Tau Delta fraternity, police followed and rounded up 24 students, including the photographic editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper. They were released with a warning from the judge.

I'd hardly say that having a fight with innocent bystanders once in 1956 constitutes a "tradition." So if there are no objections I'll remove this as hearsay. mbecker 22:13, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I've tracked this change to an anon IP who also added this "fact" to the Drexel article. I'll remove it from there too unless I can find a source. mbecker 22:34, 26 January 2006 (UTC)