Talk:University of Chicago/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

List of notable alumni and faculty

I deleted this list from the article. It was totally unreadable, and wasn't presented in an organized way that made sense. I welcome anyone to re-include a list as long as it's presented in a thematic, readable way. (For an example of what would be good, see the Duke University article.) – DroEsperanto^{(talk|contribs)} 18:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

To-do list/list of issues

I'm in the process of updating the to-do list. Here are the issues I've encountered so far:

• Eliminate Boosterism: Find and remove elements of boosterism. This is somewhat of a problem in this article, and we should be vigilant in tearing down weasel words, unverified claims, and excessive lists of accomplishments. We should all probably also refresh ourselves on WP:UNIGUIDE. This should also probably include replacing many of the sources that come directly from the University itself with outside sources.
• Article organization: WP:UNIGUIDE gives some rough guidelines on article structure, such as that the history section should come before campus section, etc. I think it would be a good idea to follow them more-or-less.
• Section-level organization: the way some of the sections are structured is confusing. For example, having the sub-sections of the "History" section be labeled "Founding" and "Presidency of Robert Hutchins", which indicate thematic periods, "Science at Chicago" and "Art at Chicago" which aren't chronologically themed, and "1950s-1980s" and "1990s-present", which is a decade-based organization structure, could be a lot more consistent. Similarly, the headings in "Academics" are a little bizarre. Let's try to make sure that all the sub-sections are logically organized; this may require some shuffling.
• Paragraph-level flow: many paragraphs jump from topic to topic, making them pretty difficult to follow. For example, the paragraph on the founding of the school talks about Rockefeller, then switches to mention who donated the land, then where the "modern university" came from, then a random fact about how old students marched for Lincoln, then when the first classes are held. The next paragraph then reiterates some of the stuff about the old university in a similarly disorganized fashion. Let's fix that so that every paragraph has a cohesive topic, and so that within a section each paragraph logically flows into the next.
• Verifiability and details: In the history section, major events should always be accompanied with dates (the first paragraph has only one!), and let's find sources for all claims (e.g., "Contemporary buildings have attempted to complement the style of the original architecture" or "The Yerkes Observatory claims to have been the first to determine the spiral structure of the Milky Way Galaxy and the first to observe carbon in stellar spectra").
• Cruft: Not every building, alum, donation, scholarship, student organization, and tradition need be mentioned. Keep it to what's really really important/memorable for people who are not members of the U Chicago community. If what's left after that is still too much, then maybe we should branch it out into another article.
• Images: I think a few of the images could be removed, or at least placed in more appropriate parts of the article (like the picture of the hospital in the "student activities section." This should be relatively easy to fix.

Okay that's a lot but I think we can do it! Feel free to yell at me if you disagree with some of this, or to add on if you think there's other stuff that needs to be done. (Also I'm going to combine the three organization-related things into one for the to-do list – DroEsperanto^{(talk|contribs)} 22:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I think User:DroEsperanto has been making some excellent contributions to date in terms of bringing this article to a substantially higher level of quality befitting the stature of the institution. Some other issues I would note:

• History should be condensed from ~30 paragraphs to something more digestible. Much of the content actually looks like it could be incorporated into other sections as well (Organization & Administration, Academics, etc.)

 Done for the most part.

• Creating an "Organization and administration" section to describe the governing board, administration, endowment and fundraising, organization and relationships among various school (though this is also possible in academics), student and faculty governance. Some content in "Associated institutions" section may also be a candidate for merging into here
• Rankings and reputation absolutely needs to be demoted and merged back into academics and summarized substantially. I find that the section is often wholly unnecessary and the rankings of note can be adequately conveyed in the infobox (see University of Michigan which took the lead on this and I emulated at Northwestern University and MIT))
• The university lacks much basic descriptive information such as accreditation, Carnegie classifications, enrollment distributions throughout the various schools, academic calendars, academic honors, tuition and fees, financial aid information, research output, etc. which can readily be found from the Carnegie Foundation, College Navigator, NSF, and Chronicle of Higher education. See links at WP:BOOSTER
• The list of presidents should be exported to a List of Presidents of the University of Chicago and then see also'd.

 Done - list article is pretty bare bones, but what would you expect? – DroEsperanto^{(t / c)} 20:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

• I've taken to creating a People section to summarize information about the student body (diversity, admissions statistics, etc.), faculty (awards, diversity, descriptive stats, etc.), and alumni. This is by no means grounded policy or consensus, but I welcome other editors' thoughts.

I like the idea, although I find the title "People" to be pretty undescriptive. Perhaps "faculty, alumni, and students" would be more appropriate. – DroEsperanto^{(t / c)} 20:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

• The traditions section contains subsections summarizing the presumptively notable activities, but has no over-arching theme or discussion. I would also recommend merging into student life.

I look forward to following the article's development and lending a hand wherever I can. Madcoverboy (talk) 17:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Excellent sources

• Faculty handbook
• Course catalogues
• Carnegie classifications - just so I don't have to look for it again – DroEsperanto^{(t / c)} 20:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
• College Navigator
• Project on Student Debt
• Annual Reports
• NSF
• About organization of collegiate academics
• Trustees website
• Incorporation, bylaws, and statutes
• Report to the Senate Finance Committee
• University Organization Chart
• Facts for journalists - listing of basic facts about the University and campus

History section

The history section is very long. I believe that it is appropriate to split it off into its own article "History of the University of Chicago", and to leave just a summary of that article in University of Chicago as per WP:SUMMARY. If no major objections arise I'll go ahead and do that.– DroEsperanto^{(t / c)} 02:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I've been working on the summary here. Feel free to work on it with me. I've been introducing some new citations, information, and organization, which may need to be introduced as well into the main history article text once it's created. – DroEsperanto^{(t / c)} 18:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

User:Dcoetzee did an absolutely marvelous job at completely rewriting the University of California, Berkeley history from a crufty and disconnected section to an incredibly well-focused section. Can't seem to find the exact diff, but swing by and check it out. Madcoverboy (talk) 17:16, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Just finished the summary more-or-less, and created new History of the University of Chicago article. Nothing's perfect, but I think it's better than before. Known issues:

• Completeness: don't know if the section really represents a complete, represenative history of the University. I'm no historian.
• Citations: A bunch of claims need citations. I didn't include a bunch of the major ones (I couldn't find anything stating that it was one of the first major universities to accept minorities on a quick google search, for example) in this summary, but they're still in the main article.
• Images: not very many images. I have an image on the campus in 1911 on commons, will put that in later; I'll try to scrounge around to find some other images, as well.

Added some images.

Woohoo! I think I might take a break from the history section for now and work on summarizing other unwieldy parts of the article. Also thanks for the reference, Madcoverboy. – DroEsperanto^{(t / c)} 00:44, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Prestigious Ranking

The article on the University of Oxford states that "it consistently ranked in the world's top ten universities". The article on Princeton states Princeton is "near the top" on ranking lists. The article on Harvard states it "consistently ranked at or near the top of colleges and university rankings". I've checked numerous ranking lists and the Univeristy of Chicago also consistently ranked in the top ten on each list of worldwide academic institutions, however it doesn't state this in the article as it does in the other institutions articles. Even the current president of the United States has taught there, however that's not the most important factor. It seems that if the University of Chicago consistently ranks in the top ten global institutions and that's not acknowledged in the article as it is in other top ten worldwide colleges, then that is a discredit and insult to the staff and students related with the univeristy who have, and always have, kept it at a prestigious status; the top ten in the world no less. Most people think of Harvard, Yale, Oxford, or Princeton on this prestigious list but the Univerisity of Chicago ranks right up there with them. Several independent rankings also seem to agree. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.192.176.30 (talk) 21:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

While it's true that other articles do it, that doesn't necessarily make it right, and in this case I think those other articles are wrong. The lead paragraph is generally supposed to be a summary of the information in the rest of the article; since the mention of rankings is limited to an infobox in the academics section, it would be inappropriate to give it a full sentence's mention in the lead. Second, there's an inherent problem with having statements such as "many rankings place University X in the top ten"; it's prone to cherry-picking the best rankings while ignoring lower ones (making this a neutral point of view problem), and constitutes synthesis in that the editor takes a few examples of top-ten rankings and uses that to advance the position that "many rankings place UC in the top ten". Furthermore, saying that "such and such organizations think UC is great" isn't particularly descriptive of what UC is like, which is the goal of Wikipedia; it's better to report the reasons why people tend to think it's great (e.g., major role in sociology, law, and economics, numerous Nobel Prize winners, site of the first self-sustained nuclear reaction, university press, etc.; see WP:MOS#Avoid unnecessary vagueness). An essay that discusses this is WP:Avoid academic boosterism; check it out. — DroEsperanto (talk) 22:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

DroEsperanto's response already conveys much of my sentiments, but I would also emphasize that What about X is not a wholly convincing argument. These articles you mentioned are simply wrong and should be amended to strip out this boosterism. Moreover, I find specific and relatively indisputable claims such as the UChicago has been affiliated with more Nobel Laureates than any other American university to be wholly more convincing of its quality than appeals to a single magazine's particular methodology for distilling a variety of statistics into a single easily-digested and highly-chaotic number. Rest assured, if a reader wants to find out how "good" a university is, they need only go to the university website which will surely provide the cherry-picked rankings to assuage their remorse or justify their envy. This rankings and selectivity fetishism, however, lies far outside of Wikipedia's core mission to provide free, neutral, and reliable encyclopedic information. See WP:PEACOCK, WP:WEASEL, and WP:AVOID for other examples that crop up in non-university contexts. As such, we must always assert facts, not opinions. Please identify what part of Oxford, Harvard, or Chicago's entries in Britannica make note of their quality as measured by magazine rankings. Madcoverboy (talk) 22:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Is it boosterism?... Maybe, hard to say. A lot of these ranking lists are very respected, so if these institutions are consistently place in the top ten worldwide by several independent studies and rankings there must be some truth to that. But here is an important point: Do we say it's okay to state Yale, Harvard, and Oxford rank among the top ten worldwide, or are consistently ranked among the top world colleges, and not state that about the University of Chicago, when it too consistently ranks in the top ten? On one of the lists it even came ahead of Princeton and Oxford. Why do we suddenly draw the line with the University of Chicago? Most people think of the aforementioned schools as the top tier schools; they may not know UC ranks right up there with them, but UC's article should state this only if the other school's articles are allowed to re-enforce the top ten ranking. Again, why draw the line at UC? And yes, acknowledging higher rankings for any school may mean lower rankings are not being looked at, but these schools really do not have lower rankings on any respected ranking list of the thousands upon thousands of colleges and universities worldwide. So this issue could go either way. The other schools articles should not have the top ten worldwide ranking mentioned if the UC article isn't allowed to mention it. But if we are allowing this to stay in other articles, UC's article should have it as well. And since many people may not be aware UC ranks in the top ten worldwide, this is the article it really should appear in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.192.176.30 (talk) 00:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I see no mention of rankings in the leads for Yale or Princeton and have removed the most egregious example from Oxford and DroEsperanto has removed it from Harvard. Madcoverboy (talk) 03:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Academics section

I'm a little bit stuck about what to do with the academics section. My original idea was to have it organized into four subsections: Undergraduate, graduate, professional schools (medical, business, law, etc.), and associated institutions. Problems associated with this are:

1. There are a LOT of associated institutions. Which ones should be included, and how should they be presented?

• MIT has a lot of associated institutions too. Check it out and let me know what you think. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty stupid and can't find where in the article they're listed. Care to direct me? Right now though I'm thinking that the Associated institutions heading should be renamed "other educational programs" and only include info about the educational/scholarly programs (like the Council on Advanced Studies and the lab schools) that don't fit into the other categories. Under this plan, information about associated research institutions (Argonne, Fermilab, etc.) would be mentioned in the research section, the libraries allocated to the Campus section (or to a section of their own), and the university press moved somewhere else (not sure yet), since those latter two are only tangentially related to the academics of the school, which I'm defining as teaching and research. Any thoughts?– DroEsperanto^{(t / c)} 23:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

1. Where do degree-granting/research committees fall in this? I know virtually nothing about programs like those so I'm looking for input from someone who knows anything more about their nature than I do.

• I know the degree-granting committees are particularly unique to Chicago and certainly merit mention. However, I too know nothing about them. I see no reason to treat them any differently than any other department that grants degrees. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

1. Where would information about the importance of the economics/sociology departments belong? It's more related to research than to graduate teaching and programs. Perhaps there should be a research section.

• I'd say the "Chicago school" information can be placed under the research heading. Madcoverboy (talk) 18:37, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

1. ?!?GEHDSf

So in short, any suggestions? – DroEsperanto^{(t / c)} 15:50, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Sociology Department Claim- It seems that the University can claim the first independent sociology department, but the Kansas University had an established "Department of History and Sociology" in 1891. Any thoughts on how to clarify this distinction in the article would be helpful.-Etennis3 (talk) 17:05, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

That's a good question. How does your source describe it? — DroEsperanto (talk) 17:09, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Images

I just found this user on Flickr who has released a wealth of excellent UChicago campus images under CC-SA. I'm beginning to upload some of them to Commons, and any help uploading/identifying buildings would be extremely helpful. For buildings with more than one image, I plan on creating subcategories within the University of Chicago campus category, and placing everything else within that parent category. Thought you guys might be interested. Thanks — DroEsperanto (talk) 17:21, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Those look fantastic. Restoring the "Gallery" section in the article and including some of these would be great if we could get around to that. -- mcshadypl ^TC 04:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I've already started messing around with that idea in my sandbox, if you want to take a look. — DroEsperanto (talk) 07:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. — DroEsperanto (talk) 23:55, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

University of Chicago GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:University of Chicago/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed, listed below. I will check back in seven days. If these issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GAR). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions, and many thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this article thus far.

• There are at least three dead links.[1]

 Done Re-sourced everything that came from a dead link or removed it if I couldn't find another source that said the same thing. — DroEsperanto (talk) 20:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Lead

• The lead claims that the University is noted for "several movements in anthropology", but anthropology is not mentioned in the article. This has been tagged as needing a citation since August, but if these movements are indeed significant I'd have expected to see them discussed in the article.

 Done - I had my doubts about the statement, but thought that it was possible that it was indeed significant, so I just tagged it instead of removing it before. Now it's gone, and I've rephrased that section of the lead as well. — DroEsperanto (talk) 20:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Founding–1910s

• There is a request for citation tag that needs to be dealt with.

 Done Removed it; couldn't find a source for it, and it seemed mostly like admissionsy folklore anyway. — DroEsperanto (talk) 21:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• What's the source for the second paragraph?

 Done Sourced all the facts in there. — DroEsperanto (talk) 21:58, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Campus

• There is a request for citation at the end of the first paragraph and the last paragraph is also uncited.

 Done— DroEsperanto (talk) 22:22, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Associated academic institutions

• There are two requests for citation in this section.

 Done. Took care of those.— DroEsperanto (talk) 03:32, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

--Malleus Fatuorum 11:50, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for dealing with all of these issues DroEsperanto. --Malleus Fatuorum 11:12, 15 September 2009 (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.

Traditions

I noticed that the list of college traditions has been reinstated. I didn't want to revert right away without discussing, but my reason for removing them originally was because I wasn't able to find any non-UChicago sources that wrote about them, and the threshold for inclusion of school traditions is notability. If you can find sources then of course I think these traditions should be included (I admit I wish the section weren't so sparse) but I think that unless sourcing can be found they should stay removed, or at least on the talk page. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. — DroEsperanto (talk) 23:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property

I have been asked by the Director of Communications in the Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories to add a section about Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property to this page. I added it yesterday, and it was deleted today. I'm going to try and add it again today. The majority of this information refers to content containted on the web site http://tech.uchicago.edu/, which is the official site of the Office of Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property. Lynn1144 (talk) 16:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Significant portions of that material were copied directly from that website so I deleted the section as a blatant copyright violation. Please rewrite the material so it's not a direct copy. I also recommend making it much shorter as it was very long compared to its relative importance in this article. --ElKevbo (talk) 19:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

In addition to availing yourself of Wikipedia's guidelines on conflict of interest, look to analogous sections such as those at MIT, Northwestern, and Michigan for a sense of what is appropriate balance and coverage. Madcoverboy (talk) 21:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments. I have sent them to the Dir. of Communications to help her revise what she sent to me to post. Lynn1144 (talk) 02:13, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Neo-liberal economics and Neo-conservatism...

Maybe there should be a section on the central role the University of Chicago played in the development of Neo-liberal economics and Neo-conservatism. These twin ideologies seem very relevant to the affairs of today: the Iraq War and the late-2000s Financial Crisis. What do my fellow editors think? Soupysoap (talk) 02:30, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems very hard to incorporate this in any way that would be not be advocacy, much less violating neutrality or reliablity. The article already acknowledges notable faculty members and alumni in government positions who advocated or endorsed neo-X policies, but it would be a stretch to argue that UChicago as an organization advocated or endorsed these policies or the effects of these policies can be attributed to the university. I am opposed to introducing political red meat into university articles. Madcoverboy (talk) 04:39, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Rankings under the Academics page

Just to clarify it was not boosterism. I do not, have not, and will not ever attend University of Chicago. The Rankings table, supposedly 'adequate' is incorrect. What it refers to as 'Times Higher Education' utterly neglects the fact that those rankings were published under the partnership THE-QS (QS standing for Quacquarelli Symonds). This partnership has ended and in 2010 QS and THE are publishing separate rankings. Either the table needs to be amended (and, in any case, updated for 2010) or a rankings title under the Academics section be introduced, which would make it much easier to clarify the separate systems etc. ArthurGD (talk) 15:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The table has been updated to reflect citations to the QS_W (QS World) 2010 rankings and the THES_W (THES world) 2009 rankings. The QS_W and THES_W fields simply need to be populated. Madcoverboy (talk) 15:43, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Regenstein library

There is an error in this section: "once its expansion is completed in 2010". There will be no expansion - but another library building - [Library]. Please correct. --92.76.106.253 (talk) 17:16, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Redirected from Bradbury House

I just spent some time searching for Bradbury House, being redirected to this article, which doesn't mention it at all. Eventually I searched through the article on Blade Runner to find that I meant to search Bradbury Building, not house.

Anyway, I might not be the only one to make this error and it took me quite a while to realize what I'm doing wrong. Is it possible to add a "Did you mean Bradbury Building?" link to the top of the article in the case that you come here redirected from Bradbury house? Since Bradbury House (whatever it is) isn't even mentioned in the article, I'd say that somebody searching for it probably meant Bradbury Building.King Klear (talk) 13:19, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

research in biology and medicine

Hi everyone. I feel like the section detailing research done at UChicago is light on the discoveries made there in biology and medicine in comparison to other fields, such as physics- The Miller-Urey experiments, the discovery of hormone receptors, the red queen hypothesis, Neil Shubin's archaeopteryx, the first blood banks, etc. all seem pretty important and led to the creations of new fields. Should any of these be added? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:D:9D80:4F:8F7:EFCD:85C0:E4B6 (talk) 21:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Rankings info in the lead

It's been a while since I was active in Wikiproject Universities, but my understanding of the consensus has been that it's best not to mention them in the lead, as they give undue weight to one newsmagazine's opinion, and to let the university's accomplishments speak for themselves. That's why I removed that sentence from the article, but it's since been reverted. Any thoughts? — DroEsperanto (talk) 14:25, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:UNIGUIDE#Article_structure says "Lead: ...Summarize the rest of the article without giving undue weight to any particular section (such as rankings) and mention distinguishing academic, historical, or demographic characteristics." – S. Rich (talk) 21:22, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Removed WP:Undue Washington Monthly Rankings

The following discussion 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.

---

These absurd "rankings" claim Yale is #41 in the U.S. while Texas A & M is 2nd (1). (They also have Princeton ranked 6 spots below University of California at Santa Barbara) These should be removed from all the college rank pages because they contradict what the clearly reliable, mainstream rankings from major publications say. They appear to be a "populist" attempt to denigrate elite private schools (Ivies, UChicago, and others) and elevate low-tier public schools. Steeletrap (talk) 17:39, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

They're pretty widely reported so you need a much better reason than your own personal opinion to justify removing them. ElKevbo (talk) 19:29, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Personal opinion? That's not what she said. Look at the most widely cited rankings -- US News, Princeton Review, and others. SPECIFICO talk

(edit conflict)

The WP:UNIGUIDE has suggested guidance related to this issue. Also see Rankings of universities in the United States. – S. Rich (talk) 19:53, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

The WM rankings, whether or not they are "right" or "wrong", radically contradict (E.G., through their claim that UT El Paso and Texas A & M are vastly superior institutions to Princeton and Yale) literally every other RS ranking cited. Therefore it is WP:Undue to include them uncritically alongside these other rankings. Steeletrap (talk) 20:01, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Also: LOL at their methodology. Rate of "ROTC participation" is one of their criteria for a top university, which is why A&M is so high. Steeletrap (talk) 20:04, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

There was a little discussion re Washington Monthly at Template talk:Infobox US university ranking. As this question pertains to more than just Yale, UofC, or other particular schools, I suggest bringing up the issue on the UNIGUIDE talkpage Wikipedia talk:College and university article guidelines. – S. Rich (talk) 20:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

So you believe that this ranking system is not useful because it doesn't duplicate other existing systems...? First, that is your personal point of view which is wholly insufficient to remove the material or pass judgment on it; that is particularly evident in your unjustified and uncritical disdain for the methodology. Second, as a criterion for validity it's a very problematic one because of the differences in methodologies.

Look, I get that we need to employ some level of editorial judgment when deciding what material to include or exclude in encyclopedia articles. But we can't employ our personal judgment to omit material simply because we don't like it or have an amateur gut feeling that the material might be incorrect when reliable sources have clearly stated otherwise. This particular ranking differs from your own judgment of the comparable quality of U.S. colleges and universities; deal with it. ElKevbo (talk) 20:39, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

It's an especially bad idea to edit war over this (or any other) issue. You've made your case; please respect WP:BRD and by not edit warring. ElKevbo (talk) 20:41, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

This is an accepted WP template we are talking about. If it was populated with only the best looking or worst looking numbers, then WP:BOOSTER would be in play. But if it is populated with all or most of the available rankings, then we go with it. We would really be in trouble if we went to the Tx A&M article and removed this particular data from the template because the methodology included ROTC. – S. Rich (talk) 21:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

However, it a very problematic template in that its contents has been unnecessarily limited (and thus biased) to a very small subset of rankings that often excludes other major evaluations measuring other major components of universities as discussed on the template's discussion page. CrazyPaco (talk) 22:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Just because a ranking uses different criteria doesn't make it wrong. It can use whatever criteria it wants. If someone wants to know why it is ranked that way, they can continue on and find out just like they can with any of the other rankings...which all use different methods to some degree. I don't believe any one has brought just cause as to why these rankings should be excluded. Chris1834 (talk) 21:15, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Again, it's not about "right or wrong." It's about "mainstream or fringe." By virtue of radically opposing the rankings of the mainstream RS, Washington Monthly's inclusion is WP:Undue. You seem to fundamentally misunderstand the rules of this community. Steeletrap (talk) 22:01, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

OK let me rephrase... Just because a ranking uses different criteria doesn't make it fringe. It can use whatever criteria it wants. If it was claiming to use the same criteria and came up with vastly different rankings, I may agree with you but these are rankings...with different criteria all published by reputable major sources. "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." --WP:UNDUE. This ranking is named on the University rankings WP page. That seems like there is a consensus that it is major enough to be listed on that page and thus major enough to be included here. Chris1834 (talk) 22:42, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

You're engaged in disruptive edit warring to prove your POV. Until such time as there's consensus to remove WM as a ranking, it stays in this and other articles using this template. While I'm very much sympathetic to your critiques about the flaws in the methodology, you don't get to pick and choose which notable rankings are included in the article based on gut feelings. Madcoverboy (talk) 22:13, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

"Absurd" is your personal point of view, which apparently leads you to disapprove of what Washington Monthly is actually measuring with their particular methodology, which isn't the same methodologically to what other rankings measure. All rankings have their absurdities and biases and none of them are ranking the exact same aspects of schools. The fact remains that Washington Monthly is a ranking published by a highly cited, national source and represents an alternative view point on institutional rankings that should not be ignored because of personal preference. Frankly, as a scientist, I find Forbes to be the most ridiculous of all published rankings because it employes extremely faulty and biased statistical methodologies, but Forbes is still widely cited and distributed and should be included as an alternative view point.

Now, that said, the ranking template itself is very poor in that it provides a very limited view on institutional rankings based on its own set of biases and the template (and Wikipedia readers) would be greatly served to be all-inclusive so that readers can form their own opinions. Wikipedia should be providing all pertinent sourced information, not casting judgements on them via inclusion or exclusion which is the crux of WP:NPOV. (see template discussion). CrazyPaco (talk) 22:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I move that we centralize this discussion here; it's going on in a few different places and that will lead to confusion and lots of duplicated efforts unless we centralize the discussion somewhere. ElKevbo (talk) 02:02, 11 October 2013 (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.

U of C

Just a few citations to counter the notion that "U of C" is not a term of reference for the University of Chicago:

• Local media: "U. of C. announces $10 million program to help low-income students"
• Students/alumni: Tumblr: "You know you're at the U of C when..."
• The university's own PR office: "Skadden Fellowship Awarded to Two U of C Law School Students" PRRfan (talk) 22:06, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Harper Court

I opened a discussion on adding Harper Court to Template:UChicago at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chicago#Harper_Court.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 09:25, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

Sexual assault investigation -- recentism or no?

UChicago is one of the schools currently being investigated for their handling of sexual assaults on campus, and this was recently included in the article by the creation of a "Controversy" section. I moved the content to the end of the history section, since university articles generally don't have criticism sections, but I'm wondering whether noting this fact should be considered historically important at this stage, or whether it's just recentism. Thoughts? — DroEsperanto (talk) 16:11, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

See WT:UNI. Folks agreed that it needs to be added, but we're at a bit of disagreement over whether as part of a controversies section or not. As for Recentism, this passes the ten year thought test as the University makes sweeping reforms to its student code of conduct, administrative practices, etc. And there are many Uni's with controversies sections that reach much further back than this one (Occidental College being a prime example) Thebrycepeake (talk) 15:25, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison isn't an alumnus. He only went to UofC for one term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison#Early_life_and_education 146.115.21.211 (talk) 04:04, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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"Common core" link is dead

Since this is integral to the University's history, it should probably be replaced with a new one, or a description in the body of the article as to what constituted the "common core". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 19:56, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Update to University gift information

I would like to request an update regarding University's gift information. The suggested edit is outlined below but will not implement due to a conflict of interest. The updates are factual and represented without bias.

The third paragraph under History, 1990s–2010s:

Since 2009, a two-billion dollar campaign has brought substantial expansion to the campus, including the unveiling of the Max Palevsky Residential Commons, the South Campus Residence Hall, the Gerald Ratner Athletics Center, a new hospital, and a new science building. Since 2011, major construction projects have included the Jules and Gwen Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery, a ten-story medical research center, and further additions to the medical campus of the University of Chicago Medical Center. On September 30, 2015, the University announced a gift of $100 million from The Pearson Family Foundation to establish The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and The Pearson Global Forum at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies.

• Added a sentence about the $100 million donation received from the Pearson family at the end of the paragraph.

This reads like a press release. We don't need to mention their donors. John Nagle (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Michikog (talk) 16:02, 2 December 2015 (UTC)michikog

User:Michikog, thanks for posting this. Can you provide better, independent sourcing for the start? You say the campaign began in 2009 but the source is a 2006 press release. Fences&Windows 21:18, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

User:Fences and windows, thanks for your feedback. Here’s my proposed edit:

The University launched the public phase of a $4.5 billion fundraising campaign , in 2014 to expand the campus. Since 2011, major construction projects have included the Jules and Gwen Knapp Center for Biomedical Discovery, a ten-story medical research center, and further additions to the medical campus of the University of Chicago Medical Center. On September 30, 2015, the University announced a gift of $100 million from The Pearson Family Foundation to establish The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts and The Pearson Global Forum at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies.

Also, the line in the article about the Max Palevsky Residential Commons (opened in 2001) and the Gerald Ratner Athletics Center (opened in 2003) significantly predate 2009, therefore the information was inaccurate and I took it out.

Again, thank you for taking the time out to review this and let me know if you have any questions.Michikog (talk) 21:08, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

 Done I added that revised paragraph, with a few changes. The 1990s-2010s history section is too focussed on funding it seems - has nothing else of interest happened since 1990? Fences&Windows 19:09, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

User:Fences and windows Thank you! The changes look great, except for the sentence “In 2014 the University launched the public phase of a $4.5 billion fundraising campaign to expand the campus.” — “to expand the campus” is not accurate, the campaign also supports faculty retention, scholarships, etc.

Could I suggest to modify it to simply say: In 2014 the University launched the public phase of a $4.5 billion fundraising campaign.

Also, I completely agree with you on the 1990s-2010s being funding heavy. A lot more has happened :) I will be revisiting the section after the New Year to suggest more edits.Michikog (talk) 16:52, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

This seems to have been resolved with the exception of a minor point, and the requester has been absent the talk, with plans to return at some future date. I'm going to go ahead and close the request and another can be opened whenever they decide to return. TimothyJosephWood 17:14, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

References

seal

as far as i can tell from the u of c's communications page regarding seals, the 'university seal' - rather than the presidential seal that currently heads the infobox - is the preferred emblem (after, of course, the logo, at the bottom of the infobox). not only, according to the website, is the presidential seal used for 'official documents of the University', rather than the 'broad application and digital use' for which the university seal was explicitly created, but its use is restricted save 'with permission from the Secretary of the University' (obviously, only internally - i assume that doesn't apply in cases of fair use e.g. here). does anyone know of more explicit guidelines for the use of the respective seals outside the university, or otherwise have a better understanding of the communication's page's information? Markelele (talk) 03:11, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello, yes the official seal is subject to internal institutional restrictions, including a prohibition on use without permission from the administration or public relations department but these restrictions are not binding on anyone outside of the university. This seal is the official seal of the university and qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. --RaphaelQS (talk) 03:19, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

do you have information exterior to the above communications page, or a better parsing of it, with which to conclude that the presidential seal is the official seal? in my opinion - which is to say, as far as i understand - that page implies that the university seal should be preferred as the university's official seal. i do not mean to be dogmatic here; just trying, rather, to make the article as accurate as i am able. Markelele (talk) 03:33, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

We know that the presidential seal is the official seal of the university because he is used on diplomas. That's what an official university seal is used for in my understanding. --RaphaelQS (talk) 21:30, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

oh that's quite compelling actually - in that case, however, it seems like there's a substantial amount of editing that needs to be done throughout the set of articles employing the university infobox the image on harvard's page, e.g., doesn't appear to be the seal as it's stamped on harvard diplomas Markelele (talk) 00:49, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

• Comment – see this website for the official seal. I think the version we have now is fine. ☔️ Corkythehornetfan ☔️ 01:25, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

I don't know about Harvard, I'm not sure they use a seal on their diplomas, maybe you should talk about it in the talk page of the article? --RaphaelQS (talk) 16:55, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Requested Edits: Factual Updates

Hi all! I am a University of Chicago employee hoping to update some of the factual information throughout this page (see list below); because of my COI, I'm not able to carry out these edits myself, so I would greatly appreciate your assistance in making these changes. Thanks so much, and please let me know if you have any questions or concerns!

1. In the “1990s–2010s” section under “History,” the article refers to the planning stage for the Milton Friedman Institute, announced in 2008; today, the institute is called the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics and is located in the newly renovated Saieh Hall for Economics.

2. The “1990s–2010s” section might also make mention of the 2015 announcement that the University of Chicago would partner with the Obama Foundation to build the Barack Obama Presidential Center (this is mentioned toward the beginning of the article but may merit further discussion in the “History” section).

3. In the “Campus” section, the University’s main campus is described as consisting of 211 acres; the correct figure for this is actually 217 acres.

4. Also in the campus section, editors may wish to include information about any of the several buildings added to campus after 2011, such as the Center for Care and Discovery (2013) , Saieh Hall for Economics (2014) , The William Eckhardt Research Center (2015) , and Campus North Residential Commons (set to open by Fall 2016) .

5. In the “Administration and finances” section, “Dean of Students of the university” is incorrectly listed as being of UChicago’s fourteen Vice Presidents; the correct term here would be “Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services.”

6. Also under “Administration and finances,” Andrew Alper is listed as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees; as of 2015, the Chairman of the Board of trustees is actually Joseph Neubauer.

7. Also under “Administration and finances,” the figure for the University’s endowment is several years out of date; the endowment is currently valued at $7.6 billion.

8. In the “Academics” section (including the “Graduate schools and committees” subsection), it should be noted that the University now has five graduate divisions, including the recently launched Institute for Molecular Engineering.

9. Also in the “Academics” section, it’s inaccurate to characterize the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies as a professional school; the Graham school offers non-degree courses, certificates, and degree programs.

10. Also in the “Professionals schools” subsection of the “Academics” section, more information could be added about the accreditation of the University’s various professional schools.

11. Under “Associated academic institutions” in the “Academics” section, it should be noticed that the University of Chicago does not operate four charter schools but rather one charter school with four campuses.

12. Under “Library system,” the information about the University of Chicago Library system should be updated to reflect that the system now contains 11 million volumes and is the 9th largest system in the United States. Also, the John Crerar Library currently contains more than 1.4 million volumes.

13. Under “Research,” the number for the University of Chicago’s expenditures on scientific research is from 2006 and should be updated; the figure for fiscal year 2014 is $390,082.

14. Also under “Research,” the first paragraph could be updated to note that the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching now classifies the University of Chicago as an institution with “highest research activity.”

15. Also under “Research,” the second paragraph could be updated to note that there are now more than 140 research centers and institutes on campus.

16. Also under “Research,” the University of Chicago does not actually have a stake in the Apache Point Observatory. I don’t have a source for this, but I also haven’t found a source refuting this—is there a protocol for dealing with this sort of situation on Wikipedia?

17. A few endeavors that might be relevant to include in this “Research” section would be UChicago’s involvement in the Giant Magellan Telescope , the South Pole Telescope , and the Dark Energy Survey .

18. Under “Arts,” the following statement at the end of the subsection is factually untrue: “This building is actually entirely glass. The brick is a facade designed to keep the glass safe from the wind. The architects later removed sections of the bricks when pressure arose in the form of complaints that the views of the city were blocked.” Again, I don’t have a source for this, but would the lack of a citation attached to the original claim be grounds for removal in itself?

19. Under “Reputation and rankings,” it may be relevant to include additional rankings from the Economist (which named the Booth School of Business the first among MBA programs), the U.S. News Best Graduate Schools/Earth Sciences category (which ranked the University’s paleontology program first) , and the U.S. News survey of freshmen retention rates (in which the University of Chicago tied for first) .

20. Under “People,” it states that 50 University of Chicago students have received Rhodes Scholarships; the correct number is actually 49.

21. Also under the “People” section, the table listing the demographics of the student body is a few years out of date and could be updated.

23. Under the “Study body & admissions” section, the statistical information is also out of date and could be updated.

24. Under “Faculty,” Yoichiro Nambu is listed as a current faculty member, but Nambu passed away in 2015 . Also, Henry Paulson is also listed, but Paulson is a Senior Fellow, not a faculty member .

Thanks again, and please do be in touch if any questions arise regarding the above!

LJS15 (talk) 20:22, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Quick update: I have a few more factual updates to add, listed below. I'll also be posting another edit request shortly with some stylistic (rather than fact-based) changes that it would be great to see incorporated.

25. In the second paragraph, it states that there are approximately 5,000 students in the College; that number has risen to approximately 5,700 in the current era.

26. In the fifth paragraph, which lists how many UChicago-affiliated individuals have received certain honors, the numbers are slightly out of date: the University now has 20 National Humanities Medalists and 22 Marshall Scholars.

LJS15 (talk) 20:52, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

27. Under "Administration and finances," it should be noted that the Board of Trustees now has 55 members rather than 50.

28. Under "Undergraduate college," it should be noted that there are now 51 majors and 33 minors available to students.

LJS15 (talk) 20:59, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

29. Under "Graduate schools and committees," the number of graduate students in each division is out of date and could be updated. LJS15 (talk) 21:25, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

References

Thanks for posting this here. I don't think that anyone would have objections to you making uncontroversial edits to correct errors or bring information up-to-date. If you could do that it would significantly reduce your list of suggestions and make it more manageable for other editors. (You may be able to simply strikeout the items that you update yourself in the list above so it's clear to everyone what has been done and what still needs to be discussed.) ElKevbo (talk) 21:36, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the info—this is a huge huge help, and I really appreciate it! Making the factual/stylistic edits myself definitely seems like a more straightforward course of action, so I'll get going on that process soon; I just didn't want to start editing directly without checking in here first. Thanks again + have a great day! LJS15 (talk) 19:18, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

You're welcome. I recommend that you (a) be very sure to stick to edits that are purely stylistic, updates, corrections, or otherwise non-controversial and (b) make edits one-at-a-time so anyone who objects to an edit can easily undo just that one edit without having to revert or undo all of your work. Please let us know when you're done so we can tackle any remaining suggestions that require substantive discussion. ElKevbo (talk) 21:11, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Ah, I just saw your note after making a bunch of changes all in one edit—sorry about that! I did definitely take a cautious approach and stick to stylistic changes and factual corrections, so hopefully there won't be any issues. I've struck through the edits I made on the list above; please be in touch if any questions or issues arise. Thanks again!! LJS15 (talk) 21:48, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Requested Edits: Stylistic Suggestions

Hi all! I'm a UChicago employee with COI regarding this article. I've already submitted a request regarding some factual updates to the University of Chicago page, but I also wanted to put in a request about some stylistic/grammatical changes that would be great to have implemented, listed below. As I understand it, COI editing can be permitted for fixing spelling and grammatical errors, but I've decided to err on the side of caution here and submit an edit request rather than editing directly—but if someone who is better-versed in Wikipedia's policies could point me to a more efficient/effective way of implementing these changes, please let me know. Thank you so much!

1. The term “Fermilab”—which occurs throughout the article, starting in the second paragraph—is a nickname for the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; could the full name be used instead?

2. In the fourth paragraph, could “is home to” be changed to “has” and “visiting” be deleted?

3. Under “Campus,” the third paragraph has a typo, “a building designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the university's School of Social Service Administration;,”—that is, a semicolon directly followed by a comma, where there should be just a comma.

4. Under “Undergraduate college,” the first sentence of the second paragraph may be better phrased as follows: “Undergraduate students are required to take a distribution of courses to satisfy the university's general education requirements, commonly known as the Common Core.”

5. Under “Associated academic institutions,” the Council on Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences is incorrectly referred to as “the Council on Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and Humanities.” Please change to “Council on Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences.”

6. In the second paragraph under “Research,” the University’s relationship to Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory may be better phrased as such: “The university manages Argonne National Laboratory and co-manages Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), both part of the United States Department of Energy's national laboratory system.”

7. Also in the second paragraph under “Research,” there is a typo: “Faculty and students at the adjacent Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago collaborate with the university,” where the comma at the end should be a period.

8. Also in the second paragraph under “Research,” since the University of Chicago’s partnership with the Marine Biological Laboratory is now well underway, it may be more appropriate for the sentence about this to be worded as follows: “In 2013, the university formed an affiliation with the formerly independent Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.”

9. In the third paragraph under “Research,” Chicago Pile-1 may be best described as “(the first controlled, self-sustaining, man-made nuclear chain reaction, part of the Manhattan Project)” rather than “(the first self-sustained man-made nuclear reaction, part of the Manhattan Project)” as the article currently states.

10. In the first paragraph under “Arts,” the major “cinema and media studies” (mentioned twice) should be in all-lowercase and with the ampersand replaced by the word “and” written out.

11. Also in the first paragraph under “Arts,” the article refers to a “dramatic, music, and visual arts” requirement; it should actually read “musical” rather than “music.” Please also change “requiring” to “inviting” in this sentence.

12. Under “Student body & admissions,” there appears to be a typo—in one sentence it reads “study body” instead of “student body.”

13. Under “Student organizations,” please change “run over 400 clubs” to “operate more than 400 clubs.”

14. Under “Student government,” please change “is made up of” to “comprises” and “unit” to “units.”

15. In the caption for the image of Max Palevsky Residential Comments under “Student housing,” please change “constructed” to “completed.”

16. Also under “Student housing,” it would be more appropriate to use the term “First-years” rather than “Freshmen,” as the term “freshmen” is not used at the University of Chicago.

17. It would be great to reword the third paragraph under “Alumni” as follows: “Notable alumni in the field of education have emerged from almost all parts of the university, including these leaders who received PhDs from the Divinity School: college president and chancellor Rebecca Chopp, current president of Middlebury College Laurie L. Patton, former president of Morehouse College Robert M. Franklin, Jr., and president of Shimer College Susan Henking.”

18. In the seventh paragraph under “Alumni,” please change “Carl Van Vechten, photographer and writer” to “photographer and writer Carl Van Vechten.”

19. In the first paragraph under “Faculty,” the word “rewarded” should be changed to “awarded.”

LJS15 (talk) 21:33, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Same as above: Thanks for asking here and you should be fine making noncontroversial edits especially if you track what edits you've made and which ones still need to be discussed. ElKevbo (talk) 21:36, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Update: I went through and made the above stylistic edits on the advice that doing so would not violate Wikipedia's COI policy. Thanks + please let me know if any questions or issues arise! LJS15 (talk) 21:55, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Alumni

Kimberly Peirce, director of the Academy-Award winning Boys Don't Cry and Stop-Loss, is a graduate of the college of the University of Chicago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smiley McGrouchpants (talk • contribs) 15:54, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Need to acknowledge controversies about Bruno Bettelheim

Our article mentions the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School, but it currently does not acknowledge the controversies surrounding Bruno Bettelheim and information which came to light after his death.

Genius Or Fraud? Bettelheim's Biographers Can't Seem To Decide, Chicago Tribune, Ron Grossman, January 23, 1997, page 2:

' . . . Belatedly, he had earned a doctorate in art history, the subject he taught at Rockford College. . . '

---

An Icon of Psychology Falls From His Pedestal, New York Times, Books, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt (review of The Creation of Dr. B by Richard Pollak), Jan. 13, 1997.

' . . . True, Bettelheim had earned a doctorate in philosophy, . . . '

---

Bruno Bettelheim: a cautionary life, Baltimore Sun, Paul R. McHugh, Jan. 19, 1997.

'Walter Bagehot noted that self-taught men tend to be "dogmatic, decisive and detestable." Bruno Bettelheim, portrayed in this thoroughly researched biography by Richard Pollak, fits the mold. Bettelheim had no qualifications as a child psychiatrist or psychologist, having been a businessman with an art history doctorate in 1930s Vienna. And yet after escaping from Nazi Austria, he won - by means of glibness with Freudian theory and a set of influential friends - the office of director of the Orthogenic School for disturbed children at the University of Chicago, a post he held from 1944 to 1973. . . '

---

There's a lot of information. Almost too much. I will try and put it into some kind of orderly shape. Please jump in and help if this topic interests you. Thanks.  :-) FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 21:39, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

The big thing we might need to add is that Bettelheim was a huge proponent of the "refrigerator mom" theory of the cause of autism. Yes, really. Shows how much sway psychoanalysis held during its heyday. This other guy came up with the theory, but Bettelheim was almost certainly the most widely listened-to adherent. The other guy backed off from the theory around the ? '60, but maybe for Bettelheim it was his book in the ? 1980s in which he acknowledged that autism probably has a major biologic component, which is still an understatement from current understanding. So yes, a fair amount of work remains to be done. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 22:56, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Ron Angres' essay on Bettelheim referred to by secondary source (Chicago Tribune)

Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources

" . . Articles should rely on secondary sources whenever possible. For example, a review article, monograph, or textbook is better than a primary research paper. When relying on primary sources, extreme caution is advised: Wikipedians should never interpret the content of primary sources for themselves. See Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. . "

---

The Puzzle That Was Bruno Bettelheim, Chicago Tribune, Ron Grossman, November 11, 1990.

' . . ``Though Bettelheim routinely proclaimed in print and speech that no one should ever use corporal punishment on children,`` Agres [Angres] recently wrote in Commentary magazine, ``I lived for years in terror of his beatings, in terror of his footsteps in the dorms-in abject, animal terror.`` . . '

' . . Of the 19 alumni of the Orthogenic School interviewed for this story, some are still bitterly angry at Bettelheim, 20 or 30 years after leaving the institution. Others say their stays did them good, and they express gratitude for having had the opportunity to be at the school. All agree that Bettelheim frequently struck his young and vulnerable patients. What is equally significant is that none of Bettelheim`s sucessors at the Orthogenic School now contradicts these reports. . '

---

And yes, that's what a solid newspaper can do well. It can interview 19 persons plus later directors of the school. It can give greater breadth of coverage than a single person's experience, no matter how insightful, brave, or honest.

And yes, it looks like the Chicago Tribune misspelled Angres' name, as well as the word 'successor'! And that's one reason why we don't want to use a single source. And I put the Chicago Tribune right up there with the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Los Angeles Times, and maybe just a hair below the main U.S. journals of record the New York Times and the Washington Post. All the same, mistakes can be made and we definitely want a variety of references (maybe spell checkers weren't as advanced back in 1990!). FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 19:11, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

---

Angres, Ronald, personal essay, "Who, Really, Was Bruno Bettelheim?", Commentary, 90, (4), October 1, 1990: 26–30.

' . . For all of those years, they too endured his insulting and intimidating theatrics. But from his behavior they never drew the obvious conclusion about his character, nor did they ever pause to consider how he must be treating those whom he had totally in his power. It did not seem to occur to them that in his “total therapeutic milieu,” the professional distance they sought had been delegated to people who raised us, educated us, disciplined us, and controlled us far more completely than any parent—and kept our real parents in the dark. Indeed, Bettelheim's constant verbal abuse of the parents with whom he dealt, and whom he refused to allow past the visitors' area—combined with his well-publicized assertion that it was parents who caused mental illness in their children—systematically destroyed their will to stand up for themselves or their children. . '

---

Yes, I think our article is richer for including Mr. Angres' essay, as long as we identify it as a personal essay which I did not do the first time. And we have a major 4-page article in the Chicago Tribune referencing it. That makes this a relatively easy case.

Now, what if Commentary had an article on, say, that it's been less than a full job recovery from the '08-'09 recession? From what I can see, Commentary is a political magazine on the conservative side. And if I do a google search on [ Commentary Magazine ], I get "General, yet Jewish. Highly variegated, with a unifying perspective." Either one of these would be interesting, either conservative or Jewish. And the combo is pretty interesting. I don't think we should bar it or wave some big flag that it's biased (as if everything else isn't). I guess a case by case basis. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 20:03, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Request

Not affilated to the article: Any student or staff of this University reading that page?--Antemister (talk) 21:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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History Section, 1856-1890s

I added a request for a POV Check after seeing revisions in the 1856-1890s history section of this entry. Full Transparency: I am affiliated with the University of Chicago, and hope that unbiased editors may review the issue.

Although there are a number of potential NPOV issues in this section the most obvious recent example occurred between Feb 18th ([[2]] and Feb 20, 2018 ([[3]]). One editor is interested in differentiating the Old University of Chicago from the present University of Chicago. The other editor is interested in strengthening the association between the former and the latter.

Small tweaks, omissions, the removal and addition of detail, word choice, and the redaction of a cited quote occur within this section and serve to further the editors' opposing agendas.

Because similar NPOV conflicts appear on both the Old University of Chicago and the History of the University of Chicago wikipages, the simplest resolution on this page would be to redirect users to the "Old University of Chicago" wikipage under the subtitle "1856-1890s" and begin the detailed UChicago history under "1890s–1910s" with an acknowledgement of the university's predecessor. As an editor with a non-neutral POV, I acknowledge this may not be an agreeable resolution.

Another suggestion, since this is the only section in dispute, would be to move the detailed history section entirely to the History of the University of Chicago page, and leave a brief agreed-upon historical overview on this main page (See Stanford University). I would suggest that this "old university vs new university" issue would be more appropriate to acknowledge and address on a more detailed "History of" page.

If neither of these options are deemed acceptable, I am happy to make specific revision suggestions on this talk page which will mirror the suggestions made on the Old University of Chicago and the History of the University of Chicago talk pages. Thanks for reviewing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by StickerMug (talk • contribs) 01:12, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I think we should very much cut down the Old University of Chicago section in this article and leave it to the Old University of Chicago article. The same for the History article, both should at most briefly discuss the old institution and leave the detail to the Old article. What are your revision suggestions? Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:20, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Forbes ranking

This user attends or attended the University of Chicago.

I updated the Forbes ranking to say #16, but can't figure out how to update the link. The 2017 link is: https://www.forbes.com/colleges/university-of-chicago/?list=top-colleges

University seal

Is there any particular reason the presidential seal is used on the sidebar? The university has replaced it and even the updated version of the seal is rarely used. The university shield is by far the most common symbol of the university. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.135.98.154 (talk) 01:40, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

The "presidential seal" is the official seal of the university. The university's shield is already in the marketing logo at the bottom of the infobox. --RaphaelQS (talk) 08:33, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

That is incorrect. Per the university's website, "The University shield is the primary identifier of the University of Chicago." It is used universally, not only in marketing materials. The seal is exclusively used to mark documents. That is why all of the university's graduate schools which have pages use the shield.--Accuratelogosplease (talk) 11:07, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

This the definition of an official seal to be used to mark official university documents. --RaphaelQS (talk) 17:32, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, but the university does not consider its seal to be its primary identifier, but its shield. The shield is the current version of the university's coat of arms - see the university secretary's discussion of the matter and the university identity guide. Please stop or provide a source for the university using the seal as its primary identifier. Accuratelogosplease (talk) 11:38, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

"Yes, but the university does not consider its seal to be its primary identifier" We don't care. Wikipedia does not have to follow any university guideline. This is the official seal and the official seal is used in the image parameter of the infobox for almost all colleges and universities in Wikipedia. I know this I'm a member of the The WikiProject Universities. This is the consensus. If you want to break the consensus you need to provide a good reason other than that the university is mainly using it's little marketing logo as an identifier. We don't put the main identifier in the image parameter, but in the logo parameter. Thanks. --RaphaelQS (talk) 18:22, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

The UChicago seal is analogous to the seals of Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Dartmouth, used on nothing but diplomas and other highly official documents. In none of those articles is the seal used over the standard shield. The shield in its various forms has always been the symbol of the university. It's carved in limestone all over campus, it is not a marketing logo. Stop pretending that you have no burden of proof. Unless you can find a source saying that the shield is a marketing logo, please cease. Moreover, you are incorrect on the standards of your own project - the infobox seal is "University-related graphic, preferably the university's official seal or logo," NOT restricted to university seals (as is reflected by the articles of all of the Ivies that do not use their seals), while the logo is "for an athletics logo, corporate emblem, or similar graphic," definitely not the current version of the coat of arms the university has used since 1911. --Accuratelogosplease (talk) 1:51, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Can you read? "for *almost* all colleges and universities". I'm not claiming that the image parameter is "restricted to university seals". Don't put words in my mouth. "analogous to the seals of Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Dartmouth" Exception are made for the Ivy League by community consensus but UChicago isn't in this league last time I checked. "Unless you can find a source saying that the shield is a marketing logo" I don't claim that this little logo is used for *nothing but* marketing. I'm claiming it's used as a marketing logo. I myself own a deck of cards with the this logo. I'm also not claiming that the image parameter of the infobox is only for seals, again we make an exception for the Ivy League (and also for German universities, British universities, Canadians universities...). Finally, I'm reverting (again) to the consensus before the dispute, please don't start editing the disputed section by yourself before the dispute is resolved, you can be banned from editing Wikipedia. --RaphaelQS (talk) 11:03, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Provide the link for "community consensus". Unless there truly is a consensus, we need to be using the seal/shield that's most identifiable, not official. Corky 12:49, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Please stop being rude. Before you edited this article to put in the presidential seal in 2015, the shield had been used for the entire history of the page, and the shield is used for every other university-related article. You are the only person who has ever edited this page to put in the presidential seal, and it appears that you've fought many wars over it. I'm not seeing community consensus. Obviously the university uses their main symbol on marketing materials, as do the vast majority of universities. If the community consensus is that UChicago should use the seal (which, as I said, I'm extremely skeptical of), it seems like a case for changing that consensus given that Chicago is a case analogous to Harvard. The Ivy League is just an athletic conference. Note that the presidential seal is not the seal of the university in any case - the university seal is. You won't like that because it literally is just for marketing - but if seal purism is what you're after, the presidential seal is only the seal of the president, not the university. There really isn't a replacement for the shield. --Accuratelogosplease (talk) 8:56, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Stop putting words in my mouth and I'll stop asking if you can read me. Putting words in my mouth is also very rude. Yes, I edited the article to put the seal because it's the official seal of the university and we are using the official seal in the image parameter of the infobox for almost all American colleges and universities. I edited hundred of articles of colleges and universities and that's a thing I do, I find the seal, the logo/wordmark and put them in the article. The community consensus is that American universities and colleges in *general* should be using the seal in the image parameter, with an exception made for the Ivy League (last time I checked). Let me be clear, I'm not against changing the consensus. If you have a good reason I'm perfectly willing to go with it, but the side breaking the consensus as the burden of the argument. I know that the Ivy League is an athletic conference don't ask me why an exception is made for them in particular regarding the image parameter, I have no idea. This consensus is older than my first edit on Wikipedia. The presidential seal is official the seal of the university, don't be fooled by the name. Finally the shield is already in the infobox, in the logo parameter. --RaphaelQS (talk) 07:49, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

You've been asked for a source for the consensus repeatedly and still haven't found one. You also haven't provided a source for the presidential seal being the seal of the university (you won't find one because it's false, hence why the university refers to the presidential seal as a former university seal). I've submitted this for a third opinion, but unless you can provide an actual argument, I see no reason to keep the presidential seal on the page. Given that you have no objection to changing the "consensus" (which may or may not exist) and all of the editors here as well as those on all of the other pages affiliated with the university seem to be in favor of doing so, it appears that we have established consensus.--Accuratelogosplease (talk) 15:18, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

I've been watching this unfold but haven't said anything thus far. The 3O linked to the University Communication page. That page lists the correct logo, and should be followed thus far. This shouldn't be a question. The shield is a "primary identifier" according to the university. That should be what we go by. Etzedek24 ^{(Would it kill ya to leave an edit summary?)} 05:09, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

• Comment – next revert will be taken to the Administrators. Please discuss and quit reverting. Corky 18:38, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

I'm not seeing a real argument here. The university considers it its official insignia[4], it appears on all kinds of paraphernalia and[5] and is clearly the most obvious outwards-facing symbol of the university aside from the word "CHICAGO" (in a particular slab serif font and all caps) and its particular shade of crimson. Saying we "don't care" about any of it (consensus or not) is like saying we don't care about IBM's logo, so let's just replace it with this [6]. François Robere (talk) 15:42, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago

No indication of notability (no external sources), not sure TTI deserves own article Etzedek24 ^{(Would it kill ya to leave an edit summary?)} 18:59, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Controversies surrounding Bettelheim

This piece is not relevant to the University of Chicago page. Bettelheim was the director of the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School. The school is affiliated with many Chicago area schools including Northwestern's Family Institute and UChicago's School of Social Service Administration. It is not pertinent to have details of Bettelheim's controversies on this page. Ber31 (talk) 03:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Remove this sentence or allow on other similar wiki pages

"It holds top-ten positions in various national and international rankings.[9][10][11][12]"

This sentence is true to me. Several other universities hold top 10 rankings nationally and internationally in prominent rankings, yet this sentence had been removed. The argument was that these schools have top 10 rankings in some rankings, but of course they do not in every ranking. For example, in 4 of the 8 national and international rankings in the ranking textbox UChicago is not in the top 10. Thus, other schools have had to remove this statement. Please comment as to whether you believe this statement is appropriate for various wiki pages ranked similarly to UChicago or it should be removed here as well. This sets a common standard across wikipedia Mikecurry1 (talk) 20:03, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't know about other, pages, I do believe it makes sense here: it's very short and very informative intro for any reader ('oh, I get it' the reader says), and is much better than being overly detailed about this and that ranking. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:36, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

education

i would like to know about tution fee — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.158.20.164 (talk) 06:06, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Fermilab.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:51, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Milton Friedman

In the alumni section of this page, it states that Milton Friedman served as an advisor to Augusto Pinochet. The claim is not referenced, and according to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzgMNLtLJ2k, Friedman himself stated that he was never an advisor to Pinochet. Additionally, the Friedman Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman) does not claim this fact.

Are other wiki-editors in agreement that this should be removed? Thanks. --Maxwell00 (talk) 20:48, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

The University of Chicago is a Private Online University

What vandal keeps getting rid of the online part of the page? As it's locked I am unable to fix this vandalism.

Zimmer and the new provost clearly state:

Robert J. Zimmer and Ka Yee C. Lee president@uchicago.edu via uchicagoedu.onmicrosoft.com Thu, Mar 12, 7:49 AM (17 hours ago) to Members

To: Members of the University Community

From: Robert J. Zimmer, President, and Ka Yee C. Lee, Provost

Subject: Transitioning to Remote Learning for Spring Quarter

Date: March 12, 2020

The University of Chicago is defined, as it has been throughout our history, by a collective commitment to the highest aspirations and standards in research and education and all that this entails. We have a profound sense that our work instantiates the fundamental values and the intellectual life that define a great university. As a community, we now face a significant challenge with the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Over the past month the University and the Medical Center have been closely monitoring and responding to the evolving situation with the coronavirus disease. Our goals have been to protect the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff, to remain committed to our distinctive environment for education, research, and impact, and to be responsible participants in the collective global public health challenge.

Today, we are announcing new steps in service of these goals that the current extraordinary circumstances require. We will be acting collectively to prevent and slow the spread of the virus. We are committed to maintaining University research and daily operations, and ensuring that all students can realize their academic objectives, but we understand that doing so will present new challenges. We extend our appreciation in advance to our faculty, students, staff, and the University community for their collective efforts to fulfil the distinctive mission of the University in today’s deeply challenging environment.

· The University of Chicago is moving to remote learning for undergraduate and graduate classes for the entire Spring Quarter of 2020, beginning on Monday, March 30, the first day of the Spring Quarter. Extensive preparations are in process under the Provost’s leadership, and we will provide detailed guidance over the next week about remote teaching.

...

To make a long story short UChicago is an online university. Please fix the page accordingly, thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.26.18.2 (talk) 05:52, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Ugh— see goforward.uchicago.edu and also please stop it with this. This article

gets enough vandalism without pranks.

PurpleDeskChair (talk) 16:49, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Reporting a user for edit warring

Wanted to let you all know that I've reported Drevolt for edit warring this page. For the past week he has been editing the lead paragraph and undoing others changes. As mentioned in discussions above, he is not acting in good faith and is effectively vandalizing our page. My report and links as evidence are publically accessible. Please let me know if any of you have comments on this. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 20:05, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

User PurpleDeskChair is the subject of an ongoing sockpuppet investigation for several previous accounts that engaged in disruptive editing on the University of Chicago page that were banned several months ago. --Drevolt (talk) 20:41, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I am not interested in getting into a tit for tat battle with a random user. Drevolt claims I am a sockpuppet as retaliation for me reporting his edit warring- I have provided a full explanation under his bad faith report of me as a sockpuppet. There is absolutely no evidence to his claims; he only seeks to delegitimize criticisms of his article vandalism. This is not an isolated incident of Drevolt harassing users for calling out his edit warring. There is a similar battle with his edit warring currently over at UCBerkeley's talk which I am acutely aware of. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 21:26, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

As a courtesy to other contributors, could we discuss complicated or controversial issues on the talk page, not in our edit summaries...

A new contributor recently removed a paragraph on the University's campus police. Their edit summary said the paragraph was in the wrong spot, and used biased references.

I looked at the references, they seemed valid to me.

As for being in the wrong spot, I suggest the correct response was not excision, but moving it to a better spot. Geo Swan (talk) 17:50, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

It seems there is a consensus against you. It was added by a anonymous user with an Op-Ed on criticizing campus police as its only source in the academic rankings section. Wikipedia is for organized and objective information. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 19:00, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

• A consensus? That's great! Where can I see the discussion where this consensus was reached? Geo Swan (talk) 02:40, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

IMPORTANT: Affirming Consensus on Lead Paragraph Wording After Vandalism

Hey all. I hope you all are having a great summer!

This has been a topic before and has dealt with a great deal of vandalism in the past 48 hours. Drevolt and Contributor321 have participated in an edit war to make UChicago 'among the top 15 universities' in the lead paragraph. Several users (including myself) have individually undone their unilateral edits. I am creating this section to reaffirm consensus on calling it top ten. The only source that lists UChicago as beyond top 10 is the USNews global ranking (which is seldom accepted as a legitimate ranking compared to the frequently cited national ranking). I suggest we use the main ranking for each educational publication (e.g. THE University Rankings, QS University Rankings, USNews National University Rankings, etc). Each of these is the most accepted ranking for each source (as evidenced on most news sources and on other Wikipedia articles). This is what is done on other major University lead paragraphs. I realize we cannot editorialize our discussion of rankings, but I do not want contradictory info on the article-- especially when the most widely accepted and primary USNews ranking site puts UChicago in the top ten.

For several years, UChicago's lead paragraph has included us among the top ten: [7] [8]

The first link above is from earlier this year. The second is from 2018. These are two of many which show that up until these recent changes, we have CONTINUOUSLY maintained that UChicago is a 'top ten world university' in the lead paragraph. Check further back if you want more evidence.

My concern is these edits to call us top 15 are being strong armed by the user Drevolt. He has been admonished on several other prestigious university article talks for being unnecessarily negative to universities (and has been accused of violating neutrality). The UCBerkeley article got locked yesterday after Drevolt was caught edit warring: [9]

Here is the talk section of UCBerkeley where he was also called out for bad faith editing: [10]

Here is Drevolt being called out on the Columbia Talk for edit warring on the exact same issue: [11]

Here is Drevolt being called out on the Harvard Talk for, you guessed it, vandalizing the mention of rankings in the lead paragraph: [12]

I have also been alerted to the fact he is doing a similar attack on Stanford's article.

For several years before Drevolt, we have enjoyed a generally peaceful article edit history. I want to put an end to his vandalism of a great University's wiki article.

P.S. Drevolt reported me for being a sockpuppet but that got thrown out by the admins for being frivolous. Drevolt will try to delegitimize any criticisms of their behavior. Ironically, several anonymous IPs have reinstated his edits on UChicago's page.

Please let me know what you think. I welcome a respectful discussion on this matter. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 00:23, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Just simplify it to "among the top" and omit the number. The lede is supposed to be a summary of the details in the body of the article; we don't need to be this pedantically precise in the lede. There is also a nearly identical discussion at Talk:University of California, Berkeley and this appears to be the consensus emerging there and I think the situation there is extremely comparable to the one here. ElKevbo (talk) 00:30, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree. It is impossible to truly quantify. And this instance wouldn't meet weasel words because it all falls within a certain bound of rankings. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 00:32, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

There's consensus being reached on this topic elsewhere. But regardless, personal attacks aren't acceptable on Wikipedia. And I have to say, it's pretty interesting that your personal attacks sound exactly like those of the editor who has had about a dozen accounts blocked for sockpuppet editing on this page. Looking forward to hearing the final decision in the ongoing sockpuppet investigation (which is still open, contrary to what you're trying to claim). --Drevolt (talk) 00:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why you try to delegitimize criticism at every corner. I provided a, widely accepted, edit to this article and you were so offended that someone dare oppose you that you assumed immediately that I am a puppet of another user. A review by admins was completed, and I quote: "Different countries, but theoretically possible there’s been movement over the last few months. Similar UA. I’d say Unlikely, but given that the overlap involves higher education it’s not necessarily impossible. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:09, 2 August 2020 (UTC)" . PurpleDeskChair (talk) 00:39, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Also worth adding that I am not personally attacking you. I did not make a frivolous report of you as a sockpuppet-- you did that. I merely reported you for edit warring and provided several instances of your deviance as evidence. I am the one here trying to make a dialogue. You, conversely, have undone every edit to the lead paragraph that did not conform to your vision-- which is highly inappropriate. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 00:41, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Blocked sock. Drevolt (talk) 21:26, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Would like to join the discussion here as someone who has observed Drevolt’s ridiculous editing activity. I noticed some text on another article that contained evidence of Drevolt’s repeated behaviour of disruptively editing the leads of other articles about US universities, and frequently engaging in edit wars. I have reposted those sources below from that person’s edit. It’s quite absurd that Drevolt is now accusing PurpleDeskChair of sockpuppetry as a means of deflecting his obvious misdoings. - Drevolt edit warring on UC Berkeley: Berkeley Discussion, external link struck due to socking - Drevolt edit warring on University of Chicago (occurred on multiple occassions): external link struck due to socking - Drevolt edit warring on Harvard University: external link struck due to socking - Drevolt edit warring on Columbia University: external link struck due to socking - Drevolt edit warring on Princeton University: external link struck due to socking Molinkulus (talk) 02:06 , 4 August 2020 (UTC) This account has been blocked from editing on Wikipedia as yet another a sockpuppet of WildlyAccurate. --Drevolt (talk) 02:43, 3 August 2020 (UTC) I don’t know that user. I appreciate their comments, but I do not know if they are a sock puppet. With that said, his evidence makes you look just as bad as the user you speak of. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 02:49, 3 August 2020 (UTC) Okay, this is just getting silly at this point. --Drevolt (talk) 02:52, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Just a heads up— I have been cleared from the sock puppet charge Drevolt made of me. Once his report failed, he went to the admins and then asked if they could do something about it outside their policies— which (as true professionals) they refused: [13] PurpleDeskChair (talk) 03:07, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Another update: Drevolt’s request for page protection because of the fact users kept on stopping his edit warring has been denied. They asked Drevolt to use conflict resolution tools such as the talk— which the user has yet to use except as a mouthpiece of delegitimize criticism from other editors. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 04:13, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Geo Swan: a few people have participated in the conversation regarding the lead paragraph above. It seems we generally agree it is hard to quantify where in the rankings UChicago falls— especially when only one (partially accepted) ranking (usnews global, instead of usnews main) lists UChicago outside the top 10. We’ve reached a compromise and other university tabs have done similar. Take a look above and share what you think :) Cheers mate! PurpleDeskChair (talk) 19:21, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Mentions of rankings in lead

This post is regarding WildlyAccurate persistently reverting my edits. As on any other Wikipedia page, mentioning the rankings in the lead is an instance of academic boosterism and is not in line with Wikipedia:College and university article guideline. This would be true even if the rankings mentioned in the lead weren't cherrypicked; however, the sentence about rankings was also in fact cherrypicked, and did not reflect the actual rankings given in the body of the article. WildlyAccurate is a new editor, so I have not made any accusations of bad faith and have tried to explain the relevant editing standards in place regarding WP:NPOV. I have also asked WildlyAccurate to discuss this on the talk page rather than simply reverting the edit, but with no luck. Hopefully we can have a productive discussion here instead of further edit warring. --Drevolt (talk) 21:32, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Blocked sockpuppet. Drevolt (talk) 00:35, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hi Drevolt, Please see my comments on the most recent edit. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope to settle this issue in a more civil manner as opposed to constantly reverting each other's edits. --WildlyAccurate —Preceding undated comment added 16:53, 17 May 2020 (UTC) You just returned from being blocked for edit warring and you immediately begin edit warring again...? ElKevbo (talk) 17:46, 17 May 2020 (UTC) Hi ElKevbo, Drevolt has a history of going onto the Wikipedia pages of multiple universities and deleting from them because they violate his perception of academic boosterism or phrase sentences in ways that he absurdly disagrees with. Every time he has done this, he is met by backlash from other editors on said pages, causing Drevolt to engage in edit wars with them on multiple instances. Just to reference a few examples, take a look at the drama that Drevolt has caused on: Harvard University: Revision history, Yale University: Revision history, Princeton University: Revision history. These are just a few of the MANY instances. I firmly believe this user should be blocked. He is contributing no value to Wikipedia. All he seems to be doing is incorrectly interpreting Wikipedia guidelines and using those misinterpretations to edit pages in ways that nobody agrees with but himself. @Number 57, you blocked myself and Drevolt the other day so I think it would be appropriate to involve you in this matter. WildlyAccurate (talk) 18:16, 17 May 2020 (UTC) You're both edit warring so you should both be blocked until you agree to stop. ElKevbo (talk) 18:50, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Lead wording

WildlyAccurate has introduced the following wording to the lead: "The University of Chicago consistently ranks among the world's top universities in major education publications." While policy already dictates that this kind of wording shouldn't be used in the lead (see WP:BOOST and Wikipedia:College and university article guideline), WildlyAccurate has refused to back down, so I'm making this post to seek some consensus. If there's not much discussion, I might also try to get a third opinion or start an RfC on this page about the topic. There are several problems with this wording:

1. Saying that it "ranks among the world's top universities" constitutes weasel wording. "Among the world's top" is an ill-defined phrase. Is it supposed to refer to the top five in the world? The top 20? The top 100? The important thing to consider about a statement like this is verifiability, and the claim that the university "ranks among the world's top universities" is not verifiable.

2. Even if the wording was changed to say "The University of Chicago is ranked #A by X, #B by Y, and #C by Z, the only way to ensure WP:NPOV is to list all major rankings in the lead. While having a complete list in the lead would avoid POV issues, most editors rightly think that this is also both impractical and an eyesore. The general consensus on this one seems to be that the rankings in the rankings section already speak for themselves, so the most reasonable way of handling this to me seems to just be keeping the rankings section clear, complete, easy to access, and regularly updated.

Any thoughts on this? --Drevolt (talk) 04:14, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

First, you should stop talking about WP:BOOST and Wikipedia:College and university article guideline as WP:policies or guidelines. As noted in the box on top of those pages they are not, they are WP:Essays and therefore they "have no official status, and do not speak for the Wikipedia community". As for the rest, I understand there is some issue, which you have been involved in across multiple articles, about rankings in leads of university articles. Rankings are placed in leads in order to distinguish the university at issue from the others. Distinguishing serves encyclopedic purpose and is what a lead in an article is for. (Leads give context, explain why the topic is notable, and stand on there own as overview.) Summarizing reliable sources also serves encyclopedic purpose, and that's what Wikipedia does. That said, I am not wedded to rankings for this article, as seen in my attempt to compromise your edit warring with WildlyAccurate by offering alternative ways to distinguish by summarizing other sources: [14] Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:26, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the reasonable reply Alanscottwalker, sorry for the delay in getting back to you about it. There's ongoing discussion in trying to find a better general consensus for academic articles in general, but in the meantime, I definitely think that something like your previous edit is far more compatible with NPOV than the alternative (which, by the way, I think that mentions of WP:BOOST and the college and university article guideline really help with enforcing, even if they're not axioms of Wikipedia in the same way that NPOV is). Let's try to work out an alternative wording that might serve as a good compromise without either reducing the article's quality or threatening NPOV. If something doesn't immediately come together, maybe we could try running an RfC on a few different options. --Drevolt (talk) 03:41, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Blocked sockpuppet. Drevolt (talk) 00:35, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I completely disagree with Drevolt's stance here. He seems to be biased towards removing any mention of rankings or prestige from the leads of any university article that he comes across. He has engaged in disagreements with editors in this regard on the articles for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, MIT, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins,... I could go on and on--the list is quite extensive. As Alanscottwalker pointed out, Drevolt is citing Wikipedia essays, not guidelines, despite trying to enforce them as the latter. I don't think it is at all necessary to try to find alternative wordings for the lead here because we have seen this same kind of rhetoric used in the leads of multiple other academic institutions (up until, of course, Drevolt went on a calculated spree of deleting mentions of ranking or prestige from the leads of multiple articles. Thus, due to his clear history of nonsensical rhetoric, I don't think Drevolt should have any input in this regard. --WildlyAccurate (talk) 14:03, 30 May 2020 (UTC) Commenting and discussion is open at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education#Request for Comment about descriptions of reputation in the ledes of articles about colleges and universities -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:12, 30 May 2020 (UTC) WildlyAccurate, the ad hominem attacks aren't constructive and they aren't appreciated. This has been an ongoing issue on Wikipedia for a while now, and as you probably already realize, reporting only some of the facts or using vague words like "top" risks violating WP:NPOV, which is a guideline and which is what the two aforementioned essays are meant to help enforce. Getting indignant and trying to imply that I'm somehow vandalizing Wikipedia by enforcing policy doesn't make your case any more convincing. If you're going to use Wikipedia, you're expected to assume good faith, so I suggest that you change your attitude. --Drevolt (talk) 19:29, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Enrollment data in lead

Drevolt: To be honest, I don't see the need for having any enrollment data on the lead paragraph. Especially because the bio tab right next to it has the exact same info-- and not far away at all. I am going to omit this. If there is a consensus growing around having enrollment data in the lead, I of course will support that move-- I just see it as redundant. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 01:22, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Inclusion of enrollment data in the lead is relatively common, e.g. University of California, Berkeley. And important information is typically included in both the lead itself and the infobox, as is currently the case for its location, the year it was established, its status as a private university, etc. --Drevolt (talk) 01:47, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Blocked sockpuppet. Drevolt (talk) 02:10, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The vast majority of university articles don’t contain enrolment data in the lead. As PurpleDeskChair points out, the information is superfluous. Too many numbers in the lead can be distracting, and this is certainly the case here, so I don’t think it should be included. It seems that, based on Drevolt’s editing history, he has frequently engaged in edit wars and arguments revolving around lead content on university articles and has argued for unpopular changes such as this, so I think this should be taken into careful consideration as we come to a decision here. —Sixon (talk) 01:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed: That information is included in the infobox is never a reason to remove that information from the article. The infobox is intended to summarize the most important information about a subject and if the body of the article is complete then the lede will also summarize the most important information about the subject. Moreover, the enrollment of a college or university is one of the most fundamental and important details that can be provided about the institution. If the information is not included in the lede of other articles then those articles need to be improved. ElKevbo (talk) 01:56, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Worth being forward in noting Drevolt has a detailed history editing the lead of UC Berkeley. But I don't see the relevance. Most universities don't have it-- see Duke, Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Yale, Northwestern, etc. I don't see it adding anything-- especially when the enrollment info is literally on the same page and VERY VISIBLE ALREADY. PurpleDeskChair (talk) 02:19, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

So you're saying that because I've edited the UC Berkeley article, I was therefore the one who put the enrollment data in the lead of that article? That seems like a pretty dubious argument. And as ElKevbo said, if it's missing from the lead of another page, please feel free to put it in the lead; it definitely belongs there. --Drevolt (talk) 02:23, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

NihilisticBoomer has begun an edit war to remove this information from the lede; his or her most recent edit summary stated: "Good practice is to ensure continuity among university article leads; if you think a general quality of a university is so important in the lead of one university article, make an effort to include it in other university articles first before persistently trying to keep it in the lead of this one single university article." First, that argument - "you must edit thousands of other articles before you can include this information in this article" - is a foolish one that is clearly impractical and out of line with how Wikipedia works. Second, it's laughable that someone would not think that the number of students enrolled in a university is not essential information; formal education, particularly of matriculated students, is one of the primary purposes of a university so of course it's highly relevant for readers to know approximately how many students are enrolled. ElKevbo (talk) 06:48, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Reference about mass mailings

Hello,

I am a new editor and apologise in advance for any errors in the due process.

User:Filetime and I are having a dispute regarding the utility of a reference that I find anecdotal, inappropriate in its placement in the page, and not providing a quantifiable causation between mass mailings and admissions rate. It is this article and it does not present an objective, causal viewpoint regarding the decreasing admissions rate.

The reference pertains to the line "Admissions to the University of Chicago has become highly selective over the past two decades, reflecting changes in the application process, school popularity, and marketing strategy.[166][167][168] Between 1996 and 2020, the acceptance rate of the College fell from 71% to 6.2%.[169][170]" in section "Student Body and Admissions"

I have tried to discuss with Filetime on his Talk page, but he hasn't responded. The only communication I have had with him is an Edit War warning he published on my page.

I am happy to concede if this is just minutia, but the article seems subjectively charged without proving that 1) mass mailing is occurring and 2) that mass mailings have had a material effect on admissions, which is predicated in the line "reflecting changes in... marketing strategy"

Thank you for your time and energy in reading this, and I hope we can resolve this minor dispute.

Audipod (talk) 17:01, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Editing: upon further investigation, User:Filetime has a history of using unreliable sources in his page edits for other articles. See his Talk page.

@Audipod: Thanks for pointing out a single section regarding an article on Stephen Hopkins. Given that you are a new editor, I suggest you check out WP:I. This page will lead you through the basic information on editing and hopefully help with your next 20 edits. Hope this helps! Filetime (talk) 19:20, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

@Filetime: Hey Filetime, thanks for finally responding. You have not addressed any of my substantive addressed earlier; instead, you have accused me of violating Wikipedia policy, "It is against Wikipedia's policies to revert content that another user has reverted" yet you have been reverting my reversions regarding the aforementioned article. Furthermore, you haven't justified any of your edits or reversions, and deferred any communication. My only strife is with your selection of an unreliable source. I have been open to communication throughout this whole ordeal. Thanks for the helpful link, however.

Audipod (talk) 20:29, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

References

wp:NOTMEMORIAL

Because wp:NOTMEMORIAL was mentioned in the editing of this article as it pertains to students who have been killed, here is the policy and link for reference:

Memorials. Subjects of encyclopedia articles must satisfy Wikipedia's notability requirements. Wikipedia is not the place to memorialize deceased friends, relatives, acquaintances, or others who do not meet such requirements.

As you can see, this policy focuses on the notability of the deceased to avoid the creation of a memorial article for a person (ie, creating a Shaoxiong Zheng article); it does not mean that on Wikipedia we avoid mentioning people who have died. Given that three students were killed in separate incidents and that current students organized a protest on campus, it is hard to say that this information is not relevant to this article. In an article of this size, 2-3 sentences on this topic do not constitute undue weight. As always, a reliable source is necessary for every fact. (Heroeswithmetaphors) talk 17:07, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

No it's not due, we don't give statistics year to year. This is an encyclopedia article not news nor memorial. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:38, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Probably Mention about John Rockefeller in the Intro?

John D. Rockefeller had contributed a lot to the university. He was the de facto founding sponsor of the university. Unliked other founding sponsors of universities (such as JHU, CMU, and Stanford), John D. Rockefeller did not even have a mention in the University of Chicago's introduction. Probably considering mention something about his generous donation and contribution to the university? He really made this university great and well-known. Please consider doing this. If he hadn't sponsored the university at the time, the University of Chicago might not have been as world-famous as it is now and has created so many cutting-edge academic achievements. Cfls (talk) 00:09, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Point taken, but there is a difference: JHU is short for Johns Hopkins University, CMU is short for Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford is named after, well, Leland Stanford. UChicago is not short for Rockefeller University which is in fact a completely separate institution. It may not have been at the time of your post, but Rockefeller is now listed as "Founder" in the infobox and as a major benefactor under Early Years. I think that is sufficient. — SoloBear 23:08, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree. We simply can't include everything in the lede. In my experience, we do commonly include a sentence or two in the lede if that explains how an institution is named e.g., the founder, the prominent geographic feature or location.

I would be open to a compromise if you can propose one, Cfls. Maybe adding a sentence or two summarizing its history? ElKevbo (talk) 23:35, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Move/Change article title to "The University of Chicago"?

It's called "The University of Chicago". Any objections or is there something I don't understand about the name? Alexysun (talk) 05:56, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

This is the relevant Wikipedia guideline. It even includes "University of Chicago" as a specific example in the "Universities" subsection of the "When definite and indefinite articles should be avoided". You are, of course, welcome to ask if consensus has changed and provide arguments to changing it. ElKevbo (talk) 12:12, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Police

considering that the page University of Chicago Police Department redirects here it would be hepful to add some mention at least this article Michael H (talk) 14:07, 2 August 2023 (UTC)