Talk:Michigan State University

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December 2005 January 2006 – November 2006 December 2006 – February 2008

Introduction Issues

The following statement: [ It is considered to be one of America's Public Ivy universities, which recognizes top public research universities in the United States.] has no business in an encyclopedia article. First of all, "it is considered" doesn't mean anything. Second of all, Michigan State is not on par with schools like Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, UCLA, Berkeley, Washington...sorry MSU, you're just not that. I realize some guy wrote a book where he included half the public schools in the country on this list, but it doesn't belong here. MSU is a great school, but the introduction sounds like it was written by the university's PR department and it cherry picks from all available "rankings" of MSU. I nominate that sentence for removal and the paragraph for a bit of "neutralization."Tjm402 (talk) 17:30, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I completely disagree and VOTE AGAINST Tjm402’s proposal and that the statement that MSU is recognized as a Public Ivy should REMAIN. Your claim the statement is non-neutral and, somehow, booster-ism is totally specious given the fact that the statement is fully attributed and footnoted. Fact is, whether you with the Greene Brother’s several-years-old Green Guide, it is a mass-market book and widely recognized by academics and the public alike as singling out the top flagship state universities of America – MSU happens to be among them. Just because you don’t like the Greenes’ conclusion, doesn’t mean we should kneel to your wishes and take it out. Fact is, a number of colleges use the “Public Ivy” reference, and some don’t even bother to attribute it as the Michigan State article did. Your comment that MSU “isn’t that” in reference to schools, you believe, are a league above MSU reveals (to me, at least) you have an anti-MSU agenda and not some desire for objectivity in the article.69.249.236.166 (talk) 03:55, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

To whomever writes above from IP 69.249.236.166: First of all, I have no "anti-MSU" agenda. I have been researching graduate schools, and the introduction that I discuss above struck me as I described it - sounding like it was written by MSU public relations folks or something - and not as objective and encyclopedic. I expressed my voice, as is done here often, and don't expect anyone to "kneel to my wishes." I just find it kinda ridiculous that half the public schools in America with any kind of notoriety are now labeled "public ivies." While my "anti-MSU" agenda exists only in your head, it is clear that you have a pro-MSU agenda and are either a student or alumni. When these articles are written by students and alumni of the school in question, they often lack objectivity and aren't helpful to people trying to do comparative research. All I'm saying is that the introduction sounds subjective and not befitting a reference text, and I reiterate my assertion that [ it is considered to be one of America's Public Ivy Universities ] is a meaningless statement. If you want to say "The Greene Brothers guide regards MSU as one of America's Public Ivies," then you might have an argument as to the validity of the statement's inclusion but it won't change my claim that the tone in parts of the article is fundamentally biased and clearly written by affiliates. You can cite and attribute all you want, but if you cherry-pick your references that doesn't make something objective and neutral. And if you want to think that MSU carries the same weight in academic circles as Virginia or Michigan or Wisconsin or Berkeley - well you are entitled to do so but those rankings you seem to esteem so highly when you're cherry picking them in your favor would disagree with you there. But that is beside the point. Tjm402 (talk) 22:31, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Alumni cleanup

1. why is MSU the only college that requires a reference link for each alumnus? It is easy for anyone to check out the authenticity of each alumnus (or would be alumnus) listed. All this does is cut down on the number of famous alumni listed for MSU; way below what it should be and makes MSU look bad. Whoever came up with this idea (lovelac7 ?) it’s just plain goofy. 2. Athlete-alumni, on the other hand, are WAY over represented. Why, for example, should Eric Snow, who’s a career NBA back-bencher with several teams, be listed and famous people like Gloria Santona (McDonald’s general counsel), Scot Bales (AZ supreme court justice) or Charles E. St. John (famous early 20th Century physicist) not be listed!

Let’s get our priorities straight, people! … lovelac7… 69.249.236.166 (talk) 08:06, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

3.Another question - who is this extra in the movie mentioned in the middle of a bunch of famous people? nathan hall was an extra in a movie? why is this in the article? 212.12.146.156 (talk) 15:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Good catch on #3. Appears to be a vanity edit where editors add themselves or their friends. I have removed the movie extra as not notable. Alanraywiki (talk) 16:01, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

As for #1, I think a mix of both would be good, because it makes the page visibly appealing with an organized reference list on Wikipedia, but the page certainly requires mention of other Wikipedia page-less alumni. Sucherju (talk) 15:58, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Merge proposal

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

I propose to merge Associated Students of Michigan State University, which is the MSU student government, into the Student Life section of this article. Once the unsourced facts and original research are removed, there will not be enough to sustain an article. Therefore, I propose that the remaining information is merged into this article.--RedShiftPA (talk) 23:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

• Support. As a former vice-chairperson in ASMSU, I was proud to write this article. Four years later, the article has gone nowhere. I've looked around for independet (non-MSU) sources for the ASMSU article, and so far I've found nothing. Though it saddens me personally, ASMSU is just not notable enough for Wikipedia. Therefore, I wholeheartedly support a merger into the main MSU article. I also think we ought to delete/merge/redirect most other student government articles, as well. Lovelac7 01:46, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

• Merge Complete I incorporated as much as I thought I could from the original article into the ASMSU section here. I brought the logo, links, and refs. I think this works much better than separate articles.--RedShiftPA (talk) 17:15, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

• Note: the old version of ASMSU article had a lot of good WP:OR that may be useful to members of the ASMSU community for historical purposes, even though it is not appropriate for wikipedia. You can find it here: [1]

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.

Cleanup suggestions

From an outsiders standpoint this article is becoming very long, I suggest the following changes:

1) Remove the three sections on football, basketball, and hockey and replace them with links to separate pages under the "athletics" heading.

2) Remove the list of "famous alumni" and replace it with a link to a list.

3) Remove the 19/20/21st century famous people and merge it with #3

4) Remove the years MSU won titles from the introduction, most people want basic information (name, location, program, brief history) in the introduction not a sports resume.

5) Update the endowment link, seems to be a few years old.

24.233.142.246 (talk) 06:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Hannah statue.jpg

The image Image:Hannah statue.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check

• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
• That this article is linked to from the image description page.

This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --10:39, 14 September 2008 (UTC)i love the sports i also love zach randolph

question

Which spartan appears in this photo:

File:Fb illinois02.jpg

reply on my talk page please - -The Spooky One (talk to me) 22:51, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Judging from [2] and [3], I'd say it's Javon Ringer. Kevin Forsyth (talk) 20:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Mugabe Stripped of MSU degree: Citation

I assume that a local television report confirms it, but here (http://www.wilx.com/home/headlines/28302079.html) confirms that on September 12, 2008 Mugabe was stripped of his honorary degree for human rights abuses. Mizunori (talk) 19:23, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the link, I have added a ref. Kevin Forsyth (talk) 20:44, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Organization and administration section

I note that this article doesn't appear to have any section dedicated to describing the organization and administration of the university. Per WP:UNIGUIDE, might we devote some space for the structure of the administration, current leadership, budget, relationship with a board of trustees, formal affiliations or relationships with other universities in Michigan, student and faculty government, endowment information, academic divisions of the college/university, membership in major consortium or other inter-university organizations, etc.? Some of this information appears to be haphazardly spread through sections like history, academics, and colleges. Madcoverboy (talk) 14:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

MSU's Endowment

The NACUBO list Michigan State Universty(#52) and Michigan State University Foundation(#169) in their rankings I'm not making this number up out of thin air. More over even in MSU's own budget documents they combine the two go to page 108 Endowment Assets at Market Value http://dev.opb.msu.edu/msuinfo/documents/dataDigest.pdf St8fan (talk) 18:33, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

My concern is that NACUBO doesn't add the two values together so I'm very leery of Wikipedia editors doing so. Endowments are much more complicated than many people realize and that's why we generally rely on the experts at NACUBO to do the hard work, heavy lifting, and original research. ElKevbo (talk) 18:43, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but MSU's Office of Planning and Budgets does and if anyone is informed about the schools endowment they are, if MSU sees them as one I'm inclined to use the MSU's own numbers.St8fan (talk) 20:23, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Work needed

Hello everyone! This article currently appears near the top of the cleanup listing for featured articles, with six cleanup tags. Cleanup work needs to be completed on this article, or a featured article review may be in order. Please contact me on my talk page if you have any questions. Thank you! Dana boomer (talk) 17:51, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Michigan state museum

Any editors of this article near MSU? I am looking for a photo of a fossil in the MSU museum. Contact via user talk and I will coordinate. Thanks! Go Spartans!TCO (talk) 21:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)