Talk:University of Southern Mississippi

Probation and controversy

Whoever keeps deleting this information is making a mistake. The information kept in this paragraph represents a fair representation of the events of the President Shelby Thames' controversy that everyone should know. If there is a problem with the facts, correct them. But to delete the whole paragraph is an abuse.

I have moved the information from a separate header into the history header under Thames' bio. That should solve the problem.

Because the information is a small paragraph, and does in fact represent significant factual events at the university, they well belong in this article and not a separate Thames one. Remember, we only present and correct the facts, not hide them. And dont forget to link to archived articles anything that you paraphrase.

Move page?

Anyone have an objection if I move the page to University of Southern Mississippi (i.e., remove the "The")?Jarfingle 04:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

It was my understanding that titles shouldn't start with "the," so I support the change. Cpastern 17:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

However, the word 'The' is both included and capitalized within the official name of the university.

See: http://www.usm.edu/pr/graphstandards/brand.html NKirby 19:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup / Thames Controversy

Apparently someone injected a large amount of pro-Shelby Thames material into this article in all capital letters. I have cleaned up this material generally, and fixed the capitalization. I have tried to preserve most of the significant positive points about Thames, as they deserve to be heard. But the pro-Thames contingent does itself no favors by inserting hastily written capitalized propaganda. All that does is to reflect poorly on the University as a whole.

I also added a brief "overview" section at the top of the article, that tries to give a general summary of the nature of the institution and its recent history.

I thought about adding some discussion of the U.S. News and World Report "tier drop" issue. As it stands now, there is a brief mention of this. My personal opinion is that the rankings are pretty subjective... their formula considers it a negative if a college flunks out a higher proportion of entering students, which seems counterintuitive. Doesn't a better college demand more of its students, and thus assign more of them failing marks? And was USM really that much better in 2003 (when it was "tier 3") than in 2004, when it was a "tier 4" school? Nevertheless, the "tier drop" was demoralizing and highly-publicized at USM, so I feel there is no choice but to mention it.

I don't fall 100% on either side of the Thames debate, but I do feel very strongly that Wikipedia IS NOT the proper venue to argue the issue.

Here's a thought: I think the majority of the information regarding the Thames controversy under Recent Developments should move to a new page under Shelby F. Thames. There is too much information in that section. Instead, make it a nice summarized paragraph and move the details to Dr. Thames' biography page.

Citations

I really want to nominate this article as a featured article, however I think this article really needs more sources. It's a really good article, but there needs to be some non-OR content. Discussion? /Blaxthos 01:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I would actually suggest that the article be flagged with {{Unreferenced}}. In just the Recent Developments section the Hattiesburg American is mentioned four times, but there's no specific articles cited.--71.226.79.33 03:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism

It appears the entire History section was copied and pasted from the USM website (http://www.usm.edu/about/history.html). Do we have permission to use that text? Otherwise it should be removed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.226.79.33 (talk) 21:59, 22 December 2006 (UTC).

Motto

Is "Freeing the Power of the Individual" really the USM motto or just the current marketing slogan? Doing a quick search of the website shows that PR uses the term motto loosely. On 10/25/06 they say the motto is "Southern Miss to the Top!" Freeing the Power... gets mentioned on 12/20/05 and in a president letter in Feb 2006. These are the only mentions of a motto besides the athletic slogan "Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime." It seems to me that USM does not have a real motto.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.178.88.200 (talk)

Copyright Violations and the History Section

The History section of this entry was copied and pasted directly from USM's website and violated their copyright. To remedy the situation, I revised and condensed it dramatically. I think it now differs significantly enough from their website so that we are no longer in violation of the copyright. Please feel free to alter the text as you see fit. I've also removed the copypaste warning that had been placed on the page. Furthermore, it is possible that other portions of this entry were taken directly from website. I'll try to make sure we are free of any other violations over the next few days. Regards, AlphaEta 06:59, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Good job... this has been bothering me for a while now, but I haven't had time to dedicate to cleaning it up. Glad someone else has stepped up to the plate. /Blaxthos 13:57, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Photographs

I just noticed the request for photographs for the USM article. I'll see if I can snap some pictures and integrate them tomorrow or over this weekend. /Blaxthos 13:53, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Name

My edit summary cut off an important point, naming conventions stress the COMMON names. Commonly the school is not called "The." A long dramafest occurred over the span of a YEAR at Talk:Ohio State University, and it has finally cooled to "no The." Do we have to REALLY get into that, again? Mike H. Celebrating three years of being hotter than Paris 05:51, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Instead of going for rhetoric, let's look at the applicable guideline:

A definite article should be applied only if "The" is used in running text throughout university materials and if that usage has caught on elsewhere.

— Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name)

From their history page (emphasis added):

• "Founded by Legislative Act on March 30, 1910, The University of Southern Mississippi was the state’s first state-supported teacher training school."
• "To that end, he reorganized the academic programs into colleges and schools, and on February 27, 1962, Gov. Ross Barnett signed the bill that made Mississippi Southern College a university: The University of Southern Mississippi."
• Student Thesis

External usage:

• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ([link): "The University of Southern Mississippi redesigned World Literature, a required general education course that enrolled 1000 students each term, in order to eliminate course drift and inconsistent learning experiences."
• E-Academy (link)

The name is defined with the article "The" by state statute. Seems pretty clear to me... I'll be glad to take photographs of a University degree, university catalogue, or whatever else you need to verify this information. Unless, of course, you are telling us to ignore our own rules. /Blaxthos 00:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Update - upon emailing the President of The University of Southern Mississippi I was contacted by several officials who explained that the proper title, as indicated by all University guidelines, is The University of Southern Mississippi. They also provided this guide and cited the official title of the official University website and University bulletins as examples. Given the overwhelming evidence I'm going to effect the change and add this specific circumstance as an acceptable example in the guideline. /Blaxthos 20:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The University of Southern Mississippi → University of Southern Mississippi

Per WP:NCD#Universities at "When definite and indefinite articles should be avoided" (cf. George Washington University, Ohio State University which also use the article on official documents). Moved to current title without consensus — see above.

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support as nominator. — AjaxSmack 23:04, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

• Strongly Object (see Discussion below). /Blaxthos 23:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. —Disavian (^talk/_contribs) 12:54, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. The exact text of WP:THE#Universities says "When in doubt, do not use the definite article for universities. A definite article should be applied only if "The" is used in running text throughout university materials and if that usage has caught on elsewhere" (bold text not mine), and "Finally, if common usage has overwhelmingly rejected the "The", then it should be omitted regardless of university usage." Searching through both Google News[1] and Google Scholar[2], the majority of references either omit the definite article, or do not capitalize it. Ergo, I'd say drop it for this WP article.--DeLarge 13:44, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
• Support. In my opinion, if the official name of the university included "The," it could be argued that I attended TUSM. Just doesn't seem right. AlphaEta ^{T / C} 15:58, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

• Comment - just below the first section of the policy you quoted specifically gives the circumstances necessary to include the prepended article. Evidence:
  • WP:THE - some universities religiously refer to themselves as "... The University of X..." even in running text. If such usage is prevalent on university press releases and press kits, contact information, "about" pages, and internal department websites, and it is reasonably common in external sources
  • Legal Name - The name is defined with the article "The" by state statute.
  • University History page
  • Official University PR Guide
  • Student Thesis
  • Center for Informal Learning & Schools
  • Meridian Community College
  • The University of Southern Mississippi Website
  • Email addressing nomenclature from The University of Southern Mississippi
  • Graduate & Undergraduate Bulletins

  It is noted that several sites on the internet do not properly reflect the name preferred by the institution itself (because most universities do not prepend "The" as part of their institutional identity -- it's usually not defined that way in the law creating the university). Wikipedia should pride itself in being factually accurate -- I'll be glad to provide additional evidence if needed, but I really think that the requirements of the guideline have been satisfied. /Blaxthos 23:25, 24 October 2007 (UTC)