This is an archive of past discussions about Cornell University. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I think that this page needs the following pictures:
-Picture of Cornell (Ithaca) campus during the summer (Picture would be more appealing than the winter one we have now, as dead trees and lack of sunlight don't really capture the true spirit of Cornell).
-Picture of the New York City campus, any type will do
Tomorrow I finish with final exams and, as one of my plans to unwind, I will go around campus in the next few days shooting photos with a nice camera from the libraries. If there was a specific list of things that should have pictures on the Cornell page, I would be much obblieged to shoot them.--Xtreambar19:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
If you could get a picture of the arts and sciences quad when its sunny that would be really nice. Also, we really need a color picture of Sage Hall, more pictures of the residential buildings, excluding Risely, some pictures of the fraternities and if possible some pictures inside the law school. Thanks for offering to take the pictures, it will really improve the page!!--Cornell010 22:43, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh yeah, definitely of the residence halls to improve all those new pages. We also need pictures for the art museum, arts quad, Olin and Uris libraries, athlethics other than Schoellkopf (Hoy, Newman, Lynah, Barton), Dairy Bar... -Mercuryboard23:46, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
My rough list is C-Town, Law School (inside and out, view from the top of the tower, if it is open), Engineering Quad, Ho Plaza, Sage College (Inside + Out), Sage Chapel (Inside + Out), Willard Straight, West Campus Gothics, Cook + Becker, Arts Quad, Uris Library, Olin Library, Goldwin Smith, Johnson Art Museum, The Gorge, Clara Dickson, Mews/Court, Ag Quad, Dairy Barn, Lynah (is it open right now?), ILR Buildings (Old and New), Barton, Hotel School. Any other ideas? --Xtreambar23:52, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Oh well, the weather was crappy today and Cornell was particuarlly un-photogenic. I still have a day and a half here in Ithaca this (school) year. Hopefully tomorrow the weather will be more agreeable. --Xtreambar21:24, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there anyway we could try and get permission from Cornell University to use their pictures on this website.--Cornell010 23:28, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I just got permission from the photographer to use any of the images in this album. Lots of aerial photos of campus. Let me know if any of these would suit our purposes or maybe could be cropped down to show a particular building. -Mercuryboard22:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I really like that aerial picture of McGraw Tower and Sage Chapel, that one is really nice (The close up version)
I just made one of your friend's pictures a bit brighter, I hope that's alright. --Cornell010 04:15, 19 May 2006 (UTC) File:Cornellphoto11.jpg
Hey, Xtreambar, I was wondering if you had the chance to ever take pictures. Because, if we manage to get pictures of those listed places, then the cornell pages will really improve.
Unfortunately no. The weather was absolutely terrible in the three days I had after exams were over and before I left for the summer. I really was looking forward to taking pictures. I will have to delay until August, when I get back. Mea apologia.--Xtreambar19:50, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty confident that the vast, vast majority of people who would search for "Cornell" in wikipedia are looking for Cornell University. JDoorjam17:05, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
That may be true, but I'm sure many people (perhaps even a "vast, vast majority of people") who are not familiar with them would also confuse the two institutions, thinking that Cornell College and Cornell University are related (as Harvard College is the undergraduate division of Harvard University). 24.63.125.22317:42, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I concur. Only once in my many edits have I found a misdirect of "Cornell" to "Cornell University" when the link should have gone to "Cornell College". --Xtreambar17:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Xtreambar, now I'm curious. Do you remember which page linked to Cornell when it should have been Cornell College. Less than 50 pages currently link to Cornell College, so if you don't remember perhaps you can remind yourself by looking at the list (Special:Whatlinkshere/Cornell College). btm04:44, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The number of Wiki users who will come to this page seeking Cornell College is simply far too slight to have a link to Cornell College at the top of the CU page. JDoorjam18:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
You are missing my point. Let me try to explain it another way: the number of Wiki users who visit the Georgetown University page, seeking Georgetown College or the University of Georgetown is probably slight as well. Nonetheless, the clarifications at the top of those articles adds useful information that is relevant to the article, regardless of a user's intended destination. The purpose of an encyclopedia entry is to expand knowledge and such clarifications help in that regard. 24.63.125.22319:09, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with 24.63.125.223, the encyclopedia cannot simply ignore the users who intend on finding Cornell College and instead found Cornell University. Those disambiguation notices can really help new users who still have yet to learn how to effectively navigate Wikipedia. Also, one might take into account the fact that typing Princeton or Stanford into Wikipedia will send users to a disambiguation page, so there is at least a precedent for providing diambiguation even with high name recognition universities. --Moki8020:27, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
The page has a disambiguation notice that reads as follows: "Cornell" redirects here. For the unaffiliated liberal arts college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, see Cornell College. For other uses, see Cornell (disambiguation). So, I don't understand what you are arguing for with respect to a disambiguation notice. In the cases of Princeton and Stanford, they are both located in cities with the same name. Princeton refers to Princeton, New Jersey, as often as it refers to the university. Stanford, California, is named after the university, and in fact I would argue in favor of redirecting Stanford to Stanford University as it had been doing for a very long time until someone changed it on 2005-12-30. btmtalk21:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you, I was trying to disagree with the comment regarding removing the link to Cornell College. sorry if it came off a bit confusing. --Moki8022:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
There's no need to get rid of the redirect Cornell --> Cornell University. The number of things is not really relevant; the point of such a redirect is for the convenience. For example, there are a number of other places in the world named Paris, but given the huge amount of traffic from people wanting Paris, France, redirecting Paris --> Paris, France makes a lot of sense. It may be that the Cornell College/University confusion necessitates an explicit disambiguation link at the top of the CU article. It's important to note though that the situation is not really symmetrical as it may appear to the anon. Many people confuse the college with the university, but very few would confuse the university with the college. So there's a stronger case to be made for having a dab link to CU at the top of the CC article; however, I don't see the harm in having the dab link to CC on the CU article. The way it's phrased right now though is not very good. So I'll change that. --C S (Talk)06:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The only problem I have with the current wording is that it does not clarify the distinction between Cornell College and Cornell University's undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, which unlike Harvard College, Yale College, Columbia College, etc. does not share the name of the university. 24.63.125.22322:40, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, alright, that's easily fixed by saying "not affiliated with the universtiy" which I will do now. I personally don't think this is a real point of confusion once someone notices Cornell College is in a totally different place. --C S (Talk)00:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
As for your premise for the Cornell --> Cornell University redirect, I think it is pretty presumptuous. Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn, and Princeton all lead to disambiguation pages for a simple reason: disambiguation. For the same reason, so should Cornell. This is especially true given the fact that there is another school with the same name. I think it might be beneficial to get other opinions on the matter, perhaps those of people unaffiliated with Cornell University. 24.63.125.22322:40, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I would expect Brown to lead to the color -- and yes, it does. Dartmouth is the name of the town the college is in, and Penn commonly refers to Penn State in addition to UPenn. Princeton, NJ is noteworthy for many reasons, including Princeton University, and of course, Columbia is the name of many places. These situations seem quite different than the one under discussion. The closest one seems to be "Penn". It's arguable which school is called "Penn" more frequently, but I've never actually met anyone unaffiliated with Cornell College that referred to it by saying "Cornell". In my experience, "Cornell" has always meant CU. No one has ever asked me to clarify where I graduated.
While you may think the redirect is "presumptuous", I actually put quite a bit of thought into my previous response. In particular, I read through the CC literature, which seems to be quite aware that people mistake CC for CU. That doesn't mean the situation is symmetrical however. For example, CC itself on the page [1] has as one of the "Fast facts" the menu option "Not in Ithaca" [2]. Reading this page, one finds the author writing:
Cornell College students wear T-shirts with the slogan "Isn't that in Ithaca?" If Cornell University students wore "Isn't that in Mount Vernon?" T-shirts, no one would get the joke.
The rest of the article gives documented events of mix ups where someone confuses CC for CU. No example of CU being mistaken for CC is given. --C S (Talk)00:15, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Hm, I guess to a degree we're talking past each other. I gave an example of a redirect such as Paris and you gave an example (inadvertently) of Brown , which indicates that convenience (and to a degree, notability) is a big part of the criteria for redirecting. You find this all very "presumptuous", and your reason seems to be that in the case of any ambiguity (no matter how little), one should have the main page be a disambiguation page. Well, basically, I don't think this dicussion is going to go anywhere, because in general, many people agree with the criteria espoused by me and others in this talk page. See, for example Wikipedia:Disambiguation. No matter what you think, I'm not supporting this redirect because I'm cheerleading for Cornell, but because from my experience on Wikipedia, I've learned this is the way things are done. If you're really interested in discussing redirects in the context of disambiguation, you should look at that page first and perhaps discuss your concerns there. --C S (Talk)00:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
24.63.125.223, I'm sure you realize redirects are a convenience. A Cornell->Cornell University redirect certainly does not imply that this is the only way in which "Cornell" is used. When there is a commonly accepted understanding of what a term means without further context then the term should redirect to the page for that term. Consider MIT. C S correctly explains why the exampls given are different — Brown being the most obvious. As Nohat said (in an edit summary), these redirects are for navigation, so if another article links to Cornell we want to send the reader who clicks on that link directly to the intended destination, not to the disambiguation page. Redirecting Cornell to the disamiguation page will create work for those involved in Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links even though we know that very nearly all of the pages pointing to Cornell have Cornell University as the intended destination. Those involved in disambiguation would probably realize this and decide to change Cornell to a redirect. btmtalk01:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Someone has changed the redirect notice undoing the changes discussed here. I don't feel particularly strongly about this, and my comments above should show that my changes were more in the spirit of compromise rather than out of sheer necessity. On the other hand, I think given the prior discussion, it should not be changed by some random passer-by but by someone who has knowledge of the prior discussion. So I reverted the change, but feel free to change it and leave a comment explaining why on the talk page. --C S (Talk)03:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
End note numbering
Any idea why the endowment, and every subsequent piece of information with an endnote, has an endnote reference number that's 2 higher than the actual number of the endnote? The endowment is listed as endnote #3 but at the bottom it's #1. JDoorjam17:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that too. I changed the page with a workaround. It's a bug either in the ref template (there's a discussion here: Template_talk:Ref#.7B.7Bref.7D.7D_in_image_caption_messes_up_numbering) or possibly even in the MediaWiki software. Actually, I suspect it's the latter, maybe I'll look into if there's are any related bugs filed for this. The only workaround I know of is to avoid using {{ref}}s outside of the main text (i.e., in infoboxes, image captions, etc.). It may also be necessary to override the automatically generated counter for external links. btm22:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
Picture request
Does anyone have a picture of a good color picture of Sage Hall that they could upload for the Sage Residential College article that I just whipped up? Also, go take a look over there. Now all the former, current, and future residental colleges at Cornell have pages. That was a pet project of mine. Well, not all if you consider "Ujamma Residential College" to really be a residential college. Thought it is in name, I do not believe that it is by the definition of a residential college -- essentially, a residential college needs to be self-sufficient and thus, must have its own dining hall and other like accomedations that set it appart from a traditional dormitory.--Xtreambar17:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
I found an old black and white one that I was planning on uploading to the Wikimedia Commons; can't help on a color version right now. It would be best if we put all of the public domain pictures we are using over to the Commons, so that they can be used by people editing articles in other languages and on other projects.
I think a general housing article would be a good addition (Dartmouth College residential communities is an example), but I'm not sure if that still interests you. I know you've given thought to that in the past and I think it would be the best place to capture the major changes that Cornell has seen in its housing recently. btm22:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
btm has a point, some of the individual dorm articles are merely stubs, it might be a better idea to combine them. I realize that some of the dorms, such as Risley, have very strong identities, but most of the others do not, at least not enough to devote an encyclopedia article to them at this point. --Moki8020:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Cornell University - On-Campus Housing
College Prowler gives Cornell an A- for on-campus housing. If your're interested in going to Cornell, here are some words to the wise from currents students...
“Pray that you get Donlon! It’s not the nicest in terms of quality, but it’s the most social—you’ll meet tons of people and make great friends. I loved living there this year. The new dorms, Court and Mews, are really nice too. Dickson is okay, and Balch isn’t because it’s so quiet.”
“As of last year, all freshmen have been moved to North Campus. The newly erected dorms are the nicest from what I’ve heard (Court and Mews Halls), while some of the older ones (Donlon and the Lowrises) aren’t. Some female students prefer any other dorms to Balch Hall, since it’s single-sex.
Students tend to agree that campus housing for freshmen is much more convenient and enjoyable than on-campus housing for upperclassmen. Mews and Court Halls, two newly erected dorms, are the envy of every freshman, so consider yourself lucky if you end up there. Donlon, although not as nice, is one of the most social dorms, a result of its long stretching hallways. Whether you have a single or a double, you’ll be sure to meet many peers in your suites and hallways. Also, each dorm has its own creature comforts: student lounges, computer stations, kitchens, balconies, and TV rooms. Resident Advisors on each floor coordinate programming and activities with their residents and organize trips to places like the Big Apple and Montreal. Cascadilla, a unique dorm that houses non-freshmen, is located right in the center of Collegetown and is the dorm of choice for those who don’t move off campus or into a fraternity or sorority house.
from College Prowler's college guide, Cornell University - Off the Record —The preceding unsigned comment was added byHla5 (talk • contribs) .
New President
I don't know when the new president of the university starts, but we should change the page to reflect this. If known, I'd appreciate someone updating it! Isoxyl22:09, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Why do we have essentially the first couple decades of Cornell in great detail rather than the entire history of Cornell in brief? The later option seems like the more pertinant information for the main page rather than the separte "History of Cornell" article. --Xtreambar17:47, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Because Wikipedia articles are created by a process of continuous improvement and contributions aren't always apportioned evenly? Dpbsmith(talk)18:30, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I am well aware of that; I was only curious about the writer's logic, because I believe whoever wrote that section also created the "History of Cornell" article which says almost the same thing.--Xtreambar19:07, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I suppose you're looking for a comment from me, as I wrote much of the history stuff. Obviously, the separate article is intended to include more information than the main article would include, with the main article summarizing only the important points of the subarticle.
I think most people would agree that the early history of a place or institution is very important, as it captures some of what is unique about the institution, about the institutional philosophy and reasons for founding, which remain important throughout its history. This is true of Cornell, and it also covers other interesting things such as curriculum, coeducation, funding, the land grant and religion. That's not to say that other parts of Cornell's history are not important; it is. The rest of Cornell's history is a bit sparse right now and there's room for a lot of additions. When the section gets too long and unwieldy, it should be refactored to include the important points. I think that in particular the Willard Straight Hall takeover deserves mention. And, as with any subarticle, the "History of Cornell" article should cover interesting and encyclopedic things, while giving a broader and more complete overview of the subject. It does not yet serve this purpose as well as it could. The main article should cover things that are central to understanding the subject of itself, how and why it came to be and how it has influenced things outside of itself. As with every appropriate article on Wikipedia, we should always be looking for ways to make additions and improvements. btmtalk06:40, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't think anybody is disagreement here over the point that the current history section needs to be cut back to allow space for more recent events, such as the Willard Straight takeover; I also agree that the greater emphasis should be on the earlier history. I think as a start, we could trim out some of the bio info about the founders, e.g. info about White studying at Yale, his dreams and hopes, etc. Anyway, it seems this is a good first task for the to-do list so I'll add it. --C S (Talk)16:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Student Organizations page
Proposal: a separate page (linked to from the student life section) for a list/table of student organizations at Cornell.
Possible format:
Activist Groups
(name/website) (meeting times) (1-line summary / full name)
Performing Groups
(name/webiste) (upcoming events) (summary)
Religious Groups
(name/website) (main meeting times) (other events) (summary)
etc.
This could be a good way of keeping an up-to-date list in one place, but I'm not completely certain it fits the goals of Wikipedia, and I don't see any precedent upon a casual skim of other colleges' pages. Comments?
First of all, it makes me feel hugely nerdy that seeing a 128.253 IP address gets me all nostalgic. I would say that the problem with a separate list is maintenance: there are over 800 clubs and organizations at Cornell. I would say it makes more sense to link to the SAO page which has a search engine for registered student orgs. Cheers, JDoorjamTalk02:01, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I would say I have a disposition against including this kind of material as an article. Primarily, I don't think it's noteworthy or useful outside of a very limited set of people. I don't care too much what happens. --C S (Talk)16:08, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Cornell photos
Does anyone have any good color photos of Willard Straight, Uris Library, the Johnson Art Museum, or Sage Chapel? I have a couple of articles that I would like to write but I do not have any good photos of these buildings. I might take photos of my own once the weather improves, but, as for now, Ithaca is having... Ithaca weather. Thank you in advance!--Xtreambar21:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't have any of those. I could ask some people to take pictures and upload them, but I'm guessing you are in just as good a position (if not better) to ask. --C S (Talk)09:46, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Oops, I wrote that without noticing that a new editor, JVinocur has offered (in a section below) to fill these kinds of requests! S/he has also a nice picture of Sage Chapel below. If you still need those pics, maybe you should drop a line on his/her talk page. --C S (Talk)10:02, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, see Sage Chapel below, and also I have most or all of the rest. You can go ahead and work on the articles, and I'll try to get you pictures. (They're currently locked away in my iPhoto library, which was corrupted by a bad jpeg I tried to import, and I haven't quite figured out how to get it working again without losing all off the categorization I've done.)
I recently began a page devoted to significant buildings on the Cornell campus as this is a topic of great interest to me. Unfortuntely, I have become swamped with work which will consume me for the rest of the semester. Therefore, I want to alert this page (found here: User:Xtreambar/Temporary). If you would like to contribute and then make this an official Wikipedia page, feel free. I am sorry that I do not have time to bring this project into fruition.
Cornell University is a research university in Ithaca, New York offering both undergraduate and graduate study programmes. It was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White as a coeducational, nonsectarian institution. Its annual research budget is..., and it has campuses ... (in this place and that place), as well as international collaborations with the universities of... It consists of 150 departments offering 80 majors and 5000 courses" etc.
I've always thought the idea that university articles ought to begin with just a run of factoids like this strange. Well written articles on other subjects aren't usually written like this. In any case, I'm of the mindset that we should ignore this particular suggestion. I do think the comment that the article ought to be less congratulatory and more sober a good one.
For example, in the current intro, I believe we ought to snip most of the last paragraph and just mention the bit about "transnational university". But I think emphasizing its reason for founding is a far better intro than explaining the size of the research budget and how many departments. I've never cared too much about that stuff, and I really doubt most readers would find it enjoyable reading. --C S (Talk)19:46, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I've done a quick rewrite of the Main Campus section. See here. Aside from discussing the surrounding areas, such as gorges, trails, general scenic stuff, and pictures, what else do you think I ought to add before throwing it onto the mainpage? Comments are useful. --Xtreambar00:06, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad to see that the article no longer includes Cornell's remark that it was "Once called 'the first American university' by educational historian Frederick Rudolph."[3] as I think any such claim is dubious and subjective to say the least. But...
I started a page, First university in the United States, for the purpose of assembling a list of universities have made such a claim and what facts the claim rests on. As the opening of that page makes clear, it's a very silly business because in the U. S. "university" is so poorly defined that there's no objective way to say what is or is not a "real" university.
Well, I think Cornell needed to get added to the list of institutions that "someone has claimed to be the first university in the United States." So I did.
Do any editors of this article happen to have access to Frederick Rudolph's book, and can anyone summarize the facts and arguments he marshals in support of that claim? Dpbsmith(talk)19:56, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
From what I know of Rudolph's book I believe the assertion is not "first university in the United States," but "first American university," in contrast to earlier institutions which mimicked European universities. A shepherd in Germany is not the same as a German shepherd. - choster21:47, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Interesting. Dpbsmith(talk) 00:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC) P. S. So, how is a late-1800s "American university" different from its European counterparts? Serious question, not rhetorical. More emphasis on things like agriculture, "polytechnic"-like subjects, business schools, extension courses, less classics? Dpbsmith(talk)01:17, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but also at least nominally non-sectarian, non-aristocratic, and coeducational. Of course, other universities like Michigan and Rutgers were moving in this direction at the same time, but at their founding they were not. Later universities, like Cal, Chicago or Stanford were organized more like what Cornell was founded as, or what Wisconsin had become, than like Yale or Brown. -choster05:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
I wonder if President Lehman was aware of that comment by Rudolph when Lehman referred to Cornell (with its campus in Qatar) as "the world's first transnational university." JDoorjamTalk01:01, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
JDoorjam, I'm sure Lehman had heard that quote before; in fact, I found an inaugural address of his in Qatar where he juxtaposes the two phrases[4]. Dpbsmith, I don't have access to Rudolph's book "Curriculum", but I did read it a while ago and could tell you what I vaguely remember. A very quick summary: he spent a lot of time discussing the Yale Report of 1828[5], which argued for keeping Greek and Latin at the center of the curriculum in the United States, and efforts at Harvard, Michigan, Cornell and even Yale itself to make the curriculum more useful. However, I think that taking a look at Rudolph's more widely available American College and University: A History will give some his views on the subject. He basically says that the "land grant college movement" changed American higher education after the Civil War and discusses changes at Cornell and, ten years later, Johns Hopkins, as the major drivers for this change. btmtalk00:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Question. I'm sure that the Big Three had Latin and Greek as formal entrance requirements up to the end of 1800s, because that, in fact, was an important part of the "preparation" provided by preparatory schools... and hence they tended to exclude most public school students, which (mostly) did not teach these subjects. Question: did Cornell have Latin and Greek as entrance requirements when it was founded? When did the Big Three drop this requirement? Is a Latin and Greek entrance requirement a marker for "American university" in Rudolph's sense? Dpbsmith(talk)11:34, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I think one of the best sources for this type of information, the book with the original quote we are discussing, seems to be inaccessible to those here. But we can still at least discuss these issues. Cornell, which was blamed in part for the decline of the classics ([6]) did not have Latin or Greek requirements for entrance, but it did teach the classics from the very beginning. I think it's safe to say that Harvard was the first of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton contingent to drop such requirements. Probably significantly earlier than the end of the 1800s, as Harvard's curricular reforms took place under Charles William Eliot.
You ask if the Latin and Greek entrance requirements are a marker for "American University" in Rudolph's sense. In fact it's quite the opposite. These entrance requirements are a marker of how the colonial colleges operated up to and through the Civil War. Rudolph's criteria for the American University match pretty closely with the modern U.S. university. He seems most concerned with the broadening of the curriculum (i.e., parity in teaching of classical and practical studies), but is also interested in other qualities, such as nonsectarianism, coeducation and the goals of changing and questioning the current body of knowledge (rather than basically presenting clerical views). One of Rudolph's main points (writing in the 1960s and 1970s) is that these qualities of American universities caught on in the 1860s and they are actually little changed (although probably much better implemented) in modern-day universities. btmtalk03:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Though I like the idea of being a good article, I do not believe the article fits all of the criteria . It fails on the aspects of compelling prose (see numerous lists and sticcato factoids), stable (I, myself, take a fair amount of credit/blame for this one having recently slashed and rewritten the "Main Campus" and "History" sections). The history section will probably see a major expansion soon as it is still a stub. --Xtreambar17:20, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
References vs. Footnotes
We're using both. We should use only one for all of our references so we don't have two different numbered lists in the references section. It gets confusing. -Mercuryboard04:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm fixing this. Half the in-article to footnote and footnote to in-article links are dead. Inline references ensures numbering is automated and consistent, and that removal of a fact also removes the reference. -Mercuryboard01:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
We have articles for the Waiters, Hangovers, Class Notes, Sherwoods, and (not a capella) Glee Club. We should incorporate some kind of portal page or template to all of these articles. There's currently a template for Cornell A Capella groups, but these articles need to be better linked with our main Cornell "hub"
Moving AAP article...
AAP is the only page that does not match the others in terms of article title. I want to fix this, but I need help deleting this redirect so I can move the article (yes, I will clean up all the other redirects and links too once I'm done) Click here and vote delete -Mercuryboard05:38, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
There is an article Chordials (a co-ed a cappella group at Cornell University). Knowleadgeable editors should look at it. Perhaps a AFD or a redirrect/merge is in order. Jon51322:20, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
"Academics"
This section seems like a hodgepodge of assorted information. If anyone else agrees with me, do you have any ideas about how to streamline or better define what we should be discussing in this section?--Xtreambar16:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Also, what does the acceptance rate have to do with the academics at Cornell? This fact should either be moved to a more appropriate section or removed. Alex Krupp21:26, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Hi Alex, I guess you're not aware that many people see acceptance rate as a kind of measure of quality of academics at a university (see other university articles, for example). I myself am not a fan of using acceptance rate as a yardstick, although I would agree there are some justifiable reasons for including such information. In any case, I don't particularly care one way or another if it's moved, deleted, or whatever. If it's deleted, I expect people will just keep adding it back. --C S (Talk)11:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I've been brooding over this for years. I think I'm a little slow on the uptake, actually. I'd assumed that "selectivity" and acceptance rate meant what they appear to mean. I didn't understand why they were relevant to much of anything. It also seemed as if publicizing them would be expected to create a vicious circle: if students think that low acceptance rates indicate a desirable school, low acceptance rates will in themselves generate higher applications rates which in turn will lower the acceptance rate. All this, of course, with no change in the school's actual academics.
I had a feeling of scales falling from my eyes when I ran across a New York Times article which talked about how the U. S. News and World Report Rankings criteria tend to result in Harvard, Yale, and Princeton scoring highly: "In fact, when asked how he knew his system was sound, Mel Elfin, the rankings' founder, often answered that he knew it because those three schools always landed on top." My jaw dropped. I concluded that what U. S. News and World Report does is to tapdance around the question of social prestige and connection to "The Establishment." They can't measure this directly, and they can't say openly that that's what they are measuring, but that's what the witches' brew of selectivity, peer opinion, and alumni giving are about: finding things that correlate with social elite standing. I am sure that the importance of The Establishment has declined considerably since, say, the days of the Vietnam war. Still, there must be some explanation of why no alumnus of MIT or Berkeley has ever made it to the White House, while a Harvard or Yale degree practically seems to be a prerequisite for Presidential candidacy.
(I don't think antisemitism is a factor any more, though I have, however, read some shocking suggestions that if admissions were meritocratic women would dominate the freshman classes of the great universities and that some have, in response, established female quotas. Don't know how true that is. But I digress).
At this point, I am 90% convinced that "selectivity" is a euphemism. It is a measurable value that sounds as if it is objective, but its real function is, when combined with other measures such as "alumni giving," to stand in for what U. S. News and many students really care about—which is identifying the schools have the special status that connects with the class structure. (You know, the class structure that we do not have in the United States).
In other words, I think "selectivity" is one of those code words like "exclusivity..." (although I am not suggesting it is antisemitism being masked...) The vicious circle of students wanting to attend schools because they have low admissions rates does remind me Groucho Marx's famous (and apparently authentic) quip: "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member." Dpbsmith(talk)13:13, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
Removal of examples of most notable alumni
I removed the short list of examples of most notable alumni. What really clinched this for me were two things: 1) Someone keeps adding Ann Coulter although she is clearly not as notable as other people on the list, such as Pearl S. Buck, etc. For this reason, people keep removing her. 2) Out of curiosity, I decided to peruse the entire list of famous alumni, and I came to the conclusion that while some of those selected to be mentioned in the main Cornell article definitely "beat the competition", it was rather mysterious why some others got chosen while others were omitted.
In short, rather than debating over the merits of including one person, but not another, I thought it best just to remove the short list entirely. There is a clear and prominent link to the entire list; people can peruse it if they wish. I note this has been the result in other similar articles. --C S (Talk)10:58, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I hereby declare that the Alumni section is cleaned up. I took the idea of listing accomplishments from the FA University of Michigan. I think that this form helps to look at Cornell alumni in a large perspective, crossing the entire history of the university. I may do a similar change for the faculty section. I believe that only a few awards of current faculty are necessary to list on the main page. More important would be achievements by the most notable faculty ever. For example, Cornell faculty have served as Prime Ministers, wrote X,Y,Z books, etc... This ought to be in addition to a brief summery of the current faculty. How many, important statistics about them, etc...--Xtreambar18:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Organization
Anyone want to break up the organization of schools into a table with important info such as date of founding, enrollment, and number of faculty? I might get to this next week, unless someone posts here or messages me with something else, or there is a concensus not to arange the info in this manner.--Xtreambar19:40, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
I think it's a little too detailed for the main article, but it might be nice to have a separate article with this stuff. --C S (Talk)18:07, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone have a good picture of either Collegetown or a particuarlly photogenic fraternity like DKE, for example?--Xtreambar15:30, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
See also section
I don't see a need to have a "See also" section with links to Ivy League and Ivy League Business schools. The Ivy league is right at the top and the business school thing doesn't seem that important. I will remove this section if there are no objections. Jon Stockton01:38, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm just getting into the swing of the Commons, and I thought these might be useful for various Cornell-related articles.
Duffield Hall
Engineering quad sundial
Sage chapel with ivy
"Cornell University" sign
There will be many more of these to come once I can access them, but only these few (plus a nice one of the colorful blackboard menu at Collegetown Bagels, if anybody wants it) were easily available today. (I've actually got a pretty substantial photo library here, so feel free to make lists of requests and I'll do my best.) -- JVinocur04:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Very nice. I incorporated two of those into the Engineering page. Upload what you have and I'm sure people will find uses for them... -Mercuryboard04:44, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, yes. Please continue to add pictures. They are very much appreciated and people will find places to put many of them.--Xtreambar21:10, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I think that the page needs a better picture of the Cornell University Campus. Something along the lines of a vibrant, sunny, green picture of Cornell would be really helpful. The current picture of the Arts Quad doesn't really garner a positive image of Cornell. --Cornell01023:17, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Private vs. Public, again
I've reviewed the archive on the private vs. public discussion and find the current claim by this article that it is "private" unsatisfactory. Cornell's own web site states "Founded as both a private university and the land-grant institution of New York State, this distinctive blend of public and private colleges..." http://www.cornell.edu/visiting/ithaca/ . So it is both, not one or the other. Can anyone find a contrary statement from Cornell itself? Leotohill14:23, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
So it is both, not one or the other. Actually, Cornell's position is that it is a private university. This has been often discussed in the Cornell community and there are plenty of sources if you look. I remember at orientation this was explained, and it's something that's always a source of confusion for new students. For example, if you search at http://ezra.cornell.edu (a help/advice resource for Cornell students), using the search term "private university", you will find (amonst other relevant info), the following quote by the Vice Provost for Land Grant Affairs, Francille M. Firebaugh, who states
"the New York State Education Law contains the legislative language creating Cornell University and each of its four state-assisted units. The provisions creating these units refer to them as 'statutory or contract' colleges, so there is a basis in state law for both terms. Over the last several years we have increasingly used the term 'contract college' to emphasize the fact that these units are integral parts of a private university, Cornell, and that they are not state agencies in the same sense as the state-operated campuses of the State University of New York, such as the State University College at Cortland. We believe this is an important concept, one that has been raised on several occasions in recent litigation. Slowly but surely, we have been choosing to use the term 'contract college' in our communications, and that will continue in the years ahead."
Now admittedly, Cornell sometimes obfuscates the issue, due to its desire to propogandize the "private but public" thing, as you saw on the webpage you found. One can see a similar thing in an Uncle Ezra column:
Dear Uncle Ezra, Is Cornell the only University that is both public and private? Just wonderin' Dear Just Wonderin' I posed your question to Mike Matier in Institutional Planning and Research (255-7540), who says that to his knowledge Cornell is the only university which -- to use common parlance -- is both public and private. Technically speaking, Cornell is a private university which contracts with the State of New York through SUNY to provide land grant services.
But even here, it's made explicit that Cornell is a private university. As JDoorjam points out below (and is alluded above, e.g. "recent litigation"), Cornell's position appears to have been justified legally. So I don't see any reason to dispute it. Given what we know, I think the current article does a good job of describing the situation simply. --C S (Talk)05:09, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
While I'm working on that, http://www.law.cornell.edu/nyctap/I05_0016.htm (which I guess technically is on their web site) is a recent court ruling talking about how Cornell is a wholly private entity that serves a public purpose. (The debate being had is only tangentially related, over whether accepting money from the state makes Cornell subject to New York State's Freedom of Information Laws.) Cornell is not the only private university to accept land-grant funding: I doubt you'd argue that MIT is a partially public institution, would you? I think a rhetorical flourish attempting to show the range and contrasts that Cornell has to offer in a section completely unrelated to academics is not a compelling source here. And by the way, even if this brief mention were a worthy source, it says the colleges are public and private, not the university. Obviously it should be, and is, mentioned that the contract units accept state funds. But this does not make the university public. JDoorjamTalk15:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Ah, another good summary, in a footnote in that case: "Contract colleges are '[c]olleges furnishing higher education, operated by independent institutions on behalf of the state pursuant to statute or contractual agreements.' " Independent institution = private institution. JDoorjamTalk15:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
it's hard to argue with the courts. Still, I think it would be good if this article made it clear that there are publicly funded parts of the institution. At Cornell, students enrolled in those colleges and schools pay lower tuition rates than those enrolled in the "endowment" parts. A person who is looking for a college to attend would find this useful. (Is this true at Harvard - does Harvard charge different tuition depending on the school/college?) Leotohill20:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Looking at the version of the article you looked at, the section on "academic units" states, "Cornell is a private institution, receiving most of its funding through tuition, research grants, and alumni contributions. However, three of its undergraduate colleges as well as the graduate-level College of Veterinary Medicine, called contract or statutory colleges, also receive partial funding from the state of New York to support their research and service mission in niche fields. Residents of New York enrolled in the contract colleges enjoy reduced tuition. Further, the governor of the state serves as an ex-officio member of the board of trustees. It is a common misconception that Cornell's contract colleges are public institutions. They are not—they are private institutions that Cornell operates by contract with the state government."
I really don't see how it could be made any clearer! And it certainly includes the info on reduced tuition. --C S (Talk)05:09, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a very interesting area, because until a few months ago, I'd never thought to ask the question: how do you know whether a university is "public" or "private?" I turned up something, now in the Harvard article, about how Harvard became privatized between 1800 and 1870.
I rather suspect that most "private" universities inhabit some kind of funny grey area between being public and private and have a vested interest in not keeping things too clear.
I wonder if successful universities have a tendency to become privatized over time, because public support waxes and wanes due to economic and politicial fluctuations... and every time it wanes, the university, if it is going to be successful, needs to find more sources of private support? Dpbsmith(talk)14:02, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
Academic units layout
I'm curious what other people think about the formatting for Academic Units: old (bullets) vs new (table). I definitely like the idea of conserving space, but I'm worried that the new layout could be confusing...the fact that there are two rows with the same number of cells makes my brain try to find meaning in the pairings of corresponding cells in the same rows. Thoughts? -- JVinocur04:07, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, we could break it into two separate boxes or something to that effect. I am trying to reduce the number of lists on the page and saw this section as the one most easilly remedied.--Xtreambar04:13, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
Any idea how to make the two lists line up next to each other rather have the second one be pushed one line down?--Xtreambar18:12, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Heh, I almost asked you that. I just took a look and I think I figured it out what was wrong (hope you don't mind me touching part of your userpage). -- JVinocur18:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, assuming you're not Lee A. Makela (the one who took the picture), you're definitely not allowed to put the {{GFDL-self}} tag on its description page, as you did. In theory, you could use it on this page only under a claim of "fair use", but I don't think that claim would hold, since fair-use photographs have to be of things it would be difficult or impossible to get a free photograph of (dead or reclusive celebrities, for example). Since any Wikipedian in Ithaca who has a camera could take a picture of this building and release it under the GFDL or into the public domain, there's no compelling reason to use this copyrighted image. Angr (talk • contribs) 23:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
A new version of the "Cornell" University Page
I think that the Cornell University Page should be modeled akin to those of Yale, Harvard, Princeton or Dartmouth's pages. Those pages have everything flowing together more smoothly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cornell010 (talk • contribs)
I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Could you elaborate? Btw, when you end your posts, please put four tildes at the end, like so: ~~~~ . That will automatically put your signature at the end of your comment so we know who said what when. Cheers, JDoorjamTalk03:34, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
"Touchdown" is indeed the name of the bear. However, the bear is only an assumed mascot. The University has never made it official. Such is actually the subject of debate on campus presently.--Xtreambar02:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Reputation
Does anyone else think that the reputation section is growing wildly out of control again? While Cornell boasts mainly laurels, not all of them are (main) article worthy. --Xtreambar21:46, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't know. It's a pretty important section, maybe we need to compact it a bit.--Cornell010 23:24, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Merging and paring down much of the academics section
As this would be a reasonably significant change, I want to this by first. I was looking at the FA UMich for ideas and saw that they had merged their faculty profile, student profile, admissions rate, and criticisms of teaching / laurals of teaching into one consise section called "Academic Profile." Who wants to merge/par down to a format like this and who wants to keep Academics in a bunch of larger sections. My vote is Merge because, if we ever want Cornell to be a FA, a major complaint will be the lack of consiseness on the page.--Xtreambar22:02, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I think it's probably good to do that. Maybe if we put all those statistics and reputation stuff into one section, that would act as a kind of "containment", which would help us improve the rest of the article. --C S (Talk)22:53, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree with it. It will eliminate a lot of superfluous information.
New section on equal opportunity stuff
I think it would be nice to have a section on Cornell's role in furthering equal opportunity for men and women of all races. While reading this, I found that in mathematics alone, three of the first six American Ph.D.s awarded to women were by Cornell; the first African-American to get a mathematics Ph.D. received it from Cornell [7]. I think if we dig a bit into other subjects, we'll find similar facts. It seems to me that this is a significant part of Cornell's history, but it doesn't really flow into the current history section, and is probably deserving of its own section in the main article. --C S (Talk)23:05, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
Worth mentioning, yes, but I don't know about its merit in its own main article section. This might best be worked into the new Academic section plan (see above). -Mercuryboard16:57, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
Cornell safety car
I take exception to Xtreambar's removing the paragraph about the Cornell safety car (aka the Automotive Crash Injury Research). I'm not sure how the article should organized, but, dammit, I originally put that in because it may well be the single most important thing ever to come out of Cornell.
I'm serious.
I'm sure someone has an estimate of the number of lives saved by features designed, and successfully promoted, by that lab. We're currently running about 40,000 fatalities (i.e. one Vietnam-war's-worth) per year. With the car designs of, say, 1952, it would probably be triple that.
Of course, if Cornell hadn't done it, sooner or later some other lab would have, so total lives saved by Cornell is not as simple as 2 x 40,000 x 50 years, but at the time Cornell's lab was absolutely unique. The automakers were doing zilch about safety. The Cornell safety car got wide press attention. It wasn't just a matter of saying let's make safe cars, Cornell was showing how to do it and making sure everyone who read Popular Mechanix knew that it could be done.
The study desires a line mention among a few lines about notable Cornell research. It does not deserve a whole paragraph on the main Cornell article. If you want a large piece about it, write a separate article and then WikiLink it to the Cornell page and visa-versa, because the Cornell Safety Car is certainly WikiWorthy. On that same note, I think that Cornell spearheading the Mars Rover project is phenominally important. However, it does not warrant an entire paragraph. We need one paragraph about Cornell's status as a "research university," how much Cornell invests in research, university research initiatives, and what else the university does to promote research. Then, we need a second paragraph that notes imporant Cornell research: The Safety Car, the Mars Rover, the Chicken Nugget, the Gene Gun, and a host of other very important Cornell related research projects.--Xtreambar16:13, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good. The section certainly did not convey adequately to the reader an overview of Cornell's research. For example Cornell's expended a great deal of time, energy, and money into particle physics; Cornell's cyclotron in the 30s was the 2nd in the U.S. and a number of influential particle physicists (ncluding those tied to the Manhattan project) spend time at Cornell in one way or another, but the previous section gave an impression that Cornell was mostly about car safety, Mars exploration, and Internet development. --C S (Talk)16:51, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Interesting! I don't think I knew that. I remember there were always plenty of chicken nuggets... I never had this famous Cornell barbeque sauce though, unless they serve it in the dining hall. --C S (Talk)19:01, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
I removed the following statement from the article: "Cornell is one of the most selective schools in the world." It might be true but it's not supported by any sources. Such support would have to be quite explicit to support such a strong claim and, of course, such support would have to have a world view and not merely be limited to comparing the university to others in the U.S. ElKevbo (talk) 23:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Duffield Hall
Engineering quad sundial
Sage chapel with ivy
"Cornell University" sign.jpg)
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