Talk:University of Pittsburgh

Archives

Before 2006 *

Motto?

Please source the translation of this motto, as its meaning (confer Lewis and Short, Cassell's and Jenny) is "Truth and Strength" (or "Truth and Virtue," though virtus is something more akin to manliness), not "Goodness of the truth." I dare not actually make the page accurate, as this will trigger Wiki Police telling me I should not properly translate Latin.Amherst5282 22:50, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

History

This article is in need of a section addressing its history. Courier new 04:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Posvar

The final bit about Posvar nneds a lot of work. I agree with Ohnoitsjamie that this belongs in a history section -- it appears to hang off of the end of the article unnecessarily and appears to be a kludge. The article also needs a history section; perhaps I'll get around to one in a few months.... Most importantly, the whole bit about theft is completely unverified -- someone needs to either provide some references or delete the whole section. Besst 04:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Your points are very germaine. i edited the section as you describe. However, naming the section "History" is woefully inadequate for an institution as old as Pitt. There should be a flag requesting that the section be expanded. Sandwich Eater 14:21, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

The history section looks much better; I think the way it stated now is pretty fair and is in line with most things I've read about the Posvar controversey. Haven't other chancellors come under fire? O'Connor wasn't there long....Nordberg certainly has his share of detractors as well. OhNoitsJamie^Talk 16:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

PT Marion

PTmarion.com was removed from the external links section and was recently added again and added in the student media section.

This website is considered a party website. An updated calendar keeps track of where students may find parties for the weekend or where deals are for alcohol.

Does anyone think that this is a proper representation of any higher educational system? It mentions in the student media section that it is "underground" but perhaps the website should be kept off of the university's wiki page.

• I agree the link is inappropriate (for one thing, it requires registration??) and probably added in self-promotion. It should be removed. — brighterorange (talk) 13:57, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, ptmarion is self defining as a free event promotion tool and college web community. There are many events posted on ptmarion that are not parties. Aside from this, their current membership is totaling over 7000 students from the university community. I think perhaps a link to them does not belong under student media, as they are not university sponsored, however the external link is more than okay.--Viridion 15:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with brighterorange, although the website is run by students from Pitt it doesn't have a strong connection to the university other than promoting parties. My suggestion would be to create a student social life section and put it there, but I'm not sure if one would be appropriate. Acidskater 03:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Pictures

I don't have a login, but there's some pictures of the falcon and of the babcock room (not many people have been there!) here: http://dimitry.arthero.com/photo/photos/big41.jpg - falcon http://dimitry.arthero.com/photo/photos/big39.jpg - babcock room

i guess these should be credited to Dimitry Bentsionov @ http://dimitry.arthero.com/

Panthers

Why are there 11 lines discussing the mascot? This looks like fluff from the yearbook, not an encyclopedic entry.

• Looks like it was just added the other day. I thought about deleting it, but maybe it would be better to move it to the Athletics page instead. Thoughts? Crazyale 04:02, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Polio

I think that the fact that the University of Michigan collaborated with the University of Pittsburgh on this effort should be mentioned in this section. Does anyone else have an oppinion? http://www.polio.umich.edu/dingell/ Red and Guilty 16:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Uh, absolutely not, that creation of the Polio vaccine was undertaken entirely at Salk's laboratory at Pitt. I guess the field trials were overseen by someone at Michigan. The Polio vaccine is a Pitt vaccine. For more info, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Salk and http://www.polio.pitt.edu/

cp101p 23:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually I believe it was Appalachian State that collaborated on that. Or was it South Florida? Douglas Barber 21:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Student media

Where are the offices for UPTV, Collision, and Three Rivers Review?

I know The Pitt News and WPTS-FM are on the fourth floor of the William Pitt Union, Telefact's on the ninth, and Friday Nite Improvs is in the studio theatre; can someone help add the on-campus locations for these groups? Do they function out of the honors college? --Chris Griswold 01:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to thank 136.142.158.16 (talk · contribs) for confirming for me that Telefact is on the ninth floor of the William Pitt Union. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 19:50, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

alma maters

We should get some info on the alma maters: the current one, set to the German national anthem, and any previous ones. (I just found an extremely different one from the 1914 edition of the Owl student yearbook.[1] Yes, I'm doing research. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 20:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Before it was the German national anthem it was a movement from a Haydn string quartet. 67.177.186.149 (talk) 17:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Greek life

We could use more on this, both positive and negative. For instance, sharitable work, and frats/sororities that have been put on drastic probations, like Sigma Sigma Sigma. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 21:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

That sounds more like a gossip column than an encyclopedia. Contemporary Greek life is hardly important; I think other sections would reap greater benefits from users' attention. 68.162.156.118

I am sure others do not agree that Greek life has been an unimportant part of Pitt's history. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

1. Clean up the spelling, e.g., Latern Night, Sine 1996, HIgher Edcuation, siting, etc.

2. Is that the rear of the Fine Arts Building in the photo? If so, isn’t it odd that the beautiful front and fountain are not shown?

3. The new Biomedical Science Tower 3 would be a great photo to add to the collection.

4. Additional Alumni Award: Bill Strickland won the MacArthur Fellow Award. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Strickland, http://www.umc.pitt.edu/PITTMAG/mar97/stricklandt.html) .

5. Additional Student publication: The Pittsburgh Undergraduate Review, a multidisciplinary journal showcasing the undergraduate research (http://136.142.181.181/~pur/).

6. JURIST (http://jurist.law.pitt.edu) is the world's only law school-based comprehensive legal news and research service powered by a mostly-volunteer team of over 30 part-time law student reporters, editors and Web developers led by law professor Bernard Hibbitts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Phillbirt 02:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I fixed a bunch of the spelling mistakes (which, this being a wiki, you could have done yourself instead of posting about them in the talk page); feel free to add any of the other stuff to the article. Geoffrey Spear 01:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments

This is on the way to becoming an A-Class article but I have a few comments. First, there are far too many images of the Cathedral of Learning. Let's come to a consensus as to which image should serve as the main stand-in (I recommend one that also shows alumni hall or whatever it's called). There are, really, too many images in general. If the image isn't critically important to the text of the article, I recommend a gallery feature at the bottom of the page similar to the presidents portraits section. The intro is also a bit too long and makes it hard to find the table of contents (removing that first image which takes up so much space would be a HUGE help). Thoughts? --Midnightdreary 13:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree. The Cathedral is iconic of the university and that explains why so many people want to photograph it, and the article should certainly have a photo or two, but there are too many. I removed the huge one at the beginning because, although it was my favorite of the images, it is somewhat low resolution and more importantly, is non-free. With so many free replacements there's no excuse for that. — brighterorange (talk) 23:08, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Quality assessment, 18 June 2007

I have assessed this article as B-class, according to the standard grading scheme. I have to disagree, however that this article is on the way to A-class. Problems which might prevent this article from achieving GA status include:

• Length: The History section could do with being forked and summarised, and cuts could be made elsewhere. The Introduction is too long and does not adequately summarise the article.
• Referencing: there are two competing footnotes sections. The inline references which have not been footnoted refer mostly to the University's own web space: more neutral, third party sources are required.
• Neutrality: Some of this article reads like an advert. Too much space is given over to impressive-sounding, but trivial factoids (e.g. "It is the oldest continuously chartered institution of learning in the United States west of the Allegheny Mountains").
• Images: some are indiscriminately placed without considering whether they add value to the article. There are also some questionable fair use claims here.

Clearly, a lot of effort has gone into collecting material for this article: the copy does, however, need to be sifted and refined. — mholland (talk) 16:14, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

"It is the oldest continuously chartered institution of learning in the United States west of the Allegheny Mountains" is not trivial, at least the the state of Pennsylvania's standards which thought it warranted the placement of a historic marker. This fact makes Pitt one of the 20 or so oldest institutions in the country, and really the first in the Western part of the original colonies, and thus its placement in the history section is more than appropriate. If this fact was stated about some school out West and it said "first West of the Mississippi", no one would challenge it as trivial.cp101p 18:32, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps trivial is the wrong word. Frankly, I'm much more interested in it the way you put it: "one of the 20 or so oldest institutions in the country, and really the first in the Western part of the original colonies". That sounds, to my ear, much better than picking an arbitrary geographical feature in order to claim that the University is the oldest, the biggest, the tallest whatever. — mholland (talk) 11:35, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the Allegheny mountains are, in a historical context, that [[systems at the time), but I understand how people may not be aware of such things. Princeton Review or one the rankings out there once had a ranking of the oldest universities, but I can't find it to cite. The Allegheny Mountain reference would be well known, at least in Western and Central PA, and is easily referenced because much has gone into research the claim by historians of the Universities that fall into that category (Pitt, Washington & Jefferson, Transylvania University (KY)).

General Needed Univeristy of Pittsburgh stuff

Thanks for everyone's help on the Pitt articles. I think we've begun to clean up some of the article and the the basics structure down, though some of the longer sections may need moved to their own page and summarized as noted above(ie. history). As far as individual building pages, the I think the following free photos would be desirable the Pitt based photographers out there.
Cathedral of Learning page: a couple representative nationality rooms, Croghan-Schenley ballroom, Darlington Library, Braun Room, Honors College, maybe lecture room 324. Alumni Hall: interior shots of the first floor ball room and Mellon Institute lobby.
Stephen Foster Memorial interior shots of the museum and theater
Cheveron Scence Center, Forbes Hall, Crawford Hall, Langley Hall, Life Science Annex (maybe a shot of the entire CLC complex in order to show the layout from the Cathedral if you can get it, but there is also an aerial photo of it next to the Langley lecture hall that could be photographed).
Salk Hall (try to get Municipal hospital building (behind the modern front entrance) in the shot ...that is where Salk worked).
Panther Hall, Scaife Hall, Eberly Hall (old Alumni Hall), Falk Clinic, Falk School, Cost Center (interior shot), Fitzgeral Field House (inside shots too), example of a fraternity complex building, Lothrop Hall, BSTs, Victoria, Ruskin Hall, Info Science Building, Trees Hall (interior photos...pool, gymnastics training)
Some of the buildings need expanded information as well (especially mysterious to me is the University Place Office Building that is a contributing building in the Schenley Farms historic district). I also think football on the Pittsburgh Panthers should be moved to it own page.cp101p 17:00, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of Pitt building pages

People active in projects involving Pitt may be interested in the discussion here started over Sutherland Hall being tagged for deletion[2]. Any comments about what this should mean for the direction of the Pitt campus section?cp101p 02:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Some Dead Dog Research

The following passage was added to "History of the University" section under the subcategory "Into the 21st Century".

In 2005, the University of Pittsburgh successfully revived some dead dogs that were killed several hours prior.

This passage was first added and then removed, then re-dded. I agree with user PittPanther on the first removal that it "doesn't fit" and removed it for the following reasoning below. While interesting, I believe we need a discussion on its inclusion not only in the History of the University Section but also its appropriateness for the main "University of Pittsburgh" page. My reasoning is as follows:

While this passage is interesting, it does not fit into a section highlighting the University's history. The notability of this achievement for Wikipedia at all, other than its controversial nature, is dubious. Although it received coverage in some national press due to the macabre nature of the results and disapproval of animal rights groups, there are plenty of examples of Pitt research that has been deemed more significant in recent years. Any publication originating out of Pitt in the scientific journals Science or Nature, or perhaps even the Cell family of journals, would qualify here as being deemed more significant (and there are 100s of those to chose from). The "dead dog" story would be better suited for a new section on significant research accomplished at Pitt, but by itself it does not warrant the creation of such a section. Further, the style of writing is far too ambiguous to remain as is (e.g. "some dead dogs" is not an appropriate encyclopedic style). A note on Pitt's leadership in the field of resuscitation research with a link to this Fox News article as a supporting reference could be added elsewhere in general sections listing Pitt's research strengths, but it is at best premature to call this a notable milestone in the University's history (as the only other research mentioned in the history section was Salk's polio vaccine (undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements in the history of medicine and science) and a brief mention of Starzl's organ transplantation pioneering (Starzl has been named to a list of the most important people of the millennium for his work)..(there also brief mentions of Langley but no real discussion of his aviation work). Probably the best place for this information is on a wiki page about the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research itself. Please add additional comments.cp101p 00:56, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

• Personally, I think that the "dead dog" experiment should be mentioned somewhere on Wikipedia. Bringing the deceased back to life is a major achievement in today's standards. --Ixfd64 22:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I would love to better know how this was perceived in the field of resuscitation, but it didn't create much of a buzz, at least that I was aware of, in general biological circles. But that could be my lack of awareness. It also did not receive much push from Pitt's own publicity departments (ie. in Pitt Magazine, etc)...perhaps due to its controversial nature. I'll try to look into it more when I get time, but my skepticism comes from known main stream media's tendency to over-inflate scientific stories and the lack of buzz this created in general science literature (but I have not completely researched the topic). I do not disagree that there is a probably a place for this on wikipedia, but I do not think it should go in the University History section (maybe 10 years down the line I'll be proven horribly wrong). On the surface it is very interesting and even cool, but I'm think its not fair to say it is "historic". Thanks for your replycp101p 22:36, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Deletion tag on Parran Hall page and other Pitt buildings

Parran Hall (School of Health Sciences building), let your thoughts be known.

Cleanup

I have already begun to do some cleanup on this article, but there is a whole lot that needs to cleaned up. A big one is the references, which are put in as external links. A guide on how to do this can be found at WP:CITE. Another big problem is the red links. A minor problem are the photos in the History section, which make the section feel cluttered. Acidskater 18:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for helping with the page and cleaning it up. I would recommend leaving some of the pics in the history section, though. Some of them are hard to find, and interesting from the standpoint that there really isn't another good resource to see historical pictures of Pitt on the web easily (as some of these are burried in the depths of student yearbooks, etc). But, some of them are repetitive and the numbers can be cut down, especially when they tend to sandwich the text. Actually, it might be worth while making a separate history page where they could be spread out more.cp101p 00:46, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I deleted a few photos which didn't seem important. If you feel one of the photos should be put back because it is absolutely essential to the article, use WP:IUP as a guideline. I also created a history page for Pitt, as well as added a link for it to the Pitt template. Acidskater 05:46, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to switch some of the photos, because frankly, Katz shouldn't be directly besides the historical building section...things like that. That photo doesn't convey Pitt well at all. Really, there has to be a shot of the more important Pitt buildings on that page...i.e. Cathedral & Heinz....those are really the true identity of Pitt. I have some that I'll upload next week. Let me know what you think of them when they go up. For now, I've added back some more appropriate pics. I like the University of Chicago's model as a page, its featured on the University Projects page. The chancellors table could probably go on a separate page as well. Do you think?130.91.35.34 21:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, the Athletics section could be greatly compressed, alot of it is repetitive with the actual Pitt Athletics page. As I mentioned, the chancellors could be moved, perhaps to the history section or their own page. Also, perhaps a new "Pitt Campus" page is warranted because that section is a bit long, but its long space permits the display of the campus photos and I sort of like having the pictures right in the article. I think the University of Chicago's page is a good model to go by. A campus photo gallery could be added if a campus page is created.cp101p 23:48, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts on some merges for buildings

Anyone have any thoughts on merging single school use buildings with their school (the way Falk School is merged)? Merging considerations would be to merge Benedum Hall with Swanson School of Engineering, merge Parran Hall with University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, merge Mervis Hall with Joseph M. Katz School of Business, and merge Barco Law Building with University of Pittsburgh School of Law?cp101p (talk) 17:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

AfD nomination of Oakland Zoo (cheering section)

Please leave your opinion on wether or not you believe the Oakland Zoo is notable:

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