Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Higher education and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Shortcuts

Archives (index): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13: 2 months

WikiProject Higher education was featured in a WikiProject Report in the Signpost on 30 August 2010.

WikiProject Higher education

Main pages

Main project

talk

Participants

Participants category

Manual of style

Higher education stubs

talk

Departments

Assessment

talk

Collaboration of the Month (inactive)

Outreach (inactive)

Articles

Articles for Deletion

Honorary degrees in alumni cats

This has been discussed in the past. Should an alumni cat be added to someone with an honorary degree, such as done at Category:University of Arizona alumni? I recommend not including them. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 01:32, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not - they are not alumni. ElKevbo (talk) 02:21, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This was me, trying to explain to the database people why I did not want honorary degree recipients pulling into a fundraising list for alumni. Rublamb (talk) 22:27, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

No. As ElKevbo said, they're not alumni. Robminchin (talk) 05:11, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Request for comments: University of New Brunswick at List of oldest universities in continuous operation

List of oldest universities in continuous operation, which is within the scope of this WikiProject, has an RfC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:26, 22 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good article reassessment for Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 18:20, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Help diffusing on overpopulated cats

There are several overpopulated alumni and faculty cats for universities. I am working on Category:Indiana University alumni and Category:University of Colorado alumni. If someone wants to jump in on diffusing Category:University of Illinois alumni, that would be appreciated. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 12:43, 31 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Improving UNT Health Fort Worth History section

Hi! I work at UNT Health Fort Worth. Over the past couple months, I have been placing edit requests on the UNT Health Talk page in an effort to improve the article's accuracy and comprehensiveness. My latest request concerns updates to UNT Health's History section, which has some good qualities but is also a little bit light on quality sourcing and could stand to cover a few more important developments in the university's history.

My request includes a full section draft, which you can review by following this link. It's a pretty long draft, so I appreciate that it will take some time for independent editors to read through it and check the sources and all that. If I can make that process easier in any way, please do let me know. Thanks! LM at UNT Health (talk) 21:31, 7 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Douglas MacArthur at FAR

I have nominated Douglas MacArthur for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Z1720 (talk) 17:07, 10 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting help on University of Texas at San Antonio

I've been working on the this article for a bit but there's still much copyediting and promotion removal to be done. I'd really appreciate a second set of eyes on it. Thanks, BrotherGunk (talk) 00:38, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Extremely high level of dependent primary sources in higher ed articles

Generally not acceptable on Wikipedia, but is this considered acceptable for university articles? Graywalls (talk) 01:59, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean primary sources or self-published sources? I wouldn't say there's a particularly high level of ordinary sources. There is, however, often quite a bit of information from self-published sources in higher ed studies, because this is normally the best source for things like a university's structure and constitution. As long as these are used per WP:ABOUTSELF this isn't normally a problem. Robminchin (talk) 04:40, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Like City_College_of_New_York. Look at how frequently CCNY.EDU itself is cited within the article and a lot quite easily stepping over into advertisey territory, things relating to admissions, as well as various minutiae that is promotional/institution serving beyond ABOUTSELF. Graywalls (talk) 12:21, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I had a look. It's not a great article and there are certainly some sourcing issues. However, when it comes to referencing ccny.cuny.edu there are one or two claims that should have an independent source, but most of the citations are factual (whether they are minutiae that aren't worth including is a different assessment, not related to ABOUTSELF). There's surprisingly little on admissions in the article: the normal subsection under academics is entirely absent. What there is, in the history section, appears to be citing independent sources. I could have missed some stuff as this was just a glance-over, but I didn't see large numbers of problematic citations of the college website. Robminchin (talk) 17:31, 14 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

One issue is sources being used to establish notability. Larger/older schools are very likely to have sufficient coverage in independent sources to establish notability. It may be harder to find independent sources giving significant coverage to smaller, less well-known schools. Content about the outward-facing aspects of a school (reputation, impact, etc.) definitely needs to be verifiable from independent sources. Donald Albury 15:42, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If the school is accredited by a legitimate accreditation organization (one in Wikipedia), it probably should have an article. Semper Fi! FieldMarine (talk) 23:38, 13 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Robminchin:: Another example: University of California, Irvine These are referenced to primary sources or sources related to the institutions or various awards. Factually reasonable, but it was the editorial discretion of whoever inserted it to choose they should be inserted into the school's page rather than just in these individuals' biography page. Such attempts to polish the prestige and image of institutions is very wide spread.

As of 2025, alumni, academics, and affiliates of UCI include 5 Nobel Prize laureates, 7 Pulitzer Prize winners, 61 Sloan Research Fellowship recipients, 61 Guggenheim Fellows, and 1 Turing Award winner. In addition, of the current faculty, 24 have been named to the National Academy of Sciences, 6 have been named to the National Academy of Medicine, 17 to the National Academy of Engineering, 41 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and 20 to the National Academy of Inventors.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]

References

^ "Notable Alumni".
^ "Faculty Awards and Honors".
^ "Richard W. Hamming". A. M. Turing Award Laureates. Association for Computing Machinery. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
^ "University Facts | UC Irvine". uci.edu. Retrieved 2025-04-20.

Graywalls (talk) 21:03, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:UNIGUIDE, "Individual notable alumni should be mentioned only in extraordinary cases; typically, statistics such as X Nobel laureates are preferred." (for the lead). This appears generally consistent with that advice. More concerning is that the 'People' section does not have any references for the paragraphs on either Nobel prize or Pulitzer prize winners, nor are the numbers of Nobel winners or Pulitzer winners confirmed by the pages cited in the lead (one of which is a dead redirect) – the one useful page (faculty awards and honors) lists six Nobel winners (rather than the five in the lead) and three Pulitzers (rather than the seven in the lead).

The numbers for the various academies are referenced to independent sources (the academies) in the body. The Sloan Research Fellowships, Guggenheim Fellows and Turing Award are not discussed in the body so should not be in the lead per MOS:LEADNO, but this isn't a sourcing issue. Whether they should be included in the lead if discussed in the body is also not particularly linked to whether this is sourced to the institution itself or to an independent source.

So, this isn't a good lead, but the problem doesn't appear to be over-use of non-independent sources. Rather, the problem is that it doesn't follow other Wikipedia guidelines and has information not verified by any source cited. This should be discussed on the article page. Robminchin (talk) 23:11, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ah ok, that answers it then. UNIGUIDE is more permissive of such contents even if they only cite the school or the awarder's own sites.. than say non school articles. Graywalls (talk) 23:33, 15 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Also, University of California, Santa Cruz. See residential college section. Written like a guidance book and full of school sourced contents Graywalls (talk) 20:45, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That seems to be sourcing factual statements about the residential colleges that aren't particularly self-serving, so doesn't look like a problem per WP:ABOUTSELF, although it would obviously be better if it was referenced to an external source. The style of the writing is not relevant to this discussion.

None of the examples you've given are primarily based on self-published sources and the rules for using self-published sources are the same for university articles as for the rest of Wikipedia, so if you do find an article primarily based on self-published sources then that is an issue with that article not with the university guidelines. I'm not sure that putting examples of various articles that might have issues here rather than discussing them on the articles' own talk pages is helping. Robminchin (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:Licentiate (degree)#Requested move 12 January 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Licentiate (degree)#Requested move 12 January 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. TarnishedPath^talk 04:36, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Darul Uloom Al-Madania

Does anyone have capacity and inclination to look at the referencing on Darul Uloom Al-Madania? I'm asking here because the establishment is listed on its Talk page as relevant to this WikiProject - though I'm wondering if it is in fact a school rather than a HE institution. In any case, the issue is that the section "Sexual abuse and corruption allegations" is mostly referenced to court documents rather than to secondary RS. I don't have enough experience in this subject area to resolve this, but hope someone else can. Thanks, Tacyarg (talk) 21:58, 19 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'll look, but I agree that it does not fall under WP:UNI. Rublamb (talk) 08:53, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Short descriptions

Calling for opinions on a topic that comes up periodically. Short descriptions are supposed stay under 40 characters; we are even more limited by the length of words such as university, college, or tertiary institution that seem impossible not to use. Given this limitation, what do you consider to be the most defining characteristics of the majority of institutions in the United States? What should always be included in short descriptions and what would you like to see included if there is room? Here are some options.

1) type: public vs. private (or subsets of private such as Catholic or Christian)

2) secondary type: vocational, technical, military, community college, junior

3) other identifying details: HBCU, women's, men's, liberal arts, research, for-profit

4) location (assume we are discussing Generic U. vs. UCLA)

5) Status: dates to indicate active range or defunct status

Rublamb (talk) 08:50, 23 January 2026 (UTC)^{Updated to add status 16:22, 23 January 2026 (UTC)}[reply]

I'd like to add a 5th. If the school is Defunct/Closed, should that be there.

As a note, with these Marion College (Virginia) would be Defunct Lutheran junior women's college in Virginia, I guess. (52 characters).

The question is whether the guiding principle should be "what is included" or "how long it is", for example if there are two schools which are similar in their history, one in Utah and the other in North Carolina. The one in Utah has a shortdesc of "Foo Bar Baz in Utah" which is 38 characters, should the description for the one in North Carolina be "Foo Bar Baz in North Carolina" even though that is 48 characters or should something be dropped? Naraht (talk) 18:16, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Under 40 characters is preferred but not forbidden. The short description should be "no longer than is needed to fulfill its functions effectively", with the great majority being under 40 characters, and should take account of the possibility that it will be truncated. See WP:SDSHORT. -- rbrwr ^± 18:50, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Bingo, Rbrwr. 40 characters is a target, but this number can be exceeded to fulfill the function of the Short Description effectively. Naraht's example is helpful. And I agree with Rublamb, that where not otherwise clear in the name, it is valuable to add 'location' in the SD.

Also, if most of these small schools are liberal arts schools, I don't think including "liberal arts school" in the SD is more valuable than "Location". The modifier "Location" allows many more unique options. I watched an interaction long ago which offers a lesson on 'bolding' for importance: If you create 1-page sign or poster, and bold EVERYTHING, then effectively, NOTHING is bolded. Rather, you've just adopted poor typography. (I think, at the time, that the intern writer thought everything should be bolded, underlined, and in all caps to make sure it looks REALLY IMPORTANT. --Rendering it ultimately less readable.) If ALL of these schools are Liberal Arts Schools, it kind of makes calling out that type to be an unessential point, at least in the SD. Jax MN (talk) 20:08, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Jax MN: I do prefer public/private as the key division of university classification, followed by the location as something that is often unique to the institution. As suggested above, status is also important for defunct institutions. Also country (US, for example) should be included, unless the location is in an internationally recognized city (this was agreed to by consensus at WP:Short Description). Since those items usually combine to at least 40 characters, that is where I try to stop. I agree that "liberal arts college" or "research university" applies to so many schools that it lacks uniqueness, versus location. My favorite example is that the U.S. military colleges are now classified as national or public liberal arts; this is technically correct, but is not the first thing I would mention when describing those institutions.

There are some variations worth noting that I regularly apply:

If the location is obvious in the school's name, such as University of California, Los Angeles or University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "American" or "US' would be the only location identifier needed. Be aware that the city in the institution's name is not always its location, such as the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which is in Paradise, Nevada or Wake Forest University which moved from Wake Forest to Winston-Salem.
If the location is in the name, but not well-known as a place, such Elon University which is in Elon, North Carolina, the location should still be included in the short descriptions, or at least the state. This avoids regionalism and U.S. bias.
Religious affiliations such as Christian, Methodist or Catholic can be used in place of "Private" because these types are unique to private schools and are more specific.
An "Historically Black college" is probably more definitive to describing those institutions than location. Military and single-gender institutions also rank high in my mind as something to consider. However, this does not mean that I support adding everything but the kitchen sink to the short description. Rather, these are specific instances where these characteristics might be the most unique identifier for the institution and necessitate cutting other components.

Does anyone have any other exceptions or examples where a generalized format might not work? What do you think of using public/private and location for most articles if space allows? Rublamb (talk) 22:32, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with much of this, but I do think it's worth distinguishing between "liberal arts college" and "liberal arts university". The latter doesn't say much, since most universities teach many liberal arts subjects. But for "liberal arts college" (referring to American-style small liberal arts colleges), it establishes not just the subject matter taught but also an institution's small size — which is generally its most defining feature — and the lack of graduate presence. Sdkb ^talk 22:47, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

While the question was about US institutions, the short description is supposed to be understandable to English-speakers worldwide, so I don't think we can assume that religious=private. St Mary's University, Twickenham, for example, is a public, Catholic university in London. At the moment, its short description is "Catholic university in Twickenham, London, England", without mentioning that it is public (this is fairly normal for British universities where this is the assumed default - something else that should possibly be changed). Similarly, 'liberal arts' is not a particularly useful institutional description for a worldwide audience; 'private undergraduate university' would be better.

I think it's also clear that by the time you've got "public research university" that's already 26 characters, while "private undergraduate university" is 32, so only universities in places with fairly short names and no other important characteristics are going to come in under 40 characters. Robminchin (talk) 01:04, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

A source of confusion is that "public school" has quite different meanings in American and British English. As an American, reading that St Mary's is a "public, Catholic" university sounds contradictory. I don't think the concepts involved can be condensed to 40 or so characters. Donald Albury 18:39, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Donald Albury: Thanks for the reminder that this impacts more than US institutions. I think everyone is in agreement of using "Catholic" instead of public/private. My quick check of St Mary's University, Twickenham finds a current short description of "Catholic university in Twickenham, London, England"--which is too long at 50 characters. If we go with @Sdkb's suggustion, we should trim the location, which is already in the institution's name. That would give us "Catholic university in London, England" which has 38 characters. Rublamb (talk) 20:26, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Rublamb: And that made me look at the SD for the Pennsylvania State University, which is "Public university in Pennsylvania, US", 37 characters. For the University of Pennsylvania, the SD is "Private university in Philadelphia, US", 38 characters. As a US resident, these sound fine to me. However, is the meaning of "public" applying to educational institutions clear to all non-US English speakers? Or is that worth worrying about. Donald Albury 22:20, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@ElKevbo, can you address American classification systems, public/private? Rublamb (talk) 22:25, 24 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"Public school" is specifically for secondary schools; public university is similar (although not identical) in meaning in the UK and the US. St Mary's is a Catholic university that receives state funding and is regarded in law as a public body. I think the very fact that US understanding would be that Catholic implies private means it is needed in the short description here. Robminchin (talk) 05:57, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Rbrwr: Correct. We typically overflow with "US" or dates, for example. Although I originally had a laissez-faire approach toward the length limit, the more I work with short descriptions, the more I realize that is is achievable in most cases. WP:SDSHORT notes that 80% of all short descriptions have 40 characters or less. The issue lately had been what info to remove to achieve that goal with universities and colleges short descriptions. Rublamb (talk) 21:21, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Naraht: Absolutely status should be included! Forgot that one. However, MOS prefers the use of dates, indicating not to use terms such as former, defunct, closed, etc. in the short descriptions. So, for your example, Marion College (Virginia) would be better as "U.S. women's junior college (1873-1967)". Note that it is fine to drop the state in case since that is already included in the article's title. Since U.S. is an approved abbreviation and WP:Short Descriptions has already ruled on including the country in short descriptions unless it is a internationally known city, this should hit the sweet spot and is under 40 characters. Does that make sense to everyone? Rublamb (talk) 20:40, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense to me. Jax MN (talk) 21:53, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for opening this discussion (courtesy pinging Jahaza as the other participant in the precursor discussion on your talk page).

It's difficult to make generalizations, as, for instance, some religious schools hold the religious part of their identity much more strongly than others. I'm also a little fuzzy on where you are drawing the distinctions between type vs. secondary type vs. other identifying details.

But trying to create a broad framework, I'd say that any trait that defines an institution's student body (e.g. women's) is generally important enough to include. Traits that strongly characterize the type of education offered (e.g. military, vocational) come after that and should also generally be included, although less distinctive ones are less important (e.g. most universities are assumed to be research universities, so I'd rather include public/private status than "research"). Public/private status comes after that if there's room.

There should generally be a location. I tend to include it up to a globally recognizable level, which very roughly corresponds to VA level 4 (for U.S. universities, this means including [state], US for all states except California, New York, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, and Texas, which get only the state). If a university's city is in its name, then to avoid redundancy we generally don't need it in the short description as well, so e.g. for a University of Pasadena I'd lean toward "Public university in California" rather than "Public university in Pasadena, California." Regions can also occassionally be useful — for e.g. a Vermont State University, Burlington, since the city and state are covered I might propose "Public university in New England".

Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 22:50, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb: Forgive my ignorance on what to call our options. I am pretty sure Carnegie could provide better terms. I think a broad framework is what is needed, provided we allow room to zero in on unique characteristics such as the examples you mention. That is, I totally agree the "Catholic" or "women's" are important.

Going with your University of Pasadena example, if most major universities as assumed to be research institutions, wouldn't it be a better choice to describe this a "Public university in California" rather than "Research university in California"? We'll assume U Pasadena is akin to Stanford in this example. Note that neither option is wrong, unless we decide here that public/private is preferred over using "research" or "liberal arts" in this broad framework.

Because English Wikipedia includes countries from around the world, we can't assume that everyone knows Pasadena is a city, but your suggestion is reasonable and works well if space is lacking. (If there is plenty of room, including the city name is not necessarily redundant because not everyone knows it is a city.) Also, I think context matters. With the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee or theState University of New York at Brockport, it is obvious that Milwaukee or Brockport are locations. But are Briar Cliff University, Saint Leo University, or San Juan College named for places, people or something else? It gets murky quickly if you assume people know place names.

WP:Short Descriptions concluded that only major cities, such as LA, Paris, Chicago, Rome, New York, London, etc. rise to the level of not needing a country identifier. Amongst WP:UNI members, we have previously talked about California and Texas being the only two states that are "universally known", along with possibly Florida. I recall one WP:SD editor noting that including the US in the short description does no harm and might be helpful even if you think the state is known to someone in Nigeria or Papua New Guinea. Another editor thinks no state is needed for New York City, even if space allows.

Obviously, my preference is to include city/state/us--however, I will concede that this will frequently go over 40 characters. So, should we trim the city to fit 40 OR allow an overflow to 45 or 46 characters? I am asking this here because I know the answer I will get from WP:SD. Rublamb (talk) 23:29, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, agreed with you about the University of Pasadena example (apologies if you wrote that before I corrected my comment).

Also agreed that it can get fuzzy as to what is clearly a location vs. possibly something else.

Regarding U.S. states, I think California and Texas are the two clearest ones. We can never assume that everyone knows anything, but the vast majority will know them, particularly if you weight toward the audience of readers actually likely to be looking at search results containing the institution's page (i.e. while we do want to write for a global audience, readers in Papua New Guinea are less likely than Americans to be interested in a California college). So I'd say never include the country for those. For the other VA4 states, I think it's a little more discretionary, and might depend on how much room there is left in the 40 characters. For cities, NYC is the only VA3 U.S. city, so I would definitely let that stand alone as globally known, and might consider it for L.A./Chicago/D.C. as well depending on space constraints. Sdkb ^talk 23:57, 23 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Rublamb specifically asked me to weigh in on this conversation. And I've been thinking about opening a similar discussion about what we write in the lead sentence and "type" parameter of the university infobox (which should match, in my opinion) because it's recently become more complicated.

I think that this discussion of what to write in the short description is on track and in alignment with my thoughts and practices. I agree that, for US institutions, governance (public or private) is the most important defining characteristic and it must be included in the short description. Luckily, this is the characteristic that is easiest to figure out for an institution. For institutions that are still open, a quick glance at the US Department of Education's database IPEDS - I usually use the College Navigator tool as an easy-to-use interface for searching IPEDS - will show how the US Department of Education classifies an institution's governance. We almost always accept as definitive and there is rarely - but not never - any dispute over this classification or difference between how this particular unit of the federal government classifies an institution and how other units (other parts of the federal government such as the IRS, state-level units, accreditors, etc.) classify an institution. When there is a conflict between different units it's usually transitory, often occurring when an institution's governance is being actively reevaluated and the different units are moving at different speeds.

I also agree that we should, in many cases, include one or more additional adjectives that describe the type of institution e.g., community college, research university, liberal arts college. We probably should consider omitting these adjectives from the short description in cases where the institution's type is included in its name (e.g., American Samoa Community College, University of Louisiana System) but I don't know enough how the short description is actually used to know for sure if this is a good idea. The list of commonly used adjectives is pretty short: career college, community college, liberal arts college, liberal arts university (quite rare and mostly used for the handful of COPLAC members that are universities), historically black college, historically black university, and research university. The challenge here is that it's not straight forward to figure out which, if any, adjectives are appropriate because these distinctions are not uniformly captured in any one place. In practice, it's usually a mix of Carnegie classification, U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking classification, and other more idiosyncratic sources such as institutional description, local media descriptions, and scholarly articles and books. Luckily, these adjectives are usually widely agreed upon but this has recently become a lot more complicated by the change made last year in the Carnegie classifications that eliminated the "Basic classification" in favor of two new, complementary classifications ("Research Activity" and "Institutional Classification"). It's also worth noting that although IPEDS is very handy and is definitive when it comes to the US Department of Education, it is not updated nearly as often or as quickly as most other sources (e.g., it appears to still have the pre-2025 Carnegie Classification data). And there are very legitimate worries about how well the database will be maintained because nearly all of the staff who maintain the system have been fired and many relevant support contracts terminated.

One set of adjectives that is discussed above and should be included in most cases, in my professional opinion as a scholar and an experienced Wikipedia editor in this specific space, is religion. For some institutions, their religious character is core to their mission and shapes so many of their activities and priorities that it's incredibly important for readers to know about and it's a legitimate shorthand that communicates a lot about the institution. The challenge, in my experience, is determining when a religious adjective should be used and what specific adjective should be used. Luckily this challenge occurs rarely - for the vast majority of institutions it's very obvious what adjective should be applied; this is particularly true for institutions who identify with a particular sect or an organized religion that has clear documentation and membership criteria. Challenges arise when there are conflicts in sources, particularly when an institution is making self-promotional claims that are not well-supported by other sources. This most often occurs, in my experience, when an institution appears to have a de facto, well-documented relationship with a religion but its current leadership is trying to distance the institution from that religious identity or organization - the leaves us in the awkward position of essentially having to "call out" the leadership because we follow the sources and include the religious identifier in the article despite the leaders having taken concrete action to remove or bury the religious identifier in the institution's official documents e.g., mission statement, "About us" section of their website.

To recap, I think that this discussion is going quite well and there appears to be a considerable amount of consensus among editors about what should be included in the short description. I think that the reminders above that 40 characters is an aspiration and not an absolute limit are very important because we're likely to go over that limit in many cases when it's necessary to do so (I imagine that "liberal arts college," "liberal arts university," "historically black college," and especially "historically black university" are most problematic for us because they are essential descriptors that are also relatively long).

I have no opinion on how to handle location; my personal opinion is at odds with Wikipedia policy and common practice so I am happy to continue supporting the broad consensus wherever it lands (which should not be different from the project-wide consensus on this issue). ElKevbo (talk) 15:21, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Always appreciate your insights, ElKevbo! Regarding I don't know enough how the short description is actually used, also appreciate your up-frontness about this. To summarize, short descriptions are primarily intended for disambiguation, to complement and clarify the page title. The main place they are used is in search description results. Sdkb ^talk 18:54, 25 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The short descriptions are also an editing hack for Wikipedia. In VE, mousing over a Wikilink reveals the short description. When working on chapter lists for honor societies, fraternities, etc., short descriptions with locations and status mean that you do not have to open each college article to get that info. Instead, you can copy and paste from the short description. I am not saying this is a reason to include locations, but it certainly is handy when you are working on a list with nearly 1,000 chapters. (Similarly, if you are creating a list of notable alumni, you can get notability from the short description). BTW, this is why I come across so many college short descriptions in a single editing session. Rublamb (talk) 04:37, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that per WP:READER we should be taking into account reader needs rather than editor needs in a discussion like this. Sdkb ^talk 04:55, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, "I am not saying this is a reason to include locations", and I was simply responding to @ElKevbo's query as to how short descriptions are used. WP:READER is an essay, rather than a policy. However, if we are going to consider usefulness to the average user, your link to in search description results shows exactly why going over 40 characters is of little use--those short descriptions that are longer than 40 chacters are truncated, meaning the content beyond 40 characters is not visible. However, the entire short description is visible when viewing the article itself, making that possibly the first content read when looking at an article on a computer (and possibly another top way short descriptions are used). Note that short descriptions do not show on Wikipedia articles viewed from a phone--which is the may way most people access the Internet. Rublamb (talk) 20:50, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@ElKevbo: thanks for your response. I recently came across a short description that called an HBCU a "Private Black college..." Although shorter, I am not sure that is an appropriate description. Also, I think HBCU is more important than public/private in this instance. Rublamb (talk) 20:53, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that "Black college" is not language that is commonly used or well-defined so I don't think it's helpful for readers. "Predominantly Black institution" is used in some circles but is not common, in my experience (which may not be very relevant given my complete lack of focus on these institutions!). "Minority-serving institution" is a little bit more common but probably not familiar to the general public. "Historically black [college or university]" has the benefit of being familiar to many readers and well-defined. In my opinion, it is also a very good shorthand for describing very important parts of those institutions' mission and identity.

I disagree, however, that "historically black [college or university]" is more important than governance (public or private). Whether an institution is public or private has foundational implications for how an institution is structured and governed with further implications for mission and hence strategies and programs. Moreover, there are both public and private HBCUs so we cannot consider omitting governance for HBCUs because HBCU status does not imply a particular governance structure (unlike religious descriptors which, in the US, always mean that the institution is private - but I would not recommend omitting governance for religious institutions because I don't know if that implication is obvious for many readers). ElKevbo (talk) 23:13, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. I previously thought as you did (somewhere I waxed poetic on the topic), but had recently been convinced to think otherwise for HBCUs. I am actually grateful to have someone support my original position, as HBCU almost always result in the short description being overlong. Rublamb (talk) 23:35, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Regrouping

It looks like there is general agreement that public/private is ~~the most~~ important content to include in the short description, based on the number of times it was mentioned.

Next decision to make, do we use the format 1) "American public university" or 2)"Public university in Michigan, US". For this discussion, the state is not mentioned in the institution's name and "US" is included in 2 because Michigan is not a well-known state, such as California, Texas, or New York. Option 2 included 34 characters/spaces. Rublamb (talk) 17:19, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like there is general agreement that public/private is the most important content to include in the short description. I don't think we can make a statement that broad from the above discussion. I argued that a descriptor like "women's college" is more important than public/private status, and there seemed to be agreement on that point. Sdkb ^talk 20:35, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb: The majority specifically stated somewhere above that public/private was important. That is the only content that there is broad agreement on at this point.

There was discussion that secondary content such as women's college, liberal arts, or HBCU is important, but not the most important aspect. It was noted by several participants that these should be used with public/private. As @ElKevbo wrote above, "I disagree, however, that "historically black [college or university]" is more important than governance (public or private). Whether an institution is public or private has foundational implications for how an institution is structured and governed with further implications for mission and hence strategies and programs. Moreover, there are both public and private HBCUs so we cannot consider omitting governance for HBCUs because HBCU status does not imply a particular governance structure." Obviously, we can apply this to all specialty institutions.

In terms of women's colleges, they represent a very small percentage of the active institutions under the scope of WP:UNI. (And most now admit men to some or all of their programs). As a result, it is more beneficial to focus on what will work for the majority of articles and where there is agreement. We can always circle back to possible exceptions once we decide on general formats. Does that work for you? Rublamb (talk) 21:36, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think everyone agrees that public/private is important information that should be included if there's room. What I took issue with is you turning "important" into "most important" in your attempted summary. Whether public/private or other essential defining characteristics are more important is still under debate (note Donald Albury's comment about the confusion over internationalization, which is one reason not to emphasize them), and is not something that I'm sure can be universally generalized given the number of factors at play. Sdkb ^talk 22:01, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb: I started this discussion by asking, "What do you consider to be the most defining characteristics of the majority of institutions in the United States? What should always be included in short descriptions, and what would you like to see included if there is room?" The item that was most frequently mentioned in response to my questions is public/private. I agree this does not mean everyone thinks this is the "most important" descriptor; rather, that this was selected by the majority.

Donald Albury's comment is valid and speaks to the importance of including the country in the short description. Including location was also mentioned by several people as being important, probably coming in second place. Your concerns about student type are also valid. However, since this discussion was specifically about "the majority of institutions in the United States", continuing to focus on exceptions such as women's colleges does not help answer my original questions. That is why I created this subsection--to refocus on the question at hand. Rublamb (talk) 22:55, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"American" is not a good adjective to use because it's ambiguous. Does it mean that the institution is located in "America" (which is itself a contested term) or does it mean that the institution is modeled after US colleges and universities? I understand that this option is much shorter but I'm afraid that it's not suitable and that we have to be explicit about location if it's included. ElKevbo (talk) 03:40, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That is persuasive to me. Sdkb ^talk 04:51, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Regrouping II

Based on the number of times it was mentioned, it looks like there is general agreement that public/private is important content to include in the short description for the majority of colleges and universities in the United States. Thank you to ElKevbo for providing information on how this division is also used by the main college classification systems in the U.S. We also had several mentions of including locations, with others placing higher priority on other aspects. We also strayed from the original question, taking quite a bit about specialty institutions. Since this is somewhat off-topic, my preference is to come back to exceptions later, after we work through my original questions. Is this agreeable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rublamb (talk • contribs) 18:08, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is about short descriptions for (U.S.) higher ed institutions, so I'm not following why you're deeming it off-topic or "exceptions" to discuss various defining characteristics of those institutions beyond just their public/private status, and when those other "specialty" characteristics rise to the level of definingness that makes them more essential to include than public/private status. That feels a bit like you're limiting the scope of discussion to assume your preferred outcome. Remember that this whole thing began because you and I disagreed about whether "private" or "liberal arts college" was a more defining characteristic for one school. And you argued above that women's colleges are a niche situation, but we're not just talking about that. Schools that have a distinctive student body due to gender or ethnicity or religion or disability status, or that have a distinctive educational offering because they're vocational/military/etc., start to become a sizable group. Sdkb ^talk 05:03, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

For the third time, this discussion was started to consider "the most defining characteristics of the majority of institutions in the United States". I purposely did not refer to prior discussions between the two of us so that other editors could share they opinions without the baggage of prior disagreements. If you want to explore topics that are beyond the scope of this discussion, please start a new section. Rublamb (talk) 15:17, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that it's helpful or appropriate to only focus on the majority of institutions in the United States. There are small groups of institutions that share common characteristics that are widely recognized and incredibly helpful in quickly describing them for readers e.g., historically black, women's college, service academy. I understand the inclination to want to omit those descriptors because they're used for relatively few institutions and they often make the short summary longer than desirable but they're so commonly used that I think violates WP:OR to omit them and does a disservice to readers. ElKevbo (talk) 01:12, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I am not suggesting that we omit any possible descriptions as options. As detailed above, I personally find numerous variables to be beneficial and worthy of inclusion. For the purposes of this discussion, I decided to focus on the key factor for the majority of institutions because that would have an outcome that would provide direction for the majority of articles. Also, we seem more likely to reach an agreement on one thing at a time. This is not about original research, since the institution type is from the article itself. Rather, I had hoped this discussion could end disagreements that happen from time to time over short descriptions, while also helping to fix our length issues.

Even if this discussion is unresolved, it is important for all of us to remember that we can't include everything in a short description, nor should WP:UNI members set a standard that routinely goes over what is established by MOS. For example, for US higher ed institutions, we could use "American public/private college/university/seminary/community college/technical school/etc" and fall within 40 characters. There would even be space for the dates of defunct institutions in most cases. Given that this is one of several possible solutions to the length problem, I encourage everyone to rethink why "American politician" or "American business" work just fine, but our short descriptions need extra details. Rublamb (talk) 02:56, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As ElKevbo said above, "American politician" is not going to mean "a politician modeled after the American style," whereas "American college" may. Sdkb ^talk 18:06, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Request for guidance: EnMed (Texas A&M Engineering Medicine program) notability assessment

Hello WikiProject Universities editors,

I work in digital marketing for the Texas A&M School of Engineering Medicine (EnMed), and I'm interested in having a Wikipedia page created for the program. I want to be completely transparent about my affiliation and follow Wikipedia's guidelines properly, so I'm seeking your advice before proceeding.

EnMed is a joint program between Texas A&M University and Houston Methodist Hospital that was launched in 2019. It's the first four-year dual-degree program where students simultaneously earn an MD and Master of Engineering.

I've gathered the following independent sources that provide substantial coverage of the program:

-The Eagle (Sept. 2025): “Texas A&M’s EnMed Program Combines Engineering and Medicine” https://theeagle.com/news/a_m/tamus/video_9ad69a53-a3a0-58cc-86be-810a58c6dfe3.html

-Houston Methodist (Aug. 2025): “Engineering the Physicianeer: EnMed Program Flourishes Under Key Leadership” https://read.houstonmethodist.org/engineering-the-physicianeer-enmed-program-flourishes-under-key-leader#id1687192432521

-Houston Business Journal (July 2025): “Texas A&M University EnMed program aims for medical school accreditation by 2028” https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2025/07/15/texas-am-university-enmed-program-medical-school.html

-Houston Chronicle (May 23, 2023): "First 'physicianeer' graduates from Texas A&M and Houston Methodist are hoping to change health care" https://www.houstonchronicle.com/lifestyle/renew-houston/health/article/first-physicianeers-graduating-texas-am-methodist-18102552.php

-TMC News (October 2019): "Houston Methodist and Texas A&M celebrate inaugural class of 'physicianeers'" https://www.tmc.edu/news/2019/10/houston-methodist-and-texas-am-celebrate-inaugural-class-of-physicianeers/

-InnovationMap (2023): "Innovative Houston program that combines engineering, medicine to graduate inaugural class" https://houston.innovationmap.com/houston-methodist-tamu-enmed-graduates-2660252633.html

Given my conflict of interest, I'm not planning to create the article myself.

My questions are:

-Do these sources appear sufficient to meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines? -If so, what's the best process for requesting article creation? Should I use Articles for Creation, or is there another recommended approach given my affiliation? -Are there any other guidelines I should be aware of given my role with the institution?

I appreciate any guidance you can provide. Thank you for your time. ~2026-57174-1 (talk) 17:29, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Although I could not access all of the sources, I think you have enough for notability. Since this is your first article and you have an association to the institution, I would go through Articles for Creation. That way, you will get one-on-one assistance from an experienced editor. My main tip is to stick to the facts and avoid the use of flowery adjectives. Think of this as a newspaper article, rather than a university website. Also, organize the text into a short lead that summarizes the body of the article, which will include sections for history, campus, academics, notable people (if there are any faculty that have Wikipedia articles), references. Rublamb (talk) 21:00, 29 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for your advice and help...I greatly appreciate it! ~2026-76124-9 (talk) 16:26, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Harvard College issue

Hello, I’m looking for input on a recurring content dispute regarding the early naming of Harvard College. It has been asserted that the institution was "unnamed" then called “Harvard”; however, there is evidence that it was initially referred to as “New College” prior to being renamed after John Harvard. [1] This source comes from the website listed on the Harvard College wikipedia page, college.harvard.edu, found above the Wikimedia Map.

The concern is that the current page understates this transitional naming history rather than reflecting it accurately. I’m seeking guidance on how best to present the documented sequence of names in a policy-compliant way (for example, whether this would belong in a “former names” section). Does anyone have guidance or precedent on handling early institutional name changes where there is disagreement? Bigcouchtomato (talk) 18:08, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Bigcouchtomato: Wikipedia aims to reflect what independent WP:Reliable sources say about a subject. And it prefers secondary sources. Do any independent sources confirm the name was "New College"? Earlier discussions at Talk:Harvard University suggest that there are no independent sources. TSventon (talk) 20:28, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've found three independent sources that confirm Harvard's original name was "New College". [2] [3][4] Bigcouchtomato (talk) 23:24, 31 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Bigcouchtomato: where there is disagreement I would suggest a discussion on the article talk page. You could ping EEng and Beyond My Ken.

I looked for Newe Colledge and didn't find anything. TSventon (talk) 00:23, 1 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There's no "transitional naming history" (other than, much later, Harvard College --> Harvard University). See Talk:Harvard_College#"New_College"_(again). E Eng 16:33, 15 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

is Sloane fellowship notable?

Hey! I have a quick question. I used ChatGPT to help me create two similar pages about guest speakers whose lecture I attended. I edited them, added sources, and removed anything irrelevant. It is not ChatGPT spam.

They are partners and build robots together. It was super inspiring and they do a lot in robotics. I am just not sure if I wasted my time. Is the Sloan Fellowship considered a notable award for notability or not? I originally thought about making a page about the company they founded, but I could not find many sources, so decided to make page for them instead.

I see there is a category on Wikipedia for Sloan Fellows- Category:Sloan Research Fellows

Draft:Abhinav Gupta - has 89k citations and Draft:Deepak Pathak- he has about 29k citations

There were 4 people in total I was going to make pages about, they all work together at the same robotic project. All of them are Sloan Fellows. I created these two pages and then stopped because I am not sure if the Sloan Fellowship is notable on its own. The other two people do not have as many citations, so I did not even start their drafts. Any recommendations? WindsorMaster47 (talk) 23:22, 3 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's a research fellowship rather than an award. It's also specifically early-career (tenure-track rather than tenured). Both of these mean I would think it's unlikely to count as "a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level" for WP:NACADEMIC purposes. Robminchin (talk) 00:37, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

that is exactly why I am having second thoughts. The Sloan Research Fellowship is widely recognized as a highly prestigious national level award, particularly in STEM by the press. However, it is called a "fellowship", not an award. So I do not know if it is considered “highly prestigious academic award” on Wikipedia. It is technically an "academic award", if we try to give it a definition. Early-career limitation does not disqualify prestige. Are there any Wikipedia instructions about it? There is no discussion on Talk:Sloan Research Fellowship

It is not something like top-100-visionary-in-no-name local magazine. This is what I found:

It is awarded based on scholarly merit and research impact, not service, employment, or internal nomination

It is conferred by an independent national foundation

It is competitive, selective, and externally reviewed WindsorMaster47 (talk) 00:57, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The awards given as examples are all career-level awards, and I think I remember seeing this come up in discussions. Lots of awards are competitively awarded by professional bodies and independent foundations, so I wouldn't particularly think this makes brings it into the "highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level". It's not at the same level as "major academic awards, such as the Nobel Prize, MacArthur Fellowship, the Fields Medal, the Bancroft Prize, the Pulitzer Prize for History, etc.", so it is not clear that it would count. WP:NACADEMIC does mention "less significant academic honors and awards that confer a high level of academic prestige" that "may include certain awards, honors and prizes of notable academic societies, of notable foundations and trusts", but I would read this as referring to the top career-level awards of academic societies, not early-career fellowships. I think I remember that things like the Royal Society University Research Fellowship, which is an equivalent award, have not qualified in the past, so I wouldn't rely on this to establish notability (although many holders of such fellowships do go on to achieve notability by other means). Robminchin (talk) 18:26, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move at Talk:University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine#Requested move 27 January 2026

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine#Requested move 27 January 2026 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vestrian24Bio 13:13, 10 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

St Cross College, Oxford

There is a discussion at Talk:St Cross College, Oxford#RFC Controversy section and proportionality concerns, which may be of interest to members of this project. TSventon (talk) 12:00, 12 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

[Notable_Alumni-1] "Notable Alumni".

[Faculty_Awards_and_Honors-2] "Faculty Awards and Honors".

[3] "Richard W. Hamming". A. M. Turing Award Laureates. Association for Computing Machinery. Retrieved 2023-07-26.

[4] "University Facts | UC Irvine". uci.edu. Retrieved 2025-04-20.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]