Talk:Simon Fraser University

message: There have been some rumours saying that SFU was originally called "Fraser University" during its first years, but had to change the name into what it is today because its abbreviation was too...interesting. Does anyone know more about it, or is it just a rumour?
:Just a rumour; never heard of it.  As if the Socreds would deliberately name something for an unflattering acronym; flattering acronyms, yes, unflattering ones, no.  Rumours about the genesis of SFU seem to abound lately; there was a Peak article last summer by some sophomore, no doubt on a material history project, trying to "deconstruct" the "myths" about the Quad; too many weirdnesses to begin describing were in there, but among them was the notion that the pond, trees and "mountain" in the quad were supposed to represent CANADA's lakes, forests and mountains; that's a new one on me; the tour guides in the '70s and '80s always had the story "right" - the symbology of that myth is British Columbia's lakes, forests and mountains.  Not that this was in Erickson's plans, or even the landscaping company's; it was all by happenstance that the design came together; it was a reporter or one of those receiving honorary degrees who coined the thing about the geographic symbolism of the Quad; but the symbology was British Columbian, not Canadian.  I've noticed in recent years that there's been a fuzzification of many historical details in BC to accommodate the limited worldview (ahem) of those moving here to make our history more palatable/understandable to them; I guess this is why Toronto needs to use Vancouver's old nickname (Big Smoke) but I draw the line when revision of local mythography takes place; like Storyeum's episode on "Hudson's Bay trading ships".  Ok, OK, there was the Otter and the Beaver, but it's not as if they heyday of the maritime fur trade had ANYTHING to do with the HBC, or anything else Canadian for that matter.....Skookum1 09:16, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Simon Fraser University" as "Fraser University" in the early days? 

message: --Buchanan-Hermit™..CONTRIBS..SPEAK! 02:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This article nominated for [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Vancouver/COTM|WikiProject Vancouver Collaboration of the Month]]

message: :SFU's ethnic composition is quite unique because of the demographic composition of Burnaby and surrounding areas and because international students make up 7% of its student body.
Just not so; the int'l student item is correct, but Burnaby's demographic's don't have anything to do with SFU's.  The high number of parachuted erstwhile "resident" students who are actually int'l students (but not in name or status) is blatantly obvious to anyone who spends much time on the hill; but that's the result not of Burnaby's ethnic composition but because of the way educational marketing has gone, and also because many "resident" status students are holding passports-of-convenience and are not otherwise "Canadian", except as defined within the loosey-goosey parameters of multicultural=Canadian.  There were days at SFU in a recent couple of semesters spent there when I rarely heard English except in class, or with people I knew.
To me, the quote above is a product of the poor logic and poor evidentiary standards/concepts which are now "taught" at SFU and other schools.  "Pursuit of excellence", a neocorporate buzzphrase which has cut the soul out of what used to be academia, has little to do with intellectual or linguistic skills, but with higher grades (and higher fees)Skookum1 18:16, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Demographic composition statement

message: There's a section on SFU Surrey; there should be sections on the new business and arts schools downtown, plus that Harbour Centre ex-dept store place that's filled with corporate-promo logos on the seminar rooms (amazing what a few dozen grand can buy a corporation in the way of advertising/namespace, when they don't actually contribute much else to education other than buying the nameplate for a seminar room, huh?.Skookum1 18:21, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Downtown facilities/campi

message: The following was deleted from the SFU article recently:
 Francesco Aquilini, head of the Aquilini Investment Group based in Vancouver,
 obtained a Business Administration degree from SFU. On November 17, 2004,
 Aquilini signed a deal with John McCaw, previous owner of the Vancouver Canucks
 and became a 50% owner of the team and the sports arena GM Place.
The reason was, "Who's this? Not important enough to get his own paragraph." 
I personally think that the paragraph should stay but I want to avoid the possibility of an edit war so I'm going to see what everyone else thinks first. Do you guys think this paragraph should remain or should it stay deleted? --Buchanan-Hermit™..CONTRIBS..SPEAK! 04:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The concept of "famous alumni" is subjective and just seems so prone to endless POV and vanity problems.  Regarding this Aquilini person, I guess I'd say "big deal, a business major graduated and did well in business"... This would be relatively expected, I hope.  Is this person "famous"?  I don't think so.  Notable in a page about SFU?  Probably not.  Mentioning the date and details of one business deal seems suspect, for sure.  Wikipedia has a guideline for the notability of people, which may be relevant (certainly to Aquilini's own article). --Ds13 05:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Aquilini

message: The entire research section, talking about the awards won and the move toward 'excellence' does not seem very NPOV -- it sounds like something put out by the PR office of the university.  In particular the line "Long known as an innovative teaching university, SFU has moved toward research excellence" should be either made quantitative or dropped.  (How many papers are published by SFU faculty per year as compared to other schools in Canada, and compared to other schools in the world?) Also it would be nice to see a list of famous faculty members (e.g. the Borwein brothers, the woman in Criminology who was on the cover of Time....)    Spebudmak 18:17, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Research" section sounds like a press release 

message: I've updated the caption to the Central City (SFU Surrey) image, as it's (no longer) correct.  It said that SFU Surrey occupied the lower, rectangular portion, when in fact they now occupy the 14th and 15th floors of the Central City tower. DoctorElmo 01:28, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SFU Surrey image 

message: I made the amendment to the Coat of Arms thing because it should be clearly stated why the daggers were removed, i.e. to satisfy orthodox Muslim students who chose to be offended by the "Crusader daggers" (that's citable, but I don't have Peak archives handy); Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs were not offended and raised no outcry; only Muslims; even us quasi-agnostic ex/semi-Christians weren't offended by religious symbols - heraldic symbols, actually, long lost of religious assocations.  I wonder - my maternal-side family crest has three large crescents on it - should I replace them with crosses or rosettes since I'm not Muslim?  And the Fraser tartan - isn't that offensive to Campbells?  Shouldn't it be replaced as well?  Sheesh.... Skookum1 19:41, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just undid an IP address edit, from a location in Ottawa, which zeroed in on my change and pronounced it "erroneous" without providing a cite.  This particular IP address - 142.58.129.100 - has only one edit in its history, but others with the same 142.58.*.* series also have only a few edits, all to do with SFU, and particularly to do with the Coat of Arms thing; "someone has an agenda" here, and to me it's an agenda of soft-soaping something that's written clear as day and should be stated as such; the "Crusader daggers" thing was in the Peak and also in mainstream media coverage of the controversy, so how can it be "erroneous"?  There's soft-soap all over this page but this was one particularly glaring example; another is on how the new readin'n'writin' requirements/courses are to "improve the core capabilities of students" while in actuality it's to address the deplorable English-language skills of many students, ESL or otherwise, which is an inheritance from the degrading of writing/reading skills in public schools/curriculum; I've seen fourth-year papers get an "A" when they wouldn't have gotten barely a "C" in what should be Grade 11 levels of English, the rationale usually being that the person "did they best they could".   Too long a discussion to condense into the article, but presenting the remedial reading/writing program as if if it were some kind of great post-secondary achievement is, well, kind of an over-sell, and inherently dishonest, too.  Like so much at SFU, though....Skookum1 22:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually 142.58.*.* are SFU IP addresses. Expect many... 24.84.6.197 01:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

text: I just checked the online archive of the Peak (which seems to have a pretty good past database of articles) and couldn't find any reference to any variant of 'crusade* dagger*' so we may have to drop this for now.  Not that'd I'd be opposed to putting it in there if there were a verifiable source, but Skookum1 you also obviously have a POV that you want to express through this page, so maybe we're just going to get involved in an edit war here unless it gets dropped, or you find the source.  Stealth cat 23:57, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not that I know jack about it, but from having worked there for a while and dealing with the crest, those were just regular old Xian crosses, nothing more. Maybe "crusade dagger" was a bit of metaphorical rhetoric or something. What's a "crusade dagger" anyhow? Not to say that this article doesn't have PR all over it, but let's not go overboard.24.84.6.197 05:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Coast of Arms/Crest

message: Although he was not the architect, the original campus heavily reflects the Five Points of architecture.  (Mchelada 03:03, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Le Corbusier

message: I updated the TechOne section to reflect the new changes, but I think I went into too much unnecessary detail, listing all the core courses and their codes.  Would a more general overview of the goal of the program and the recent changes be more appropriate?  I'm in TechOne, for what it's worth.  Hwesta 01:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  TechOne 

message: :Image:CoatofArms new.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot 08:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The coat of arms is now designated for "official use only". I'm not removing it (the coat of arms image(s)), because I think that's a load of horseshit, but that's the deal. The plain white-on-red 'SFU' is OK for public use.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.6.197 (talk) 05:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:CoatofArms new.jpg

message: In the small part about the hockey team, it says: "Currently their roster consists of 2 goalies, 7 defence, and 15 forwards." That's such a weird comment, similar to "Currently, humans breathe oxygen." Any reason for me not to change this?  70.69.13.18 (talk) 03:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. Ridiculously unnecessary. DoubleBlue (Talk) 04:15, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strange line in the sports section 

message: Question:  both of those links are found in the [Simon Fraser University] article and redirect to itself.  Does someone intend to flesh out those articles?  FYI I originally found the SFU Surrey link in the Andromeda article and changed it to read "...the Surrey, BC campus of Simon Fraser University".  Southsloper (talk) 10:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There should be subarticles for the separate campuses, including their building/site histories; apparenetly too people are busy writing up p.r. for the university instead of trying to write encyclopedically enough to care....Skookum1 (talk) 04:47, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [SFU Vancouver] and [SFU Surrey] circular reference? 

message: Skookum1 (talk) 04:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there a "debrochurize" template?

message: Will anybody, please, explain what is a "comprehensive university"? Thanks on behalf of a lot of non-native English speakers. Pedron (talk) 22:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "SFU has the largest undergraduate History department in Middle East and Islamic studies."
First it needs a source, and second it needs a qualifier since I'm pretty sure it doesn't have the largest in the universe. Does anyone know where this claim comes from?  — Saxifrage | ☎ 09:51, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The history department's ego, that's where.  More brochure bumpf, like "the most beautiful setting", the "unique ethnic composition" and all that; self-flatulating aggrandizement is one of SFU officialdom's modern hallmarks.Skookum1 17:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Random thoughts

message: I am doing some work to debrochurize this template. Any advice/comments would be great
Soggybread (talk) 21:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Doing massive cleanup on the article

message: Everyone knows that webometrics is not a rating of the university, but the university's ability to utilize the internet (good webpages, research sites, web publications, online courses, etc.).  It shouldn't be so prominent on the page (first paragraph).  It should be either removed or reworded to it's meaning is explicit.
http://www.webometrics.info/about_rank.html  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.121.138.6 (talk) 07:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: webometrics ratings

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thread_title: File:Univercity Entrance.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

message: I just restored an image :File:The TASC2 Building on the Simon Fraser University Campus.jpg, after receiving permission. I don't see that it was used on this page, but if it is useful here, or elsewhere, it is back.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:30, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  TASC2 Building 

message: SFU will be in the NCAA, but it is not yet.  See this.  98.82.22.234 (talk) 15:33, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  NCAA 

message: There is a section for famous alumni, but what about famous faculty members? MezzoMezzo (talk) 11:27, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Margaret Benston came to SFU in 1966. She wrote around 1967 a most important paper for feminism at that time and still now (house wages campaign, social reproduction theory…), widely circulated at the time and ultimately published as "The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation", Monthly Review 21 (4) doi: 10.14452/MR-021-04-1969-08_2, p. 13–27. There is a special issue of Monthly Review for the 50th anniversary of that paper, doi: 10.14452/MR-071-04-2019-08_1. Of course a Faculty section needs more than one name. I give it here just in case. (I know nothing else about SFU and English is not my mother language. Therefore, sorry, I am not the one to make a Faculty section.) --Dominique Meeùs (talk) 15:59, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Faculty section 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Simon Fraser University. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
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thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: I think this section should be deleted. Really. Who cares? Not important. --2604:2000:E010:1100:CD00:E9D3:53D9:FBE (talk) 07:57, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Honorary alumni 

message: Consistently ranked as Canada's top comprehensive university and named to the Times Higher Education list of 100 world universities under 50, SFU is also the first Canadian member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the world's largest college sports association.
However ridiculous the sentence structure, the conceptual subordination of academic excellence as a dangling modifier of sports excellence is non-trivial, and should be promptly flagged for five and a game. — MaxEnt 15:46, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consistently ranked as Wikipedia's most prolific source of puff, universities love sports, and they own some of the world's largest football stadiums