Talk:Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Archive03

message: From Mark Liebermann's Language Log blog post, 4 December 2003:
:As Bill Poser's fascinating post on Carrier beaver words reminded me, both Bill and I are alumni of an institution whose totem has been the beaver ever since 1914. In that year, "Lester D. Gardner 1898 presented the idea to MIT president Richard C. Maclaurin at the annual dinner of the Technology Club of New York." The official reconstruction of Gardner's argument runs like this:
::"We first thought of the kangaroo, which, like Tech, goes forward by leaps and bounds. Then we considered the elephant. He is wise, patient, strong, hard working, and like all those who graduate from Tech, has a good tough hide. But neither of these were American animals. We turned to [William Temple] Hornaday's book on the animals of North America and instantly chose the beaver. The beaver not only typifies the Tech [student], but his habits are peculiarly our own. The beaver is noted for his engineering, mechanical skills, and industry. His habits are nocturnal. He does his best work in the dark."
:Not surprisingly, MIT students and staff have developed an extensive beaver-related lexicon over the intervening 89 years, just as fascinating in its own way as the Carrier beaver vocabulary. On Bill's account, the Carrier beaver words mostly refer to actual beavers or to aspects of their life and death. By contrast, nearly all the MIT beaver terms appears to refer to symbols or rites of various cultic groups, which are known to be thick on the ground at that estimable institution.
A nice break from ratings, isn't it?  In the interests of scholarship, I should note that Language Hat provides similar chants used at Caltech, Rice and RPI.  Anville 14:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Voo Doo being naturally the one and only good source for understanding the Institvte's real nature.  I should know; I wrote for it.  (wicked grin) Anville 22:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I will always remember that John F. Kennedy was assassinated on a Friday, because it was the day Voo Doo came out, and when I heard about the assassination my first reaction was that it must be a Voo Doo stunt, Voo Doo not exactly being a gathering place for New Frontiersmen. A false assassination rumor would have displayed all of the subtlety and good taste for which Voo Doo was renowned. I always found Voo Doo laugh-out-loud funny. Best-remembered Voo Doo article: a petite Voo Doo Doll of the Month, presumably topless, but her modesty preserved by a copy of Romer's well-known textbook "The Vertebrate Body: Shorter Edition." With the caption "I'd like to see what's between the covers of the book she's reading." When for some reason best imagined, they were forced to stop using live models for their Voo Doo Dolls, they had an issue featuring a Barbie doll, in provocative poses, as the Voo Doo Doll of the Month. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:39, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Beaver vocabulary from another culture" 

message: Well, I believe the U. S. News rankings are almost pure evil. I think they deliberately publish data that has a signal-to-noise ratio of about 3 db, and I think they do it because it guarantees that the rankings will change significantly every year, creating excitement and an incentive to buy their magazine. But if we must mention them, we should try to describe them in a way that 
*does not create any impression of false precision
*does not slant the data to put MIT's best foot forward
*does plainly cite the single number most fetishized, namely the most recent overall rank number in the "Top National Universities" list 
I propose:
:As of 2006 MIT ranks seventh (tied with Caltech) in U. S. News and World Report's list of top national universities. In the year 2000, at the height of the tech boom, U. S. News briefly ranked MIT third (the same year in which it ranked Caltech first).
This avoids judgements like "consistently," gives a couple of data points to show the range, and shows what everybody knows: that MIT is one hell of a good school but not quite at the very top.
But I have to say anyone who believes that in the year 2000 Caltech was really the best school in the nation, and that over the last few years both Caltech and MIT deteriorated... while Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Duke, and Stanford truly shaped up... well, I wonder what course they were enrolled in. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:26, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's because of all of these issues that the current wording is optimal.  The US News rankings are based on a formula which changes from year to year.  It's supposed to, and reflects not much more than how they want to put their data together.  On the other hand, the interesting fact is that the peer assessment scores for MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Princeton stand alone as the highest based on their survey data EVERY SINGLE YEAR.  This survey data is interesting and encyclopedic, the former is just another random magazine ranking. -- BrassRat 20:34, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Where possible, rankings should be reported as numeric values, with years and sources provided; and as they are such specific facts, they should not occupy an article's lead section." -- Wikipedia:Avoid academic boosterism. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:49, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal for wording of the "rank" statement (see above) 

message: IMHO Nobel prize counts should not go in the lead paragraphs of university articles. They tell us nothing specific about a university. All leading research universities have Nobel laureates associated with them. People who are curious about this can go to our article on Nobel prizes by university affiliation. 
Presumably the actual count is supposed to mean something, but I'm not sure what it could be other than boosterism. As a metric of university wonderfulness, it's pretty dubious data. Other things being equal, bigger universities will have more Nobel laureates, for example, so the fact that University of Chicago has 78 laureates hardly means it is better than MIT; conversely, even though Swarthmore College has only 4, a Swarthmore booster could argue that that is very impressive relative to its size. But of course if we wanted to correct for size, what size should we be using? The total enrollment? The size of the grad school? The size of the departments in fields for which Nobels are awarded? 
But then, what ought to count? If Nobel laureate counts are supposed to speak to the important and quality of the university's research activities, presumably what matters is Nobel laureates who were at the university during the years when they were doing their work. Although the number Nobel laureates who are regularly engaged in undergraduate instruction would be interesting, as showing something about the institution's educational philosophy.
In any case, a factoid like this, if it means anything, indicates something or other about the caliber of the university's people, and it belongs in the MIT People section. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:00, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your obsession with analyzing all facts only from the perspective of what the intent of the editor was is not only spurious and incorrect, but biased.  The Nobel Prize count of an institution is just as objective and useful a piece of data as its enrollment, acceptance rate, endowment or date of founding.  Is it boosterism to call Oxford the oldest university in Britain?  Please calm down and figure out useful data to add rather than useful data to delete.  My two cents. -- BrassRat 21:20, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Nobel prize counts

message: Trying to trace this and finding only elliptical scraps of information... I believe that at one time MIT was an important naval architecture school. This seems not to be true any more. Apparently it was renamed "Ocean Engineering???" And then, this year, Ocean Engineering was, absorbed into Mechanical Engineering.
Can anyone confirm/deny?
Princeton Review does not include MIT on a list of schools offering a naval architecture major. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you come across this: ? At the end of the page it refers to a book and gives the call number T171.M4224.O248 2000. btm 05:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Bingo! No, I hadn't. Thanks. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naval Architecture/Ocean Engineering/Course XIII???? 

message: Asteroid deflection strategies has been nominated on WP:IDRIVE. Support it with your vote if you want it to be improved.--Fenice 22:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Improvement drive

message: There is a section of MIT in popular culture called "The MIT of..." that lists a bunch of schools that have been called the MIT of (region).  While the section does have references, it strikes me that the only purpose of this section is for it boost MIT to the reader.  I'll quote Dpbsmith from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Harvard of the Midwest:
:This is a completely idiosyncratic nontopic. It verges on original research because, unlike Public Ivies, there is no definitive list of which schools are included, and no objective standard for which schools qualify. A few sources are cited but they do not demonstrate that the phrase is a true idiom with a well-defined meaning.
IMO, the Harvard article should be deleted, as should the "MIT of..." section. btm 21:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I pretty much agree with you here.  MIT is indeed the standard to which other technical schools are compared and even though Caltech may deserve a similar status, it hasn't quite got it.  It's certainly fair to capture this status, but it shouldn't come across as silly and overt boosterism.  I think you've improved the section to that end. btm 07:01, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I'm more or less in agreement too.  I moved the string of inline hyperlinks to that article's talk page, since I can't quite see the attraction of having a one-sentence paragraph which is almost entirely bracketed numbers.  Anville 18:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "The MIT of..."

message: FYI, I've put the above category on a vote for rename to :Category:Wikipedians by alma mater: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Semiconscious · talk 09:41, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[:Category:Wikipedians by alma mater: MIT]]

message: We seem to have stumbled into an unholy mixture of reference styles.  Does anyone actually feel up to slogging through the article and changing them over, or is this one more excessively nitpicky thing I will be doing in my "copious free time"?  Anville 11:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference styles 

message: The Graham-Diamond report, cited by BrassRat, is interesting and seems like a relevant thing to include in the Ranking section. However, it was formerly presented in this way:
:According to the National Research Council, MIT enjoys the greatest overall research reputation in the United States.
In fact, the report contains eleven pairs of tables. In the first ten, universities are ranked by various programs, e.g. "engineering," "cell and developmental biology," etc. Each pair of tables contains one ranking by "reputation" and another by (variously) awards or citations received by faculty. Finally, the eleventh pair of tables, presumably the one being referred to, is "Top 50 Institutions Ranked by Mean Score of Reputation Rating and Citations or Awards Density of All Programs." Like the others, it is a pair, and MIT indeed ranks first in reputation, but only fourth in awards and citations. 
I cannot think of any neutral reason for selectively mentioning one but not the other, so I've reworded this:
:The National Research Council, in a 1995 study ranking research universities, placed MIT first in "mean score of reputation rating" and fourth for "citations or awards density" for all programs. Diamond, Nancy and Hugh Davis Graham (1995), How should we rate research universities?
Interestingly, in table 8, "Engineering," MIT ranks first in reputation but only fifth in "citations/faculty." (Not surprisingly, MIT does not appear at all in table 10, "Top 20 Institutions in Arts and Humanities." Dpbsmith (talk) 12:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NRC Graham-Diamond ranking 

message: There is a reference in the Recent Building Efforts section to St. Paul's Cathedral.  Should this be St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Boston?  This makes sense to me, but I don't really know much about that building.  It currently links to St. Paul's Cathedral in London, which is a plausible reference, but it doesn't really make much sense. Phil Bastian 14:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: St. Paul's Cathedral

message: I removed 
http://www.mit.edu/~menchu/facts/html/factsmain.html
because: 
1) it appears to be the personal website of Miguel Menchu , and as such wouldn't meet the reliable source guidelines, but, more seriously,
2) although it does cite a few of its sources, it appears to be about as neutral as Wal*Mart "facts" and seems to have cherry-picked its facts, citing only ones highly favorable to MIT. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:30, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ech.  It's like one big neutrality violation. . . and it's not nearly as interesting as "Is Suicide at MIT a Poisson Process?".  Anville 18:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIT Ranking "facts" 

message: Can someone verify that MIT and Duke were in fact tied under "academic reputation" in U.S. News and World Report as the article states?  I find that to be bizarre, because the last issue available online from only a few years back has MIT at 4.9 (90% ranking it a perfect 5) and Duke at 4.5 (50%).  That's a big difference, so I can't see it as being probable that Duke rose to the 4.8-4.9 range in so short a period.  Perhaps an eager editor mistook "academic reputation" for the overall rankings?  Wise 20:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and removed it.  Unless a source can be cited, it should remain that way.   My doubt borders on the 99% certainty level. Certainly someone mistook the overall ranking for the "academic reputation" score. Wise 20:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, I agree.  I can't find a single ranking showing Duke up there. -crl620 21:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tied with Duke in Academic Reputation? 

message: I changed:
:Nevertheless, in some US circles, undergraduate attendance at MIT has not carried the same type of social cachet as attendance at Harvard, Yale or Princeton.[10] This has been attributed to its longstanding traditions of meritocratic admissions, stringent grading standards, and comparatively low emphasis on admitting children of alumni and students from the upper class.[11]
to
:Nevertheless, in the U.S., undergraduate attendance at MIT has not carried the same type of social cachet as attendance at Harvard, Yale or Princeton.[1] MIT's tradition of meritocratic admissions[2] differs from that of the former schools.
The qualification "in the U.S." is meaningful, so I left it in. 
The qualification "in some circles" is meaningless and redundant; social cachet is only important in those circles in which social cachet is important, just as high intelligence is only important in some circles, muscular strength is only important in some circles, etc. 
In the sentence about meritocratic admissions: the cited source says only that MIT has meritocratic admissions; it doesn't say that's the reason why attendance at HYP confers more social cachet. So the sentence needed to be rewritten to make that clear. The weasel-worded "has been attributed" doesn't belong unless someone can identify who, exactly, has attributed that effect to that cause, so I just took it out.
"Comparatively low emphasis on admitting children of alumni and students from the upperclass" is redundant; that's what "meritocratic" means. 
The fact that it is MIT that says it has a meritocratic tradition is an important qualification and needs to be left in. There's a difference between "an MIT dean says thus-and-such" and "thus-and-such is true."
My rewriting leaves two highly supportable statements: a) an MIT dean says MIT has a tradition of meritocratic admissions; b) this policy differs from the admissions policy of HYP. 
We leave it to the reader to draw the obvious inference (attendence at some schools carries social cachet because at those schools part of the admissions committee's function is to make social judgements on the applicant)... or to wonder what the point of the sentence about meritocratic admissions is. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:39, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wording tweaks in the "ranking and reputation" section

message: The article certainly should not suggest that an exceptionally high suicide rate is a characteristic, distinguishing feature of MIT. It is not, and so mention of suicide does not belong in the lead paragraph. A student jumped out of a high-rise at UMass Amherst at about the same time MIT suicides were local headlines; the Gorge is proverbial at Cornell (Another Fatal Plunge Has Cornell Asking Whether Its Gorges Inspire Student Suicides)
On the other hand, the issue should not be whitewashed by failing to mention it at all. Like many elite colleges, MIT does have many suicides, even if this is not an area in which boosters can claim yet another #1 ranking, and the Elizabeth Shin incident drew national attention to the issue. 
The paragraph I wrote is probably too long; if anyone can figure out how to shorten it while citing sources and maintaining neutrality, they should do so. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:48, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The admissions office has  made a lot of hay] about having reached sexual near-parity in each class it has admitted since at least 2003 (class of 2007).  Facts says that 43% of undergraduates (29% of graduate students) were women in Fall 2005. Madcoverboy 17:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "43% female" is a good match for the "57% male" in the Post-Gazette, and certainly the admissions office is a good source. I'm going to tweak the article a bit as I don't think I'd consider 43:57 or 44:56 to be "1:1" or "near parity," even if it wouldn't be enough to stop a Senate filibuster. Better to give the percentage and let the reader judge. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suicide 

message: No mention of Ted Postol and allegations of research misconduct at Lincoln Labs. Reading the good article discussion page reminded me about this controversy. Madcoverboy 15:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversies 

message: The article claims that 5.111 is referred to as "five eleven one" and never as "five one eleven." In fact, at least during my years as an undergrad at MIT in the early 80s, we referred to such courses as "five one eleven." I wonder if this is, perhaps, specific to Course or to a given cohort. Drgitlow 00:26, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a good example of original research to me... if this fact can't be traced to a published source, it should be removed. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I heard the young folk saying "five one eleven" when I visited my old living group two weeks ago.  Let's zap it.  Anville 14:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

text: "Five eleven one" and "five eleven two" (the advanced version) seem more symmetric than "five one eleven" and "five one twelve". The former pair was definitely the most common pronunciation during my time at MIT. --Mike Lin 20:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Hmm, Professor Ceyer told my 5.111 class last year that the courses were pronounced "five eleven one" and "five eleven two" and NEVER "five one eleven" and "five one twelve". I've been at MIT for a year and a half and have never once heard "five one eleven". int3gr4te 20:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm also a current student, only ever heard it as "five eleven one" 141.232.1.1 18:20, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ridiculous Technicality 

message: I'm snipping
:MIT has also been ranked as the #1 graduate school for engineering since U.S. News began ranking programs.
until someone can find a citation; it's been without a citation since June 18th. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:04, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Found a cite, albeit from MIT news office. Putting it back in. Madcoverboy 03:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: #1 for engineering since U. S. News began ranking

message: A MIT archives page [] says the the Harvard-MIT merger was rejected by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in 1905 rather than 1917 as it says in the article. Was the latter a different merger attempt? I'll be back on campus next week so perhaps I'll make a trek to archives and find out more. Madcoverboy 20:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind, I RTFA. Madcoverboy 20:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIT-Harvard Merger 

message: A non-logged-in user recently made some small unexplained changes in the enrollment numbers. There has also, for some reason, been a certain amount of slow-motion edit-warring on endowment figures for some universities. 
This underlines the importance of having sources for information of this kind. 
Absent sources neither I nor anyone else has any way of easily checking to see whether these changes are valuable updates, or whether they simply represent a different (and slightly inconsistent) source... or whether they are subtle vandalism. I don't have time to look for sources right now so I'm marking them as needing citations. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources for endowment, enrollment, etc. 

message: I have cut out the part about MIT always being ranked #1 in academic reputation, as it's simply false. This article from MIT's own website says it was ranked third at least one year . LaszloWalrus 20:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pinning this down. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  #1 in academic reputation? 

message: The article titled Institute Professor has been nominated for deletion by user:Kane5187, who says not all of the 10-or-12-or-so Institute Professors are notable.  This while many MIT professors who are not Institute Professors have Wikipedia articles and are universally considered notable (and so do most of the Institute Professors).  Please opine at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Institute Professor.  Your input is needed! Michael Hardy 00:51, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Institute Professor" nominated for deletion

message: The European Union is planning the foundation of an European Institute of Technology, which is inspired by the MIT. Is it acceptable to link to the EIT article from the MIT article? Pvosta 07:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First, I wish the EU and both the old and new EIT much success.  Second, MIT has inspired many things.  That is not enough of a reason for a link.  Note that of the almost 2500 links to this MIT article, only a handful are in the article.  The MIT article is already overlong, and some are working on shortening it, both to follow the Article Size guideline, and in an effort to get Featured Article status.  Third, you might check if there is a list of technical institutions and/or research universities and add EIT there.  And/or create those categories and populate them. - Lentower 12:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: European Institute of Technology

message: I understand that we're trying to condense the length of the article, but I also felt that given other university FAs, the alumni section needed more than a link. I know it reads like a list and it runs the risk of omitting important alumni, but this is obviously a first pass. As I said in the revision comments, I used a ("Highest Degree Awarded" "Roman Course Number" and "Year Highest Degree Awarded") format. There are 3.5 broad categories (politics, industry, university, miscellaneous) which could be expanded to include the litany of researchers, award-winners, computer scientists, etc. Section could use some pictures from linked-pages too. :) Madcoverboy 05:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding the pictures, I was wondering if some enterprising soul (or one with initiative and photoshop skill, unlike myself) could mind stitching together a vertical banner of all the logos formed by MIT alumni so we could use it alongside the section to better illustrate the list. Madcoverboy 07:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Noted Alumni

message: I removed the sentence that quoted from a source saying that MIT's campus was unsightly and ugly etc. Well it may not be Princeton, but I don't think we should exactly pan it. Added a few lines on Killian Court. I think there should be more about the architectureWolfensberger 00:42, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted the removal of the Princeton Review ranking because it provides some measure of a counterweight against boosterism. I modified some of your comments to condense them and created an article for Bostworth since the AT&T fact was more appropriate there. I very much enjoyed the juxtaposition or (unintended?) pun in the beginning about the buildings being made of concrete and them cementing reputation. I do hope that edit stays stable, but what in this wild-wiki-world ever does? Madcoverboy 15:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIT's Architecture and Campus 

message: I see the point about boosterism. But it does - for my taste- start the discussion off on a bitter note. At any rate I took out the bit about deconstructivism and brutalism. Frank Gerhy and Steven Holl are definitely not Deconstructivists (though their work may seem to look that way). I realze the Wikipedia entry on Deconstruction has Gehry in there, but this reflects a weakness of whoever wrote that article. Just because something looks crazy does not mean it is deconstructivism.
I can add a bit about the student center which is an excellent example of Brutalism. That is a good topic and i will try to work on that in the next days.
*Maybe it's an excellent example of Brutalism, but it's a very poor example of a functional building and as far as I know, since the day it was built, it has been generally disliked by those who have to use it. Dpbsmith (talk) 11:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIT's Architecture (again) 

message: William Haffner's name appears nowhere in the Lewis Report  which is the basis for much of this section. A citation is needed. 140.247.225.140 00:14, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  William Haffner 

message: How much does it cost to attend this university? Jidan 04:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How much $$$ 

message: Hi Wikipedians...just a note I thought it a bit unnecessary to index the MIT pages when a link to the main MIT page is already provided at the bottom. I removed it here, but feel free to reinsert it if necessary. --HappyCamper 06:31, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Indexing links