Talk:Pomona College

message: I've been in the process of adding information on most popular undergraduate majors to articles on college and university websites a few at a time, using the data reported on College Navigator at the nces.ed.gov website run by the U.S. Dept of Education.  When I did that here, the result was (for 2021 grads):
*Econometrics & Quantitative Economics (43)
*Computer Science (33)
*Political Science & Government (21)
*Mathematics (19)
*Research & Experimental Psychology (19)
*Neuroscience (17)
*Chemistry (17)
My edit was reverted, with the argument being that it is more useful for comparison purposed to use broader categories than the majors as reported to nces.  The revert restored the prior information in this article, which breaks down all of the majors at Pomona into four broad categories, as reported on the college's own "Completed Majors" page.    I can see an argument for broader categories - the example being given that, if you combine the Biology and Molecular Biology fields, which might not be separate majors at some other college, it becomes one of the top fields of study. I think that is a valid argument, but the other hand, the categories being used on the Pomona website and this article seem so broad as to be meaningless. For example, it reports that the largest percentage of graduates are in "Natural Sciences" - 39% for 2022. That encompasses eight separate departments: Computer Science, Neuroscience, Biology, Molecular Biology, Chemistry , Psychological Science, Physics and Geology, many of which are completely unrelated. And the "Interdisciplinary" category combines departments that would not be regarded as interdisciplinary studies at most other colleges. So, this is not to me a terribly useful summary of what the college's actual focus is. It also obscures that Econometrics and Computer Science are far and away the two most popular individual majors on campus. 
If broader categories are desired in this article based on the Bio breakdown, I suggest that this article use the  majors that NCES uses (now updated for 2022), except in the case of biology, where the broader category would be used:
*Biological and Biomedical Sciences (Biology/Biological Sciences, Molecular Biology and Neuroscience) - (50)
*Computer Science - 49 
*Econometrics and Quantitative Economics (44)
*Mathematics -(23) 
*Political Science and Government - (21) 
It's just a suggestion. Do with it as you will. I won't revisit this article, but I'll continue to use the individual major data on the other college articles that I edit. Banks Irk (talk) 19:31, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the explanation, Banks Irk! Since this question applies very broadly to all colleges, I think it's best discussed at the WikiProject Higher education talk page. I see you also opened a thread there, so let's centralize discussion at that. Cheers,  talk 03:05, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Academic majors - how to report them 

message: Hi @DoodleGiggly! I saw that you restored your additions to the lead with the summary "Restored info with additional refs." The issue I have is not that the info is unsourced but rather that it is undue. Article leads are intended to be concise summaries of the article overall, and for a topic as expansive as a college with 125+ years of history, that means including only the most essential information.
Going through the additions, "with small classes and strong student-faculty relationships" is something that I think reflects more the college's modern branding than its founders' goals. The concern about keeping it small and close-knit wasn't prevalent in the 1880s from my understanding; it came later in the 1920s, as the number of college students grew and many other schools expanded.
Listing out specific qualities of the consortium is something we can save for the body. "Adjacent, affiliated institutions" seems a sufficient concise summary for the lead.
Regarding listing the number of clubs, we already cover student life in the lead by noting the college's residential character and athletics. If there was a good way to concisely summarize student organizations, I'd be open to it, but I don't think just listing the number is very meaningful — it's about as many as most colleges Pomona's size have, so it's not distinctive, and in any case a numerical count of clubs is a questionable heuristic for measuring the character of a college's extracurricular life.
Study abroad gets only three sentences in the body, and likewise isn't something distinctive, so I don't think it's due to mention.
The top industries for graduates is again something that isn't particularly distinctive compared to other liberal arts colleges, and something I don't think readers tend to be as interested in as prominent alumni (which also give a flavor of post-graduate pursuits).
Hope that helps explain the choices behind the lead weighting. Currently, the lead is 273 words long, which is just slightly below average for FAs per MOS:LEADLENGTH. If we were to expand it, adding a mention of the 47 tradition (as in the TFA blurb) would be the next thing I'd look to add, but that seems just slightly less important/due than the other info currently there. Also note that MOS:LEADCITE means we limit citations in the lead to controversial qualitative information, quotes, and information not repeated in the body. Cheers,  talk 22:35, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead additions 

message: @Glman, I saw that you reverted last week an IP's attempt to add a sentence about the protester arrests at the college. I've been on the fence about it myself, but as I read more I'm leaning toward inclusion.
On the one hand, the arrests were a single discrete event, and as the hidden comment I wrote several years ago states,  Several other major protests in the college's history, such as those against South African apartheid, or those to preserve the Bernard Field Station (which also involved arrests), turned out ultimately to be undue in the larger historical narrative.
On the other hand, the arrests and fallout have garnered significant media attention — from The Chronicle of Higher Education and the Los Angeles Times (twice), among others. They also fold into some larger narratives — the campus has been somewhat of an activism hotspot for years, and activism over Israel-Palestine in particular has been the biggest story of the past few months, including the arrest of a professor (at the request of Claremont Colleges Campus Safety, which is somewhat separate from the Pomona administration) in December. The chair of faculty's quote that  is something I give some weight.
Trying to put recent events into historical perspective as they're still unfolding is always going to be an impossible task, but I think it's important we make as informed a choice as we can, since as this is our only FA on a college other editors may (or at least ought to) look here for precedent when trying to decide how to cover protests elsewhere. If we do include a line, I'd favor the language  Would you, or any WP:HED regulars like @ElKevbo or @Robminchin, have additional thoughts on this? Sdkb talk 22:17, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protester arrests