Talk:Harvard University/Archive 2

message: Clear bias against Harvard:
The Boston Globe reported that Harvard student satisfaction with their undergraduate experience trails most other COFHE (Consortium on Financing Higher Education) schools. [10] In the survey, 25% of Harvard undergraduates described themselves as "very satisfied" with their education, compared to an average of 37% at other COFHE schools, and 21% of Harvard students described themselves as "ambivalent" or "dissatisfied", compared to to an average of 14% at other COFHE schools. Harvard students who participated in the COFHE survey rated Harvard below the average of other COFHE schools on faculty availability, quality of instruction, social life on campus, and sense of community. An internal Harvard memorandum obtained by the Globe noted that "Harvard student satisfaction compares even less favorably to satisfaction at our closest peer institutions" relative to the COFHE averages. The Globe also quoted Lawrence Buell, former Harvard Dean of Undergraduate Education, as saying: "I think we have to concede that we are letting our students down."
First, this is a newspaper article claiming to have obtained confidential information, and this has not been independently verified or publicly acknowledged by Harvard officials.  It can not be considered reliable information until confirmed by Harvard officials.  Because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it should not present speculations as fact.  Second, there is no information on the sample size, response rate, and margin of error and it is impossible to determine how significant the alleged differences were in reality.  For all that matters, if the standard deviation between the several dozen COFHE schools is 10%, then the error bars for most schools would overlap and the difference between 25% and 37% will be buried within the statistical margin of error.   In other words, statistically meaningless.  The same thing for the dissatisfaction rates of 7% and 5%.  Also true for the claim that Harvard students rated their school below the average of others.  What is that actual difference? 0.01 on a scale of 10?  You should not make sweeping generalizations and assertions like this without adequate data to back them up.  The original author claimed that Harvard students were more dissatisfied than students at other schools, when the actual percentages were 7% and 5%, almost certainly an insignificant difference.  This clear discrepancy makes one wonder if the author knows how to interpret statistics correctly. "Ambivalence" or "neutrality" is not the same thing as dissatisfaction.  By combining these two categories, you do your best to push your agenda and to insinuate that Harvard students are not as happy as students at other schools.  The fact is that the overwhelming majority of Harvard students (79%) are satisfied with their experience, 14% are neutral or ambivalent, and 9% are dissatisfied.  I still don't know if any of these numbers are real, but I suppose it could be believable.  If you can find similar kinds of consumer reviews for any commercial product, you would call it an awesome review.  As far as Lawrence Buell's alleged comments, again, it is impossible to verify the truth of this information, but his response seems to be out of line with the actual data, when the alleged differences are rather minor.  To the person who keeps on expanding this piece, please do not try to manipulate the numbers to suite your agenda.  As far as the Crimson article is concerned, it is a student newspaper that by its nature runs articles critical of the school.  It also publishes many, many articles that you wouldn't hesitate to label "Harvard boosterism" and would never quote.  By making some quotes here and there out of context, you are distorting the reality and doing a disservice to the readers.  I'm sorry that you seem to harbor a personal resentment toward Harvard but remember that Wikipedia editors should be neutral.
:Three independent sources, none biased against Harvard, have provided cited and documented evidence that there is a major problem with undergraduate student satisfaction, and this is certainly as appropriate to the "Views of Harvard" section as the #1 university rankings that begin the section.  It is interesting that you can find all of these supposed statistical flaws in the COFHE data, but you have no problem with the data or methodology behind the #1 university rankings and other pro-Harvard boasts throughout the article - who really has the bias problem here?  Regardless, it seems evident to me that your opinion of the data is less important than the multiple Harvard administration sources that are quoted in the Globe article, all of whom considered the COFHE data meaningful and a significant cause for concern.  Are you calling Lawrence Buell and the other Harvard sources biased as well?  And are the many Harvard students who authored the Crimson magazine article and who are quoted within it biased against their own school?  This was not a minor criticism in passing.  This was a sustained, two-part multi-faceted criticism of the Harvard undergraduate experience, written by Harvard students and backed up by quotes from other Harvard sources and other data.  And what about the National Institute of Health data that shows a large percentage of Harvard students feeling overwhelmed and hopeless?  Is the NIH biased against Harvard as well?  Three independent sources, none biased against Harvard, and at least one of which should have a pro-Harvard bias, all painting the same picture of a serious problem with the Harvard undergraduate experience.  This is certainly a valid entry in the Views of Harvard section, although I agree it can be shortened over time once pro-Harvard biased editors like you stop trying to propagandize and sanitize the clear story that emerges from the data.  I'm sorry you don't like what the sources are saying, but three independent sources certainly have more validity that your personal opinion.  By the way, it is also quite a stretch to argue that a published Boston Globe article is not a valid source of information because it can't be independently verified - by that logic, we should delete many of the claims in the Harvard article because many of them have not been independently verified by multiple sources.  The Boston Globe is a major U.S. newspaper with a long record of journalistic integrity, and it has not retracted or amended the article, so to claim that they made the whole thing up is preposterous.
Please read my writing carefully and repeatedly if necessary as you clearly have difficulty understanding relatively straightforward concepts.  I sincerely hope your job doesn't demand too much abstract reasoning skills.
1) my writing does not say that any of these sources are biased against Harvard; you are the one who's assembling pieces of information out of context and misrepresenting them.  
2) I do not say that the Globe made up the whole thing; I say that its claims have not been verified to lend enough credence to the story.  The Globe is a decent paper, but it does make mistakes on a regular basis (ever see the corrections columns?).  I also seem to recall that several prominent journalists from the Globe and the New York Times have in fact been caught plagiarizing and making up phony stories in the past.  Newspaper writers are always looking for stories and are prone to exaggerating, particularly when it comes to Harvard.  This particular story was based on information that was apparently obtained through illegitimate means, if it really existed.  The information itself is very sketchy and incomplete, as I detailed previously.  The data taken at face value simply does not support the contention that Harvard students are more dissatisfied than others.  At best, it might show that the number of satisfied students is slightly less (although it's not at all clear if this is a statistically significant difference), but of course this isn't too exciting so the writer exaggerated.  It is this misinterpretation that makes me question the whole story.  Even if you accept the information as is, what most people would notice first is that the overwhelming majority of Harvard students are satisfied.  What you are doing is trying your best to suppress this absolutely crucial piece of information and put the study in the worst light possible.  This reinforces my conclusion that you are biased (please see point #1 above in case it's already slipped your mind).
3) I did not refer to any ranking issues or "pro-Harvard" boasting issues in my comments above and it's irrelevant to the present discussion.  Your reasoning seems to be that, since there's a lot of stuff here that makes Harvard look good, I must throw in some really negative stuff about Harvard, even if it's total garbage.  Your comments betray your bias (please see point #1 above in case you've forgotten).
4) Who are all the "Harvard administration sources" that you mention?  Why is Buell the only one who's quoted when he is not even the current Dean, only a former Dean?  Where are the comments by other people present?  Where are the comments by the Dean of Harvard College, the current Dean of Undergraduate Education, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the President of the University?  If this is such a serious issue as portrayed, why was this supposed revelation totally ignored by everyone?  Can you be sure that the writer did not pick the absolute worst-sounding comment from the selection to maximize the shock value?  You can't, since you don't have access to the original and complete data.  That's what I mean when I say that the information is not reliable because it has not been verified (please see point #2 above in case you've forgotten).
5) Please do not  throw around phrases like "the NIH study showed that..." hoping to impress people.   Most NIH researchers are a couple of notches below the level of Harvard professors, except for a handful.  There are plenty of bullshit NIH studies, and NIH studies should be subjected to the same critical analysis as any study coming from anywhere on the planet.  Having said that, can you give me the citation for the supposed NIH study?  In which journal was it published and who were the authors and what was their study protocol?  What was the sample size and standard error?  The data itself is also not very meaningful if students at MIT and Princeton and Stanford are just as stressed and overwhelmed.  This citation serves no purpose and provides no useful information, other than to advance your agenda, ie. to make Harvard look bad (please see point #1 above in case you've forgotten).
6) The "separately researched article" from the Crimson's throwaway magazine entitled "The Cult of Yale" that you present as an authoritative commentary on the university is a farce.  It's written for enterainment purposes and is not some scholarly study you try to make it.  For a balanced treatment, I offer you another scholarly article from the Crimson, but it actually contains more facts than you would like to see.  http://thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=255288.
I hope you got my points this time.  If you are still in doubt, please go and watch TV or something instead of trying to edit this article.  As I said before, you do a disservice to the readers.
:I suspect I am arguing with "Andrew", the infamous Harvard undergraduate who turned the Harvard article into a massively arrogant propaganda piece two months ago, and received an NPOV flag for his efforts.  This section is called "Views of Harvard", and we have presented a legitimate view of Harvard based on at least four distinct sources - 1) the COFHE study, 2) Harvard administrators represented by Lawrence Buell and a 21-page internal memo reflecting the views of "staff researchers at Harvard to academic deans", 3) a well-researched article written by five Harvard undergraduates quoting many other Harvard undergraduates, and 4) the National Institute of Health.  And sorry, but these independent sources are not contradicted by your personal opinion of Harvard, nor are they contradicted by your personal opinion of the sources.  I may be going out on a limb here, but I would suggest that in aggregate, COFHE, the Boston Globe, former Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell, the 21-page internal memo from Harvard's administration, multiple quoted Harvard undergraduates, and the NIH have a bit more credibility than an aggrieved Harvard booster who needs to prove to the world how his school towers above all others.  And did I mention Matt Glazer, former president of the Harvard student government, who is quoted in the Globe piece criticising the administration's commitment to fixing the problem?  In aggregate, the Wikipedia article on Harvard is very positive.  There are two paragraphs in the Views of Harvard section that provide a serious, documented, cited, alternate view  of the undergraduate program.  Everything is documented from multiple sources.  It may not qualify as a standalone summary of Harvard University, but it certainly is a legitimate "view of Harvard", which is what this section is all about.  So I will keep reverting your outright attempts at censorship.  
:And by the way, the "contradicting" article you provided is an arrogant football rivalry puff editorial written by one undergraduate, Zachary S. Podolsky, who argues from the same misinformed perspective that Andrew does, by citing large endowments and National Merit Scholars.  The issue here is student satisfaction and the major academic, residential and social problems with the Harvard undergraduate experience, not how "big, rich and famous" Harvard is.  Harvard may have lots of resources and a very talented student body, but that does not mean that there aren't major problems with the undergraduate education provided by Harvard.
:And if it is the same "Andrew" the Harvard undergraduate who is protesting so loudly to censor the COFHE section, I can't help but find some humor in his sudden change of heart since his discussion page comments two months ago, after he was hit with an NPOV flag for his Harvard boosterism.
::In Andrew's own words: "I'm a current student at Harvard and authored most of the two paragraphs in question. A common misperception is that schools such as Yale, Princeton, and Stanford are pretty much interchangeable with Harvard, a notion that these other schools try very hard to propagate.  So I think it's important for the uninformed reader to have access to the truth.  The reason why the article is 'out of balance' is because there are so few factual data showing that these other schools are better than Harvard in just about anything. If you can find other reliable and relevant information that can 'balance' the picture, by all means, add it to the article."
Please don't change the subject.  Needless to say, it does not matter how many articles you cite if none of them are credible.  As always, you keep exaggerating and spinning - the number of "independent sources" increased from two to three to four now - when the other two are in fact only briefly mentioned in the first two.  Hmmm, what does this say about your regard for the truth?  The first, the Globe article, is highly questionable as I detailed above, but you are not willing to, or rather unable to, directly counter any of my very legitimate points.  Rather, you keep increasing the number of sources in response.  The second, the Crimson article, is an amateurish piece by undergrads written for a throwaway weekend magazine of the student newspaper.  Since when do a couple of quotations here and there turn a student newspaper article into an authoritative source based on "extensive research"?  My whole point above was that you are being biased in selecting these dubious sources to satisfy your not-too-subtle need to introduce something negative about Harvard into the article.  Quite contrary to your claims, I am receptive to the inclusion of information critical of Harvard, provided that the sources are sufficiently credible.  Your sources do not currently meet that criteria.   Since you keep avoiding the real issue, I am compelled to revert back to the previous version until you provide answers to the following:
1) Why are you selectively deleting the fact that the COFHE study showed that nearly 80% of the student population is satisfied with their experience, an obvious and important piece of information?  Why are you combining the "dissatisfied" and "neutral" groups to make the number look larger?
2) What is the exact citation for the supposed NIH study since you base much of your legitimacy on it and what is your basis for insinuating that the result for Harvard is any different from those of other leading schools?  If there is no basis, the information is misleading and should be omitted.
3) What specifically are the "serious, documented" academic, residential, and social problems you keep harping on?  I strongly suspect that when they are identified, they will not appear as sinister and troublesome as you would like.
If you can provide satisfactory explanations and legitimate sources for all of these questions, I will not object any longer.
:I have edited the COFHE section to address each of your stated concerns:
:1) You believe that it is significant that 79% of Harvard students in the COFHE survey reported satisfaction.  I believe that it is more significant that only 25% of Harvard students are "very satisfied" compared to the COFHE average of 37%, and that 21% are not satisfied (e.g. ambivalent or dissatisfied), versus the 14% COFHE average.  We cannot resolve this dispute, so I have stated that the actual survey results are open to interpretation, and given the citation so that the reader can make up their own mind.  I have also added a direct editorial quote from the Harvard Crimson stating that they believe the COFHE results are significant.  
:We should leave the numbers out of the paragraph, because it is clear they can be spinned in different ways.  If you insist on building your case that "79% of Harvard students are satisfied, so there is no issue here", I will re-insert numbers showing the other perspective, and also add in numbers against the specific criticisms (quality of teaching, social life on campus, etc.)  This will make the whole section unwieldy, so I suggest we both stand down, and leave interpretation of the results to the Harvard sources that are cited.
:In addition, you keep focusing on the overall satisfaction number, while ignoring the subcategory results, all of which show Harvard lagging COFHE averages.  You also ignore the statement by the internal memorandum that Harvard lags even further behind its closest peers (e.g. Yale, Stanford, Princeton) than the COFHE averages would suggest.
:I believe the multiple quotes by Harvard sources - Lawrence Buell, Benedict Gross, Harvey Mansfield, the Crimson editorial board - establishes the validity of the numbers and the conclusions drawn from them beyond reasonable question.
:2) NIH numbers have been removed while I look for the original sourcing.  However, given that the NIH numbers come from a Harvard source, it is unlikely they are incorrect.
:3) The specific problems reported by both the Globe/COFHE and by the Crimson articles (faculty availability, quality of instruction, quality of advising, social life on campus, sense of community) have been listed.  Both the Globe article and the Crimson articles make convincing cases backed up by multiple Harvard and COFHE sources against each of these points.  Also, I have added two new citations directly from the Harvard Crimson that should put to rest any question about the validity or bias of the sources themselves.
:It is time to close the debate about whether this is a real issue.  You are free to personally disagree, but you don't just disagree with me, you disagree with Harvard administrators (e.g. Lawrence Buell, Benedict Gross), Harvard faculty (e.g. Harvey Mansfield, Philip Kuhn), Harvard students (many quoted across the four citations, including the president of the student government), and the Harvard Crimson editorial board, all of whom believe this is a real issue that reflects both academic and social problems with the Harvard undergraduate experience.
On the contrary, it may not be at all significant that the Harvard numbers are lower than the average COFHE numbers.  The respondents were asked to rate their schools only, not relative to other schools.  Surveys like this suffer from the obvious problem that standards can differ from campus to campus.  If Podunk University students rated their school library as absolutely amazing, and if Harvard students rated their library as OK but could be much better (better lighting, better hours, easier access, more computers, free coffee, I'm sure there are plenty that can be improved), it does not follow that Podunk has a better library than Harvard.  Harvard has the world's best academic library by any objective criteria, and if you asked Harvard students to COMPARE their library to others, the outcome would've been quite different.  Similarly, there is no evidence whatsoever that Harvard students would have rated the campus life at Yale or Princeton or MIT over their own school's (In fact, I would predict the exact opposite in each case).   Harvard students are a very critical bunch of people and it's naturally reflected in student newspaper articles.  If you scanned the Harvard Crimson articles over the past 50 years, I would bet that you would find overwhelmingly more articles that are critical of their own school than laudatory.  Yet most Harvard students are quite happy with their school in the end, and most Harvard graduates are very happy with their choice years out of school.  The admissions office brochure when I applied cited a figure of over 90% of graduates who would choose Harvard if they had to do it over again.  You seem to be a very avid reader of Crimson articles and other books related to Harvard, and it seems to give you a false sense of having some important insight into what it is like to be a student at Harvard without ever having been one.  You seem to feel powerful selectively quoting from various individuals out of context and claiming that these provide some kind of absolute proof of your claims.  Hardly, and you can't "prove" something that's not even true no matter how many quotes you can collect.  Who are you anyway, so eager to portray Harvard in the worst light possible, spending so much of your time editing this particular article? Do you hold a daytime job?  Perhaps in the admissions office of one of the lesser schools that get crushed by Harvard every year?  Since you've devoted two paragraphs doing your best to portray the absolutely false impression that Harvard students are unhappy with their school, it is not unreasonable to add two sentences just pointing out that, by the way, most Harvard students happen to be satisfied.  This is just an issue of intellectual honesty, and I find it disturbing that you have so little regard for it.
*Jumping in... I don't know how to interpret the results, and indeed I don't really know how to compare colleges since most of us only get to attend one of them. The COFHE material has some degree of interest, relevance, and, at the time, newsworthiness. But it's way, way too long. Isn't it possible to boil it down... while still making short summaries of the competing points of view? Dpbsmith (talk) 21:58, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the consensus is to keep the longer version, I think we need to think hard about creating a new article (Views of Harvard, Criticism of Harvard, or something similar) so we can summarize the main points and link to the longer article.  This article is getting a bit long and we need to be mindful of its continued growth.  I also think that there is more than enough material here to warrant a new article and I'm sure that much more could be added to such an article.  I'd like to hear others views on this but I may go ahead and be bold and create the article.  Just not this minute - my cereal's getting mushy. :)  --ElKevbo 04:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  COFHE Results in Views of Harvard 

message: Does anyone else here agree with me that the institution section is basically a summary of the whole article and should be incorporated into the rest of the article? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand. Surely it is incorporated already? Or do you mean that it should be deleted altogether and its contents redistributed among the other sections? If so, are you referring to the whole "institution" section or just the top bit which doesn't fall under a subheading? If the latter, don't you think it's useful to have an intro before jumping right into things? (Not that the article is especially well-organized now; far from it. A major reorganization is surely needed. Oy.) Doops |  talk 23:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I should have been more clear. I was referring to the section under "Institution" and before and third-level headings. True, it's useful to have an intro, but not to cover the whole story and simply repeat items (and have links to the sections, which I've removed now). The lead section should do that. See Xiangqi as a way of how articles should be formatted - it's bad style to summarize the entire article after the lead - it should be removed and merged into the content. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see my reply below under "rearrangement reversion". Thanks. Doops |  talk 04:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Institution section? 

message: ...do not belong in university lead sections. All top universities have Nobel laureates "associated" with them; it's not anything that particularly characterizes Harvard, it's just one more indication that Harvard is one-of-the-best-if-not-the-best universities, a point which does not need to be hammered home more than ten or fifteen times. 
Counts of Nobel laureates "associated" with universities seem silly anyway, since what I at least would like to know about an institution is how many Nobel prizes have been awarded for work facilitated by that institution. But even that wouldn't be lead-section material.
If Harvard had, say, double the number of Nobel laureates of any other university, OK, that would be something specially Harvard-specific, but Nobel Prize laureates by university affiliation seems to show that's not the case.
I moved the Nobel-count sentence to the "people," section but I'm not at all that it needs to be in the article at all. 
By the way... why was the magic year "1974" taken as the starting point for the count? What's specially appropriate about 1974? Dpbsmith (talk) 13:20, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's easy. 1974 was the year chosen because the Harvard Guide on Harvard's website uses 1974 as a dividing point. I originally added the Nobel and Pulitzer counts to the lead many many months ago as a replacement for previous content which claimed such things as as "Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world." Adding these facts gave me solid ground to delete that sort of empty opinion. I fear that without them the boosterism problem will get worse, as people read the lead and feel that something is "missing"; but maybe it can't get any worse than it already is. Cheers, Doops |  talk 18:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah. Well, we'll see. I've just tried to plug the gaping hole left by moving the Nobel headcount with a factoid which IMHO reflects rather positively on Harvard and also happens to be of some historic importance to the nation... probably won't work but at least I tried... Dpbsmith (talk) 19:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the move to the section. Also, regarding the sentence: "Harvard is one of the most prestigious universities in the world." - couldn't this be incorporated into the lead section by saying "Considered as one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Harvard..." Thoughts on that? THanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:19, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No that doesn't really solve the problem. "Is considered" still sounds rather authoritative, i.e. it's not weaselly enough. (And a properly weaselly version like "many people consider it one of the best, although others disagree" would of course be ridiculous.) [Also, as far as I'm concerned, "prestigious" is an icky word which should be avoided under practically any circumstances.] I've kept your sentence but changed "prestigious" to the more value-neutral "famous" and, in order to highlight the fact-based (rather than opinion-based) nature of the claim, changed "is considered" to "is." But I suspect that even that will be too much for dpbsmith. :) Doops |  talk 04:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Since there's been no objections to incorporating the hideously long section below "Institution", which reads like a summary of the whole article, into the rest of the page, I'm going to be bold and do so. In addition, I'll also be bold and move some sections around for better flow. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:20, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it's too long; but I think the best thing to do is just to trim anything that needs trimming. See my "rearrangement reversion" § below for more. Doops |  talk 04:53, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nobel counts 

message: I nominated Harvard of the Midwest for deletion, and believe it well deserves it. During that discussion, someone called my attention to MIT in popular culture#"The MIT of..." which at that time was about two screensful of tabulated detail. I agreed that something needed to be done, but on mulling it over I felt that MIT does have an archetypic status, deserved or not, that should be mentioned. So I boiled that section down to what I thought was something reasonable.
It then occurred to me that something similar ought to be said about Harvard, so I've said it. I'll probably be sorry. Maybe this would be better in College admissions and ranking shorthands in the United States (home of HYP). Dpbsmith (talk) 16:16, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harvard's archetypic status 

message: Hi, Flcelloguy. I'm sorry I didn't notice your Jan 6th reply to my Jan 4th reply. I reverted your rearrangement for two reasons: firstly, the history section is still exceptionally poor, being overly full on certain sections of Harvard's history and a mere stub on others. It's embarrassing to lead with something so weak. Secondly, and more importantly, I think that even once that's fixed, the "history" section still shouldn't lead off the article. The most basic facts should come first, and those are Harvard's size, location, faculties, budget, etc. The present-day status, in short, should come before the past or the future.
To your more general point about the top of the "institution" § (i.e. the stuff not under any third-level headers) -- I agree that it's bad form to have a redundant pre-summary. But looking at the content, it seems to me that much of it is stated there and only there -- i.e. it's not redundant. It's just the "general" stuff which doesn't fall under a sub-header. So why not just fix any individual problems by choosing the best home for each redundancy and trimming other occurrances accordingly? Doops |  talk 04:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the reply. I was actually planning on doing that yesterday, but I got distracted. True, the section that we're discussing isn't so much a repeat summary as a summary. When I first read the article, it had links (i.e. "Please see [[[#THIS SECTION]] for more information." or something like that...) to other sections within the article, and those sections were only one or two paragraphs long with some links. The information should be moved to a more appropriate place, such as third level headings under other second level headings, and that's what I meant.  (Sorry if I was unclear.) We shouldn't give a summary of the whole article in the very beginning, aside from the lead. Thoughts on that? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  rearrangement reversion 

message: I would like comments on the definition of Harvard alumni.  Please visit Category talk:Harvard alumni for a discussion.  I'm mention this here, since probably seen by more people, who probably know more about it, than those in the bio article in question.  --Rob 19:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of Harvard alumni 

message: This is a terrific article, probably the only really balanced article on wikipedia about an academic institution that manages to avoid ridiculous self-aggrandizing hyperbole (perhaps partly because the facts speak for themselves). It should definitely be a model for other academic wiki articles. Congrats to all involved. Badgerpatrol 01:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terrific 

message: The end of the Recent developments section reads: "The Undergraduate Council advocated for the students to stay or be allowed inter-year transfer rights, whereas the Crimson posted occasional op-ed pieces about the necessity of the students leaving to maintain integrity of contracts." Does anybody know what is meant by "maintain integrity of contracts"? This seems to be alluding to some "contract" that these displaced students had with Harvard. What were the conditions of this contract? Was the contract written, verbal, implied, ...? I think this requires some explanation.
: I think "contacts" was meant, instead of "contracts", i.e. students who had adapted to harvard, and gotten to know other students, etc. wouldn't want to lose those contacts.  I'm not exactly sure though --jacobolus (t) 09:25, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent developments section 

message: Wow; this article's references need some fixing. We've got incorrect numbering, quite a few unref external links, and back links that don't work. Would anyone object to me fixing everything and switching the entire article to the Cite.php method? Barring any objections, I'll go ahead and do so soon. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've done the first step, converting the article from  and  to cite.php using the ref converter. I'll work on standardizing the references next and changing all the other external links left into refs. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:11, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: I deleted the following paragraph, as it seems rather tangential to the article.
In popular culture, "Harvard" can be an archetype for "best college," as "Cadillac" can be an archetype for luxury, or "Einstein" for intelligence. These archetypes exist, regardless of the literal truth of what they symbolize. Evidence of Harvard's archetypic status is that regionally, any venerable school is likely to be called "the Harvard of" that region; see Southern Ivies for specific examples of "Harvards of the South."  (A college guide notes, "Ask a Duke student to compare his beloved school to the Ivy league and you'll hear 'Harvard, the Duke of the North'" ).
Of course, I realize that "the Harvard of" phrases exist, but given the history of this Wikipedia article and the strong opinions about academic boosterism and what not, it seems that it would be necessary to justify this phrase with a long-winded paragraph that most likely veers from what this article should be about (see above).
--128.103.29.10 00:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popular Culture 

message: I was one of some editors tinkering with the wording of Penn's claims to venerability (and, more recently, with Columbia... Columbia claims on its website to be the "fifth" oldest without bothering to explain that it was chartered fifth, but founded sixth). And I like the the table in Colonial colleges that shows all the various relevant dates. 
Colleges care deeply about their date of founding. It is apparently a significant point of pride because among other things it governs the order in which they march in academic processions. And it appears to me that they all, including Harvard, have a strong tendency to use rather strained arguments to support the earliest conceivable date of founding for which there is the shred of a glimmer of a scintilla of a trace of a vaguely plausible argument. And a whole bunch of 'em... well, three, anyway... were founded or chartered or began all at the same time, around 1750.
But, in Harvard's case, it doesn't matter what date you use. Even if you use 1650, the date of chartering, rather than the (in my humble and not very expert opinion) somewhat dodgy 1636, Harvard still has William and Mary beat by decades, and William and Mary implicitly acknowledges this by its claim to be "America's second-oldest college.".
If there were any doubt whatsoever about Harvard's claim to being the "oldest" you can be sure that the rival university would make this perfectly clear on its website.
So, I don't see why we can't just say Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. With, if necessary, an explanatory footnote (the University of Henrico and all that...) Dpbsmith (talk) 02:00, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur; the only reason that I changed it to "is regarded as" is because another user had revised it to "claims to be", which seems to imply that the claim is false. Instead of reverting, I changed it to that wording, but I agree that it should be "is". It is generally regarded as the oldest, and there is no notable challenge to this. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the use of the word "claim" implies a challenge to that claim and shouldn't be used unless the the challenger is identified and the grounds for the challenge given. I truly hate phrases like "generally regarded" because there's almost no way to support them without an utterly unreasonable amount of original-research-like work. What I guess someone still needs to do is find specific, verifiable sources that say in so many words that Harvard "is" the oldest, using the word "is," and cite them. I don't think that should be hard. Dpbsmith (talk) 11:07, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

text: OK, I think I nailed it, particularly with the Frederick Rudolph reference. (No, I have no idea why I thought it was worth bothering about). Dpbsmith (talk) 15:23, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How about, '''is''' the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States? 

message: ...is one of numerous college newspapers founded at about the same time, following the Civil War. Its nuanced claim to be the "the nation's oldest continuously published daily college newspaper" rests on a number of interpretations and is certainly not in the same category as Harvard being the oldest college. The Yale Daily News claims to be the "oldest college daily" which is not necessarily a contradiction to the Crimson's claim. One source, Brubacher, John S.; Willis Rudy (1997). Higher Education in Transition, Transaction Publishers. ., p. 137, says: "After the Civil War... on almost every campus a publication was established which modeled its form, content, and purpose on regular daily newspapers. The Yale Daily News, first to be founded, is still in operation. The Harvard Crimson began in 1873 as a more newsy rival of The Advocate. Ten years later, it merged with a competitor to become a daily."
To say that the Harvard Crimson is the "oldest continuously published daily college newspaper" assumes that the Crimson has institutional continuity with the Magenta and the non-daily, not-so-newsy Crimson that preceded it, and assumes that it was still the Crimson during the World War II period when it was called the "Harvard Service News" and had very different content.
So, I think a slight qualification of the wording is in order, from is the oldest continously etc. to "describes itself as" the oldest etc. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:08, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  On the other hand, the Crimson... 

message: Please reconcile the Unversity of California article's statement:
:"At 32 million items, the University of California library system contains the third largest collection in the world, after the Library of Congress and the British Library."
with the statement here:
:"The Harvard University Library System, centered in Widener Library in Harvard Yard and comprising over 90 individual libraries and over 15.3 million volumes, is the largest university library system in the world and, after the Library of Congress, the second-largest library system in the United States."
Changes/clarifications could be made to either page, but as it stands the two articles are somewhat contradictory on this question.  I'm posting this to that page as well.
Thank you.
:I would tend to think this has something to do with the fact that the U of C library system has libraries on dozens of different campuses spread all over the huge state of CA, and it might be a stretch to call it a single "library system" in the general sense of the phrase, as the U of C system is hardly one big university.  Harvard's books are more or less all in Cambridge or its environs, and they all "belong" to one university - Harvard.
::Cool! I love it... yet another academic rivalry. For what it's worth... the American Library Association's Library Fact Sheet 22, The Nation's Largest Libraries: A Listing By Volumes Held puts Harvard second in the U. S. because it does not choose to lump the University of California's holdings. The University of California system has six libraries that make the ALA "Top 100" list, and I don't feel like doing the math but it does appear that Berkeley + UCLA > Harvard. I think this probably does deserve a pair of footnotes on the respective pages. It all starts to get a little weird, though, because from U. C. Davis to UCLA would seem to be about four hundred miles. No doubt there are expedited interlibrary loans between University of California branches, but, gee, if interlibrary loans count then the Islington, Massachusetts public library is bigger than Widener. But, wait, you can probably get interlibrary loans at Widener...
::Isn't it amazing how hard it is to count "volumes" in a "library," or "years" since a "university" was "founded," or "feet" in a "skyscraper..." once people start making it a competitive sport? Which library was it that was counting digital volumes... Dpbsmith (talk) 20:35, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  size of library system 

message: Is already mentioned under notable student organisations, with a link to its own article. I think that's plenty. (A note to explain my recent rollback). --woggly 17:50, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hasty Pudding Theatricals 

message: The new stub article Cornell-Harvard Hockey Rivalry could use some help. —mercuryboardtalk 20:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fish on the talk page 

message: Is the library number 3 or 4 in the world? The article contradicts itself. 131.111.8.103 17:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self-contradictory 

message: The "Residential Houses" subsection of this article, including a list of the Houses and who they're named after, a description of House-internal organization, and a detailed history of the House system, is duplicated in the Harvard College article. It's more at home there than in this article, where it's getting undue attention in the middle of a supposed "general overview" of the campus—the inner workings of the House system is not the most important or interesting thing about the Harvard University campus. I propose deleting most of this subsection and leaving just a brief sketch of the Houses as part of campus and a link to the more detailed discussion of them at Harvard College. AJD 21:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seeing no objection, I'm going to do that. AJD 18:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  House system 

message: Paragraph directly under heading Recent developments is immaterial to the University as a whole and belongs in the Harvard Summer School article. I'll refrain from moving it immediately in case anyone has differing opinions. 71.240.88.200 07:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it, sez I. AJD 07:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summer school 

message: Nice hack.  Must be the Class of 2010 making an early appearance.  --Rednblu 23:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that the perpetrator has an MIT IP address. See http://web.mit.edu/is/topics/network/ip.html. --agr 23:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly!  Good eye!  --Rednblu 23:47, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice hack? If that qualifies as a "nice hack," then taking candy from a baby qualifies as a "nice hack." A "nice hack" would be first hacking the Harvard website so that it lists William Barton Rogers as a Harvard president, then editing the Wikipedia article and citing the Harvard website as the source. Cardinal Gray 01:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well done!  (Applause)  Nice moves!  What a velvet robe!  --Rednblu 01:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually his first edit did raise a valid point, "about 6,650 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students." should raise stylistic eyebrows at either school.  6,500 might be better.--agr 11:27, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Score box 

message: The list of Notable Student Organizations has grown desperately unwieldy. Not all of these organizations are notable, and not all of those that are are notable enough to go on the Harvard University page instead of the Harvard College page, for instance. This list needs to be trimmed down. At a first pass, I'd keep the Crimson, the Lampoon, the Advocate, the Pudding, WHRB, maybe the IOP, Phillips Brooks House, and Harvard Model Congress—i.e., the ones that are prominent enough to be widely known and influential beyond the Harvard campus. Thoughts, criticisms, emendations? AJD 14:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I mean, if there's no objection, I'll just go ahead and remove them. AJD 20:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put the three musical organizations back in, as they are the oldest groups of their kind in the entire country and all three are arguably recognized far beyond the campus (this is certainly true of the Glee Club though perhaps not the Univ. Choir and the orchestra.)  I mean, this is an objective criteria, right? 67.85.183.103 03:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notable Student Organizations 

message: The Cornell University page, which is the featured article today, is much better organized and executed than the Harvard article. It follows a well-organized structure, and the effect is a clear and understandable whole.  In comparison, the Harvard page is a jumbled mess, with no overall vision.  It would take a considerable effort to get the Harvard article up to a similar standard.  For one thing, we need a lot more pictures (which I'm happy to supply if there are some ideas of what to take pictures of).
I notice that almost all of the discussion on this talk page is picking nits with little details.  Instead, why not a real meaningful discussion of page structure and content?  I think that most of the relevant material is somewhere on Wikipedia, but summarizing it clearly at this page is quite a task.  It should be undertaken, however, as the Cornell article currently puts this one to shame.
--jacobolus (t) 07:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How a good university article should be structured 

message: Obviously, the article should be written to conform neither to American nor British usage, but to American usage with a Harvard accent. 
v
So, how would you spell "color"—with a Harvard accent? User:Clerke of Haverford 01:57, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re the recent edit: "color" vs. "colour" 

message: ([ diff]) The statements were sourced, and the sources were reputable. What's the problem? Thanks. —dto (talkcontribs) 05:00, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding removal of supposedly POV statements by Taravel 

message: Microsoft's recruiting and hiring practices are of intense interest to software engineers seeking jobs, but the proper subject of the Microsoft article is what Microsoft, as a company, is, was, and does. Quite properly, Microsoft's interviewing customs receive a brief mention in the "business culture" section about midway through the article, but the article does not headline how selective Microsoft is or what percentage of applicants get accepted compared to Apple or anything like that.
Similarly, while Harvard's admissions statistics are of intense interest to ambitious high-school seniors, they are not particularly important in any balanced, overall picture of what Harvard is, was, and does, and should not receive pride-of-place in the article. I'm not too sure the present structure of the article is very logical, but within the current framework I've moved it below "library system" (which is more important) and above "Harvard in fiction and popular culture" (which is less important). 
I also think the admissions section is way, way too long. What the heck do "estimated" SAT scores have to do with anything, for example. Why the urgency to jump the gun? Let's wait until there are real numbers. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Admissions should not be the first thing in the body article 

message: I'm removing the material about Georgetown having a rival claim to being the oldest institution of higher learning in the U. S. In one edit, this material took the form:
:One of the few other potential rival claimants is Georgetown University itself, since Jesuit education began at its current site two years before Harvard's founding. However, the university was not officially founded until January 23, 1789; that year, the Jesuit order acquired the title to the land that became the core of the campus, students were first admitted to a school under the name "Georgetown College" in 1791, and classes there commenced in early 1792. 
No published source is given for this narrative. In particular, Georgetown itself says:
:Founded in 1789, the same year the U.S. Constitution took effect, Georgetown University is the nation's oldest Catholic and Jesuit university.
If someone is going to make a claim for Georgetown that Georgetown does not make itself, there'd needs to be a good published source for that claim. We don't accept original research. CIte a source for Georgetown being a claimant for "oldest institution of higher learnin in the U. S." and I'll strongly support the reinsertion together with that supporting source. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Georgetown is not a rival claimant to "oldest" 

message: Isn't part of harvard. It's a private dental research institute. Some harvard dental school faculty members are part of the institute, and have labs there.--HarvardToofDoc 19:52, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forsythe Institute