Talk:Washington University in St. Louis/Archive 2

message: The Univeristy now has 7 schools, down from 8. The formally separate School of Art and School of Arch were consolidated into the Sam Fox School of Design. The University has a large number of divisions--25+. These are primarily admisitrative distinctions. If you look at the webpage for schools and departments you can see 4 divisions under Sam Fox. But these are NOT the only divisions. For example Arts and Sciences has 2 divisions--Graduate and Undergraduate. Eng has 4 division, and so on. Complicating matters is the status of University College. From one perspective it is its own school with 2 divisions (in which case there are actually 9 schools). But UC is often considered as part of Art & Sciences. Since the University does not maintain a complete list of its divisions on its web site, my view is that they should not be refered to in Wikipedia. But this is certainly up for discussion.  --Jdclevenger 05:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Schools and Divisions

message: Hi everyone, I saw in the info box that the enrollment for Washington U. is 7,547, however this is the enrollment includes part time students as well as full time, I noticed on other university Wiki pages like our peer schools Cornell and Brown only list the full time enrollment so I thought we should do the same. I changed the stats to the updated full time enrollment from the website. Thanks. Bancham 09:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Enrollment

message: Why is there such a huge section dedicated to rankings?
If you have to explain to people how highly your school is ranked, chances are it ain't that great of a school, know what I mean?
If you go to a great school, you just say the name, and that's it. If you go to a lowly ranked school, or are insecure about the school's reputation, then you basically have to append an explanation of how great your school is every time you mention it. It seems like the start of every sentence includes some talk of the US news and World report rankings. I am not saying that they should be removed, instead I think we should condense the rankings into one section. See UChicago, Cornell, and Brown pages for example.Bancham 15:23, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please do.  The collegiate obsession with rankings is irritating, especially for schools like this, which can largely stand on their own merits regardless of ranking. Bjsiders 13:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay I've tried to consolidate the rankings into one section however it still needs some work, in the process of removing the rankings I left many of the sections about the schools bare. If anyone find some more information, like the number of volumes in the law library, or the endowment of the Medical, it will go a long way to improving them.Bancham 06:45, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rankings

message: I'm taking out Diwali from the traditions section, because it does not seem to belong there.  My reasoning is if we put Diwali here, then a lot of other shows would need to go as well (e.g. LNYF (Lunar New Year Festival), Carnaval, even Vagina Monologues).  So the choices are either to put all of them in this section, create a new section, or don't mention any of them. Se2131 01:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure whether or not I agree with that move, but I'll not argue it too strongly.  IMO, Diwali is a strong and very noteworthy tradition due to its quick sell-outs (thousands of tickets, spread across four or five shows, in just a few minutes) and its incredible popularity.  The Chinese New Year Festival, Vagina Monologues, and other performances are popular, true, but I think Diwali is sort of the model for collegiate ethnic new year performances.  My 2 cents.  Shapu 14:31, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Traditions 

message: I'm not really good at this wikipedia thing, but I wanted to request that someone change the Engineering Section to reflect the existence of the new Energy, Environmental, and Chemical Engineering Department  that replaced the Chemical Engineering Department and the Environmental Engineering Program. cowsandmilk 07:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Department 

message: I reverted the section on the Metro extension to the University that Barfooz  deleted yesterday claiming that it was 'unimportant info'.  The University has invested considerable effort (and resources) into Metro. While it is too early to fully gauge, I suspect that the increase in the ease of connections to downtown and to other areas will have a substantial impact on the character of the Unviersity in years come. Certainly once construction begins on 40, the underwriting of Metro passes for all students and staff will be seen as having been a really good thing to do.  This of course is all speculative cystal ball and doesn't belong in the article itself (yet). Nonetheless, a 
brief mention of the it in the History of the University seems appropriate, especially given how thin the History section is. Jdclevenger 20:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metro Addition