Talk:Princeton University/Archive 1

message: I publish student written guidebooks for over 200 individual universities in the U.S.  In the most recent Princeton edition the students only refer to the P-rade not the Pre-rade or Pre-ade.  They offer this explanation...
Formally, the Alumni Parade, the P-rade occurs the Saturday of class reunions. The twenty-fifth reunion class heads the parade, followed by each of alumni classes wearing their signature beer jackets. At the end of the P-rade, the graduating class runs onto Elm Drive to join the procession.  Princeton’s oldest cheer, dating by some accounts from the 1890s, has the sound of a locomotive. It starts slowly and picks up speed and volume. This is a popular cheer during the annual P-rade.  
Is the Pre-rade/Pre-ade a separate event?
from the College Prowler guidebook, Princeton University - Off the Record
:Yes, see above; it must, in fact, be at a different time of year, since (almost?) all underclassmen are off-campus during the alumni weekend, and their rooms are filled like sardine-cans with returning alumni. Septentrionalis 18:28, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  P-rade 

message: There are no gothic buildings on the campus dating to the eighteenth century.  Only two buildings, Nassau Hall and Maclean House werre built before 1800.  The first gothic structure was Chancellor Green, constructed in 1873.  The first collegiate gothic building, Blair Hall, was finished in 1897.  Most of the gothic structures were built in the twentieth century.  [D.M.K.]
:Wikipedia articles are editable by anyone. So you don't have to suggest changes on article talk pages, you can change the article itself. I'd suggest having a quick look at Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers first though. Cheers, snoyes 15:15, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gothic buildings 

message: I snipped: Scott Moore (Class of '08), a graduate of the Li Po Chun United World College, describes the scholarship as "a fillip for the evolution of internationalism and cultural diversification on campus".
Whatever. This is non-NPOV. (And unconvincing, given that as of December, an '08 will have been on the campus for exactly three months.) Why was this in the article to begin with? It appears to have been added from an IP address at UVa.jdb 23:49, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scott Moore 

message: As to the tigers-vs-lions issue (I just reverted a change on this topic today): the sculptures outside of Nassau Hall are Tigers. They _were_ lions up until 1911, when the class of '79 replaced them with tigers. The original lion sculptures sat in storage until 1998, when they were reinstalled at the south enterence to Wilson College, between Wilcox Hall and Class of 1938 Hall. details jdb 16:29, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tigers vs. lions 

message: I've never seen this film.  What does it have to do with Princeton?  (I wanted to finish up the sentence, but I didn't know what would have been accurate.  IMDB link for I.Q. --Idont Havaname 07:12, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[I.Q. (movie)|I.Q.]] 

message: *The Stone - short for Firestone Library. Also can be used as a verb, as in "getting 'stoned" meaning writing a thesis in a carrel in the basement, C-floor
I've never heard this word. It's also it's also not in the Prince's vocabulary list. jdb ❋ (talk) 17:09, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The stone" 

message: Oh, for heaven's sake, the "prestige" silliness that's infected and shut down any meaningful progress around the ivy league has come to roost. I've added a ref to the #1 U.S. News ranks. There's a ref to the times higher ed supplement rank (#9) here: http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_new/PAW04-05/06-1208/notebook.html; the original requires you to register (supposedly free, but I can't stand that sort of thing). Not sure how their ranks compare to U.S. news's, although all of this business of college ranking is fairly silly. (I suppose we have a page on that, too. On that same note, why has Princeton been #1 for 5 of 6 years? Is an alum an editor at U.S. News?) Maybe we can get back to fixing princeton's anemic history section now... jdb ❋ (talk) 00:50, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not entirely clear to me why insisting that contentious claims be backed up with evidence is "silly". Having at least one link is infinitely better than no link at all. Nohat 02:02, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

text: Does this article need this sort of ranking at all? Doing disambiguation on Princeton showed me that every college in America has a reason why they're as good as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton - always in that order. If this sort of thing has any importance, surely it would be more useful to go out and randomize these a bit to HPY, or even PHY. Septentrionalis '79 01:48, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

text: "Princeton is ranked number 1 (tied with Harvard) according to the USATODAY 2006 college rankings." I've removed the above from the intro—does a university of Princeton's stature really need to quote a ranking from freakin' USA Today? I'm pretty sure everyone is familiar with its prestige. - Gku 06:47, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hear, hear. If the word "prestige" (and all its variants) were striken from all of the Ivy League articles, Wikipedia would be a better place. jdb ❋ (talk) 08:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  prestige 

message: From what i have read about in the news, princeton is currently doing a 180 to try to combat its rampant grade inflation problems. Perhaps someone who is more familiar with the school than I should incorporate this into the main article.
From many of our standpoints, grade inflation simply was never an issue. Princeton is in the middle of the pack for the most prestigious US universities: <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S07/34/98Q20/">[1]</a>. The 'A' level grades have dropped, university wide, from ~48% to 40%. However, in the natural sciences, they've stayed basically the same - at about 27% before the grade inflation policy began, and at about 27% currently. This is certainly below the national average. These student aren't exactly chopped liver too... With top graduate programs expecting A grades all over the place, I would hardly consider grade inflation 'rampant'. Princeton GPA's have been rather low historically (3.2-3.4 according to some references I can't remember) but their admission to professional schools have been quite excellent. Allegations of grade inflation, at least from my standpoint, within my field (in natural and mathematical science) are simply unfounded. The official stance is probably simply in place to remove or mitigate perceptions of an apparently 'run-away', 'rampant' problem, which, at the ground level, simply doesn't exist. Danielfong 05:21, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  grade inflation 

message: I am pleased to see that the anon comment on PTS has been toned down to a more neutral formulation. I would like, however, to see evidence that University alumni discuss the Seminary at all; much less to emphasize the separation. That's not my experience. Septentrionalis 15:52, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relations with Princeton Theological Seminary 

message: Suggest editing the "pong" definition to note that the game is currently known as "Beirut."  No one on campus would ever refer to the game (any of a number of variations involving chucking ping pong balls into cups of beer) as "pong" or "beer pong" currently.  This was also the case, for certain, as early as 1997 (the year I entered).
: How things have changed...I remembered it as "beer pong" when I was there 1991-1995.  Andrew73 00:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Reread the entry.  There are two distinct games currently played at Princeton.  Beirut and Beer Pong.  Beer Pong uses ping-pong paddles to try to lob the ball into the cups of beer.  Beirut is the more traditional game of throwing the ball into the cups.  While some schools call the throwing game "Beer Pong," it is an entirely different game at Princeton. -Tadanisakari 19:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pong? 

message: The reference to Brookhaven National Laboratory does not belong in the lead section.  First, it seems to me that the Laboratory is managed by Stony Brook University.  While Princeton is affiliated with BNL according to this page , so are Columbia University, MIT, Cornell, Harvard and Yale.  If someone wants to make clear exactly why the affiliation is noteworthy and belongs the lead section, I'd be interested, as it's not clear to me based on what I have found via Google. btm 01:38, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brookhaven National Laboratory 

message: "In fiction" was starting to become a list of every book, movie, or TV show that ever used the word "Princeton. I pared it down to just the media in which Princeton played a significant role. (I haven't seen/read most of these, so I may have made some mistakes.) jdb ❋ (talk) 07:32, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, thank you. We don't need a list of everything that mentions the word "Princeton"; we're not an indiscriminate place of knowledge. Unless it's significant, it shouldn't be included in the section. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:09, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  please make it stop 

message: Maybe I'm too quick to take alarm at the heading in this article, "History of the University," which I've changed to "History of Princeton." I'm hoping that capitalized-u-"University" is not a contagious form of boosterism.
Of course, it is appropriate to capitalize the word "university" when it is functioning as part of a title (which is kind of proper name), e.g. "Jonathan Dickinson was the first President of the College." However—as it says at —Dickinson was also "the college's first president," lower-case c, lower-case p, not "the College's first President."
In a context where it is absolutely clear that "University" is functioning as a short form of the university's proper name, maybe a capital U is acceptable, but I fear that if it starts getting capitalized in one place people will start capitalizing it throughout--as happened recently within the University of Chicago article. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:40, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may well be deification, but "the University", so capped, is a usual short form of the name. I think the section would be better as simply "History"; "History of Princeton" could be read as the history of Princeton, New Jersey, a related but distinct subject. Septentrionalis 19:35, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly works for me. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:37, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Actually... uh... you might... er... be right about "'the University', so capped, is a usual short form of the name" (i.e. when the context is that it is referring specifically to Princeton. Although different universities do seem to differ in their styles, and not to be perfectly consistent in their usage on their own websites. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:36, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At one point I tried to removed all of the capitalized references to "the University" in the University of Chicago article, as it gives the article a hint of bias (whether that bias be intended or unintended); perhaps I just made it worse.  I've found that the vast majority of the time when a common noun is stylized as a truncated form of an institutions's proper name, the document emanates from that institution.  Hey whaddya know?  It seems there has been consensus on this point: Wikipedia:MoS#Institutions. btm talk 06:43, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deified Universities 

message: In order to achieve GA :
* It needs to state the Fair use rationales of the pictures used ... :Image:PrincetonShield.gif, :Image:Princeton university tiger mascot.jpg.
Nitpicks for progression :
* Inline external citations should be put in the References section.
* Redlinks should be turned blue.
* The lists at the end of the article should become prose. Lincher 00:49, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have written the Fair use rationales and have also fixed up the external citations.  So now I'm promoting the article to GA.--Konstable 02:24, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA on hold 

message: A dedicated student of New Jersey's civil boundaries insists that the first paragraph should read:
:Princeton University is a coeducational private university on an extensive campus mostly in the Borough of Princeton and partly in the Princeton Township in New Jersey, United States.
This, with its exaggerated edit summary, seems excessive weight for the two Princetons; especially since Princeton Borough was created in 1894 and Nassau Hall was built in 1756 (and then stood in South Brunswick Township, New Jersey). Is this the chief fact about the University?
All these facts are in Princeton, New Jersey, to which the present text links. It may be useful to note that Butler College is in a different municipality, in its due place. Septentrionalis 23:23, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The two Princetons 

message: We need to figure out what we're doing with the neologisms section. As someone who deleted the lingo section from Charter Club recently said, take your pick, WP:WINAD or WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information. The lists are annoying, and one could double in size the lists based on reading the Freshman issue of The Daily Princetonian without adding anything of value.
I'm inclined to say that the whole thing needs to be merged back into the article in other places, that having the neologisms section actually hinders the article. To take a sample (DUP means that the same word is ALSO in traditions):
* Bicker - DUP
* D-Bar - Belongs to a (shockingly nonexistant!) section on graduate life
* Dean's Date - Is honestly more of a tradition, like Dean's Date Theater. Or, even better, belongs in a section on Princeton's unique academic calendar.
* Dinky - Since this is its own article on Princeton Branch, 
* Getting McCoshed/Getting PMC'ed - This is legitimate lingo, but then again princeton drinking culture could probably get its own article... I don't know where this goes
* Hose - Belongs to eating clubs (Princeton University)
* Intersession - Belongs in a section on  Princeton's unique academic calendar
* Junior Slums - This would be an example of lingo that doesn't really add anything to the reader of this article. It's a princetonism, to be sure, but it doesn't belong here.
* Locomotive - Belongs in Princeton Reunions.
**Or the section on sports. Septentrionalis 03:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need to fix Neologisms 

message: Just because reverting the link to http://www.eyesofatiger.com/ was not obviously noncontroversial, I wanted to write it into the talk. It's not entirely noncontroversial because the links section is kind of inconsistant quality in my opinion, but to add the blog at the beginning of its existence is jumping the gun by, I would say, at minimum a year or two; really I don't see it likely being inclusion-worthy ever, but as it stands it's not merely nonnotable, it's on the level of  something made up in school one day. Sirmob 04:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am sympathetic to what you're saying, and I wish you the best of luck on making your blog effectual and important. However, after it becomes so, that is the time to put it on Wikipedia. I think the Wikipedia philosophy would absolutely delete "myspace" when frendster was big and myspace didn't exist, because  Wikipedia does not want to try and predict the future. Sirmob 19:51, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eyes of a Tiger 

message: Previously, the article said
:The university's libraries have over 11 million holdings; the main university library, Firestone Library, housing almost four million volumes, is one of the largest university libraries in the world (and among the largest "open stack" libraries in existence)
The ALA says that as of August 2005 the Princeton library held 6,224,270 volumes. This seems like the right statistic to use, although this does not necessarily contradict "over 11 million holdings" for some suitable definition of "holdings." But in any case the 11 million isn't sourced. One can assume that the American Library Association is reasonably neutral and using comparable definitions in judging library size.
Similarly, "one of the largest university libraries in the world" is vacuously true, but since it is only the seventeenth-largest university library in the United States I don't think this jibes with what most people would understand to be meant by "one of the largest in the world. Again, this statement is not sourced.
Finally, the four million volumes in the Firestone Library are said to make it "among the largest 'open stack' libraries in existence). Again, vacuously true, but let's have a source, preferably one for the actual rank, because the University of Chicago's Regenstein holds 4.5 million, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign holds 7.5 million volumes in its main library, and Chicago is boasting of beating Illinois soon when they complete a planned expansion to 8 million volumes.. Saying it is "among the largest" doesn't smell right to me; I'll bet a nickel at even money there are quite a few university library buildings with open stacks holding three to five million volumes (Widener has 3.5 million) and that Princeton is within a cluster of a dozen or so, not an outlier. I'll happily pay the nickel if someone cites a source to the contrary. 
Princeton obviously has a superb library, but I'm not convinced that it's exceptional by Ivy League standards or that it is appropriate to use vague phrases like "among the largest in the world." Dpbsmith (talk) 21:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: P. S. So, is the Firestone is so big that it is slowly sinking into the ground due to the architect's failure to allow for the weight of the books?  :-)  Joke. Smiley. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:17, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Library size 

message: I know that this article was nominated as a Good Article, but I think this article can be significantly improved.  Thus, in the next few days, I'd like to discuss the possibility of organizing a major coöperative edit of this article to start sometime over the next week or two.  Optimally, I'd like to see the Princeton article look like what the Rutgers University article will look like in the next few days.  Both articles have needed a reworking.  Right now, I'm using Cornell, Yale, Columbia and a few others as influences on how I rescope the Rutgers article.  What I'm proposing is to do something similar here.  Anyone up for joining me on the challenge?  Any suggestions on what they'd like to see in the article?—ExplorerCDT 17:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: Major Edit of the article? 

message: A more interesting figure than Endownment (money which you doesn't spend on research) is the actual figure what the university does spend on research and teaching. Please add it to the page.
:The importance of the endowment is that the interest on it does support research and teaching; in fact, much of Princeton's budget. Getting an exact figure for the part of the budget which is so spent would probably be original research, unfortunately. Septentrionalis 17:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yearly expenses 

message: Most of the more popular rankings are tied to academic prestige, quality of students, quality and productivity of faculty, etc., and this reflects what I think is the common conception of what makes an excellent academic institution. Using these criteria, Princeton is almost always in the top five. While I only have a high-level understanding of how the WM rankings work, abruptly ranking Princeton 43rd certainly needs an explanation of the methods used. And I wonder if the WM is worth the several sentences needed to properly expain their methodology. I can be convinced otherwise, but please let me know what you think. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.225.68.223 (talk) 02:54, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Washington Monthly (again) 

message: Bad idea....the Woodrow Wilson article has a lot of room for expansion and can stand on its own. Pillarpt 06:56, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Favor not merging.  There's also a separate article on Rockefeller College.  Andrew73 12:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Favour merging. Most of those articles can be reduced into a sentence or two, they are cruft articles.—ExplorerCDT 00:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger from Woodrow Wilson College 

message: Other works include those of the John B. Putnam, Jr., Memorial Collection of twentieth-century sculpture, including works by such modern masters as Alexander Calder, Jacques Lipchitz, Henry Moore, Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso.
to be annoying because it uses the words work and include twice, each, and that's not good writing.  But more important, I pulled Claude Monet because I don't think any sculpture by him is part of the Putnam Collection.  Carptrash 06:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I found this sentence 

message: What portions of the University are in West Windsor?  Also, is the Forrestal Center considered part of the University?...because it's in Plainsboro.
Most of the West Windsor lands are playing fields.  Forrestal is sometimes referred to as a separate campus.  Why? Polytrope 13:28, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  West Windsor?? 

message: This section seems kind of short. Where is anything about the Third World Center, the Women's Center, etc.? Their founding is part of the political history of the University. The University shut down after Kent State--not a word. You would think from this article that the 60s never happened at Princeton. No J.P. Stevens boycott, no waves of anti-apartheid activism, ROTC was never forced off campus, etc., etc. Shall we give it a go?Academic38 (talk) 23:06, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: I've removed the logo again from the bottom of the infobox. I've made this case before elsewhere on Wikipedia, but I really don't think you can justify including both a seal and a logo in university article.  They both serve the same purpose, i.e., to identify the university with a recognized, approved symbol. As such, I believe including both fails criterion 3A of the non-free content criteria: Thoughts? Esrever (klaT) 17:53, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  logos and seals, oh my!