Talk:New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

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Contents 1 Death Meal? 2 EMRTC first responder program 3 other common names 4 Negative Princeton Review ratings 5 School culture clean-up + comments 6 Mottoes / mottos

[edit] Death Meal?

You'd probably call it vandalism but then you might not have had the pleasure of eating Chartwells' food. In any case I'd call the most recent addition to this article inappropriate; it belongs in BJAODN. I don't know how to revert.

However, a bit of history for you -- there was another company doing food at Tech in the 80's, until Death Meal '89, which was a Thanksgiving dinner ... six people died. It wasn't Chartwells' doing. ;Bear 00:51, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)

I was under the impression it was Death Meal '85. I remember "I survived Death Meal '85" being carved into the concrete into Fitch—although, it's since been torn up. Maybe I remember it wrong.

In any event, I'll revert the article. --Milkmandan 01:43, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)

I also remember that Aramark had the contract before Chartwells, although I have no idea if they were around in the 80s. And come to think of it, I heard that nobody actually died. Rumors, rumors.

Here's a link for reverting, too. --Milkmandan 01:48, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)

Is there verifiable reference to this death meal or is this just a typical bad rumor?

The story as I've heard it from people who were in the area at the time is that Aramark was thawing frozen chicken in a bucket. The thawed chicken was removed. The bucket was not washed. The bucket was then filled with ice and the ice was dumped into one of the soda fountains; salmonella poisoning ensued. As I've heard it, no one actually died. In theory, the CDC can be searched for salmonella poisoning records.

--Jaberwockynmt 23:27, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I attended Tech from fall 1987 through spring 1992, and while we had some robust food fights in the late 1980s at 49ers, there was never a "death meal". However, I was also editor of Paydirt, and recall that one of the more interesting issues in the archive showed photos of the gym with rows of cots after a bout of food poisoning. During the entire time I attended Tech, the cafeteria was contracted to ARA.

--spril4 01:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I was at Tech through most of the 80s. I was a victim of the cafeteria "death" meal in 1981 on or about Thanksgiving, which was blamed on a flu outbreak but naturally didn't affect anyone who hadn't eaten at the cafeteria. No one died or was even seriously ill for more than a day. I sat in the gym all night and helped other people puke and keep hydrated, then came down with it myself.

Since that episode of poisoning, there was another poisoning about every other year. Since I stopped eating in the cafe after 1982, I wasn't hit again.

Billga 16:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to look for the concrete chunk next time I'm in Socorro. I remember it being on a section which is still intact after the current construction. Will report back.

-- BillWeiss | Talk 03:37, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

No luck. That section of pavement may have been lost to recent construction and repairs. I checked most of the sidewalk on the south side of Brown Hall towards the gym and Driscoll. Should I be looking somewhere else?

-- BillWeiss | Talk 14:40, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

That concrete was torn up. I'm looking for someone local who might remember. Will people take the word of someone like Schlake, who has been here well over that time? More importantly, will people accept it if I quote him here? -- BillWeiss | Talk 06:38, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

The patch of concrete was there in 1998. When we would give tours of the school we would show it to the prospective students. DannyQuist 22:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Picture of the "Death Meal" graffiti, which can be found near the north-east corner of Fitch Hall. Does that satisfy people? There's other 80s-era material in that same patch of concrete, which I can post if people like.

Pardon the image quality, it's from my Sidekick. -- BillWeiss | Talk 23:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] EMRTC first responder program

I think that the EMRTC "First Responder" program is a different program than the EMT-ish first responder program described in the "first responder" article linked on this page. This should probably be corrected, but I don't know enough about program to correct this inaccuracy. --Foreignkid 05:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] other common names

NMT NMTech

[edit] Negative Princeton Review ratings

I've reverted two edits which removed these (about 1 month apart). That's because the people who removed them were anonymous and didn't leave a useful edit summary. What do people think? Should the items stay because they were published, or should they be removed for some reason?

For the record, these are the entries in question:

• 2004 Ranked among top western colleges
• 2004 Ranked #4 worst cafeteria food
• 2005 Ranked #10 worst cafeteria food

-- BillWeiss | Talk 02:53, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

These rankings on the cafeteria food should be removed. Why? NMT is ranked in a lot of different obscure categories in the Princeton Review and USNews and those other categories are not listed. Example: recently NMT was ranked number one "Dodgeball target school." This is not listed. Also, in the 2005 Princeton Review, NMT was ranked number #4 in the "More to Do on Campus" category, higher than the number 10 in the cafeteria list but this is not included. Basically, I am arguing that you should either include all of the rankings (up to some cut off point) or limit the included rankings to be only the most relevant, important categories. I would prefer the latter... keep the list to be only the key listings, not the more obscure things like cafeteria ratings. Really, I think this section is unnecessary as a whole: list the important rankings within the text and leave more "space" for more important information on the campus.

Since both of the topics Bill mentions are regularly talked about by the students at NMT, they should be included. The other categories the anonymous poster mentions are not often (ever?) talked about around campus.

--Jaberwockynmt 19:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the statement that the cafeteria rating is more talked about than the other ratings. In fact, I own a T-Shirt claiming NMT as the #1 Dodgeball target school in America and this was widely talked about.

Secondly, the fact that NMT is rated in the top 10 for worst cafeteria food is not as important as the rest of the information on this page (excluding possibly the school culture section, which is equally obscure). These facts are really outside of the scope of an article like this. Compare the NMT article to other university's pages: most have much more focused, careful, and complete lists of information.

Finally, inserting the cafeteria rankings and not the other (higher) rankings violates NPOV: it shows a clear bias of the author towards NMT campus food services.

Thus, I recommend removing these references.

People, try to indent your responses and sign them (using four tildes). I suspect that there's a comment from someone between mine and Jaberwockynmt's, but I can't tell.

Further, your lack of signature or proper style make it a lot harder for me to take your comments seriously. I would love to see an attributed reasoned argument.

Jaberwockynmt, my apologies if I'm attributing your words to someone else.

-- BillWeiss | Talk 16:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

My comments are now properly indented. Also, Bill, you mentioned the four tildes for the sig, but it should also be pointed out that indention is accomplished with colons at the beginning of the text block. These sentences have two colons in front of them, for instance.

--Jaberwockynmt 23:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The indentation method can be derived while editing (since everyone's words have :s in front of them). I only included the signature part because it gets substituted in by WP.

-- BillWeiss | Talk 03:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that listing some while not listing others could be in violation of NPOV. My experience at NMT never included people talking about those other rankings and it did very frequently (I'd estimate between 1 and 30 times per week) include people talking about their belief that the cafeteria food was bad, sometimes referencing the rankings. My personal experience with the cafeteria food is that is was above average tasting compared to the cafterias I have eaten in, though Chartwells did not make as strong of an effort to accomodate special diets as I would have liked.

--Jaberwockynmt 23:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

As for "#1 Dodgeball Target" shirts, I'm not sure that those are based in fact. There's no verification for t-shirts made by clubs. A club could make "better education than MIT" shirts and sell them, but I wouldn't maintain that it was so (on WP, at least).

-- BillWeiss | Talk 03:36, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that the Dodgeball Target thing is real. There is a reference to it here: http://channels.netscape.com/news/package.jsp?name=news/dreamcolleges/dreamcolleges. I believe this is a reference to the 2003 rankings. Also, I bought the shirt in the bookstore, so that _should_ be more reasonable.

NMTSuperFan 18:16, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there any agreement as to which rankings should be included? I think the princeton review rankings should be omitted all together. Those rankings are NOT essential descriptions of NMT, do not really say anything substantial about the university and the list is incomplete/biased. There has been no positive support for these rankings other than "someone put it up so it should not be deleted..." Please comment.

I support removing all of the Princeton Review rankings.

--Jaberwockynmt 23:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Pardon me for starting to new thread here, but I have several comments. First, the link given as a reference to "the Dodgeball Target thing" doesn't lead to any mention of the school. netscape.com may have reorganized.

Second, I think that at least the positive Princeton Review content should be kept in the article, as the Princeton Review ranking system is fairly well known and is used by the school in recruiting. If you agree with that it seems likely that NPOV requires us to list the negative reviews as well.

I've moved the dodgeball target part to its own section and added a cite tag. If no one can come up with a decent reference for it I'll take it out.

-- BillWeiss | Talk 14:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] School culture clean-up + comments

This section does give a true flavor of NMT based upon what I know of the school, but I fear that perhaps it has strayed from the encyclopedic writing styles that wikipedia strives for. I don't believe the text needs to be removed, but perhaps edited in such a way that it reads more like something you'd find in the description of other schools. I was heavily involved in creating the University of Arizona's article, and I hope that fellow wikipedians and Techies alike can come together to improve the overall quality of this article. I've included the original text here with comments it in the hopes of making my grievances somewhat more clear. I'd love to see a discussion on any comments anyone has. --ABQCat 20:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Primarily an engineering school, New Mexico Tech is considered to be a nerd or geek college. Given this stereotype it is important to remember that this is a defining characteristic for the student population. While not every student fits in this blanket characterization, most do. Socorro is a small town, with very little traditional entertainment available.

Considered by whom? If USNews for example says so, that would certainly suffice. It's very much an opinion that needs a citation, however. The second sentence seems completely unnecessary, as it's essentially the definition of the word "sterotype". Regarding Socorro, this is certainly true, but may perhaps belong in a different paragraph or require some explanation. --ABQCat 20:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say "...considered by many students and faculty to be...". I don't know if it's documented anywhere. The rest of the paragraph is crap and should be cut. The last line should be rewritten as its own paragraph, making sure to follow NPOV.

--Jaberwockynmt 23:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The school had a long tradition of hosting one way rivalries. Many years during the 49ers Homecoming weekend, groups of students would travel to the University of New Mexico to affix cottonballs on the lobo statue on campus. A group of students tried to create a fake rivalry with the Colorado School of Mines.

Had until when? When did it start? Any news stories on these rivalries or further explanation, or are they perhaps the stuff of school legend? I lack the local resources to investigate, but they certainly sound possibly true. --ABQCat 20:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

This bit always bugged me too. I know that there were photos in Paydirt of the lobo cottonballing about 5 years ago and the think the photos were also in the Daily Lobo. On a few occasions in the past ~30 years, NMT students have gone up to Colorado School of Mines and vandalized their mountain's 'M', adding an 'N' in front and a 'T' behind it. I think there were photos of the last attempt (that I know of) in Paydirt about 4 years ago.

--Jaberwockynmt 23:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The demographics vary quite wildly, especially in the early parts of the Fall semesters. The campus population has traditionally been predominantly male. While the male/female ratio has moved towards a balance, it still remains skewed. There are so many males on campus that several unofficial mottos have been created by the female population:

The odds are good but the goods are odd.

New Mexico Tech: Where the men are men, the women are men, and the sheep are scared.

Does NMT have a fact-book on demographics? Many colleges publish one through the admissions office. Why do demographics vary? How do they vary? Are we saying that many students drop-out, or are we saying that the admissions from year to year are widely disparate? I think numbers to support a predominately male population would make the point quite well without the fudge-word "predominately." It may well be that the ratios are not as far out of line with national college admissions as one could otherwise think, but lacking a comparison of quantitative data, who knows? Also, the "mottos" are interesting, but perhaps they've been written down somewhere? It smells of original research, otherwise. --ABQCat 20:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The "mottoes" have been around for a while. I've heard they were around at least back in the 1960s. I don't know what documentation there is for this other than the word of students over the years though; they're part of the widely known oral history of the school.

--Jaberwockynmt 23:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The viability of Socorro, New Mexico as an economic force has increased in recent years. This has caused students to stay in the vicinity of the town. As a result, much of the population is composed of tech graduates.

What has changed? Also, "viability of socorro... as an economic force" is quite vague to me. Does this mean that the local economy is on the rise, that the balance of capital is shifting from rural to urban, etc? This sentence doesn't really do much to shed light on how it is changing. Also, how much of the population are Tech graduates? It would seem to me that perhaps there are figures kept at a career services office that might give some numbers here. Otherwise, it's pretty dubious and overly-general information. --ABQCat 20:52, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is totally unsubstantiated. Socorro is developing economically, but I don't believe the number of NMT graduates that stay in the area has increased in any significant way.

--Jaberwockynmt 23:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mottoes / mottos

If either of you revert again, I think you'll be violating the three-revert guideline. Be cool, discuss here instead of just making the same changes. -- BillWeiss | Talk 02:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)