Talk:Canadian Ivy League

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 01:42, 14 February 2008 (UTC). The result of the discussion was No consensus.

Contents

[edit] Universities aside from Queen's, McGill and Toronto

The article in question lists "Queen's University, McGill University, and the University of Toronto," as per the order the Universities appear in the book ("Fiske Guide"). This order is maintained so as to represent the author's intent (whatever that may be). Regardless of any individual's opinions of the schools listed, the order of the schools must remain intact. The order in which the schools are listed do not necessarily correlate to their respective qualities/ranking. Please reframe from vandalizing the list of schools and/or the pictures included within the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.15.216.138 (talk) 22:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If David M. Thomas' article is read correctly, he includes Dalhousie University and the University of Western Ontario as well in his list of the "Canadian Ivy League". However, it doesn't seem as though he recommends using the term, just that if such a term did exist, the following schools would be included: Dalhousie, Western, Queen's, McGill, Toronto. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.250.71.30 (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Thomas is pretty hazy at a point in his article. He claims that the term exists, but google cuts out some of his analysis and it's difficult to tell whether or not he really advocates said term. 6mat1 (talk) 21:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)6mat1

IF THIS ARTICLE IS ON THE "CANADIAN IVY LEAGUE" THEN WHY IS FISKE EVEN CITED?? HE DOES NOT USE THE TERM! IN FACT, THE ONLY CITATION WE (CURRENTLY) HAVE OF THE TERM IS FROM THOMAS, WHOM, MAKES NO DISTINCTION IN HIS REFERENCE BETWEEN QUEENS, MCGILL, TORONTO, WESTERN, AND DALHOUSIE. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.250.71.30 (talk) 05:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Now there are many more citations to support the terms usage, and probably dozens more besides out there. Consider that the Ivy League lead itself notes: "The term also has connotations of academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and a reputation for social elitism." This is something that is actually shared with the Canadian institutions mentioned, albeit to a lesser extent. Since the Ivy League formed as an athletic conference more than 50 years ago, the connection between the Old Four and the Ivy league is also quite strong. Before you removed it, the article mentioned that Toronto, Queen's and McGill (and Western too) are all located in Central Canada - does this not scream parallel to New England, where most of the Ivy League schools are? If you are annoyed because one school is not as noted as another, or if you attend(ed) a university that isn't mentioned or something else, please avoid tarnishing the article here because of that. It's a resource and it has plenty of backing to it - most of the schools refer to THEMSELVES as Ivy League counterparts even. AccuratEdit (talk) 18:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • This article has gotten out of hand. It has turned into something altogether different than it should be. The term "Canadian Ivies" is nothing more than a marketing campaign started by UBC, Queen's, and Toronto. Whether or not McGill calls itself the "Harvard of Canada", and whether or not Dalhousie and Western are mentioned by Thomas, is not relevant. This isn't an article on the best schools in Canada. That's what the Maclean's ranking is for. So, unless this article is changed to reflect this in the next week, I will be deleting all references to McGill, Western and Dalhousie. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.250.71.30 (talk) 23:07, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm pretty sure you need to get your facts straight here... the original article's saying that the marketing campaign was started by UBC, Queen's and Toronto was in fact INCORRECT, the actual article used to cite that is this one and it mentions McGill predominantly. The term "Canadian Ivies" highly highly likely began far before the 2000-whatever, I mean just look at some of the citations I added (which you seem to have dismissed), such as this one. Queen's literally brands itself right there as being a Canadian Ivy - this term has been around for decades, whether you've heard of it or disagree with it. I'm a born Canadian too, brought up outside of Canada, in more than one major city and more than one province - I've heard the term over 10 times from separate people on separate occasions. Clearly some connotations aren't good, but all of these universities are excellent and it's poor taste not to provide information simply because of a disagreement with the viewpoint. And from all the sources, evidently the viewpoint on these schools is shared by many, many people, outside of Canada and in. Also, I'm really honestly wondering why you are so disconcerted by this, since I believe you originally altered the mention of Western and Dalhousie to BE more predominant? Sorry about this disagreement, I know that none of what I have added or reworded isn't factual, and as far as 'oft associated with the Ivy League' - Queen's is tied to Cornell, UofT had fun with Yale and Brown in the 1900's inventing things/trading faculty, McGill played the first game of North American football with Harvard, and if you take the time to look you'd see that there are loads of forums that compare these schools directly to the Ivy League schools of the USA for more reasons than are stated here, and which have backing.AccuratEdit (talk) 00:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I created this page with the intention of highlighting a term, unknown to some, regarding Canadian universities. This has turned into an edit-war. People vandalize, making larger images of some schools, while using unacceptable evidence to further an argument (usually pertaining to one school in particular). Please, let's stop these ridiculous edits- otherwise, the article should be deleted because of its incoherency.

P.S. Please don't be upset and vandalize, merely because your university is not listed. The term is unofficial, thus does not accurately reflect any one school or their individual curricula. 6mat1 (talk) 13:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I agree, vandalism is unnecessary and unwanted as always - I did read through the article linked though, and it mentions both Western and Dalhousie so I edited them in more appropriately, and also the spacing as it is now seems to make the article just right, with the correct distinctions between school. This article could easily be subdivided to Rankings, Marketing and some other section, but if it stays around the same length it can probably be left just fine as is, and when I tested sectioning, it made formatting more painful, so I'd advocate just leaving it alone as is... I also think noting Western and Dalhousie makes sense, although if someone wants to minimize them some more that's fine by me, since in all accuracy, Queen's, McGill and UofT are leaps and bounds ahead, if not in research, then endowment, and if not endowment, then enrolment. AccuratEdit (talk) 02:44, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • RE: Above comment: How does minimizing Western and Dalhousie "make sense"? This is an article on the "Candian Ivy League" - a term we have one citation for. It is not an article on the Canadian schools with the best research or largest endowments. I honestly don't see how even a half-ass reading of Thomas' article (the only source we have that uses this phrase - "Canadian Ivy League") allows us to decide that we should focus this article on Queens, Toronto, and McGill. I think they frequent editing in this article makes it clear - NO ONE USES THIS FUCKING TERM IN THE FIRST PLACE!
    • You're getting too riled over this... seriously. Right now, the article is pretty good- the layout, the aesthetics, the evidence, etc. I don't really understand where you get off claiming that the article is unwarranted. Everything presented is currently cited, as well as unbiased. In summary- chill out; it's not the end of the world if the article displays different opinions of an informal term, while highlighting some of Canada's universities. 6mat1 (talk) 15:03, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maclean's rankings

  • Also agreed. Thank you for your edits, they're very accurate and I couldn't have done a better job myself. One interesting note is the 2007 ranking: I have the magazine in front of me (12th annual), and it rank Queen's in a lone second place. I'm pretty confused, you also claim to have the 2007 rankings, however 17th annual? Something's not right here, I'm sure we can find something online that states what the actual ranking was from 2007 (it doesn't matter to me if it's a tie or not- I just want to be as correct as possible). 6mat1 (talk) 20:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Check out http://www.macleans.ca/education/universities/amedical.pdf It shows this years rankings- Queen's and UBC in a tie for second. It also shows the previous year's ranking- Queen's in second, with UBC in fourth. 6mat1 (talk) 20:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Hmm, thanks for the link and clarification, and I also found a copy of the 2008 rankings and the LAST YEAR column supports that even more. I'm really wondering what I'm looking at then for 2007, with the citation I used for the rankings too. It goes:

2007 - LAST YEAR

  • 1 McGill - 1
  • 2 UBC - 4
  • 2 Queen's - 2
  • 4 Toronto - 3
  • 5 Alberta - 6
  • 6 McMaster - 12
  • 7 Western - 5

and checking the PDF you linked, it's actually the exact same, and hmm it's actually the exact same with the 2008 edition. The magazine is from November of 2007 though! Oh well, at least the rankings are cleared up, I have no idea how Maclean's would release 3 different sets of data across 2 years, and both you and I apparently have 2007 hard copies that DIFFER. AccuratEdit (talk) 21:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Yeah, it's really weird, but at least its somewhat cleared up. 6mat1 (talk) 00:36, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
    • The credibility of the rankings has gone down dramatically after some/all? G-13 universities have pulled out of their survey. They are getting the info AFAIK from the freedom of information act. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.79.196.195 (talk) 08:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Yeah?... So?... We already know this. 6mat1 (talk) 22:49, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
      • This whole Canadian Ivy league thing is rubbish. I am surprised it hasn't been nominated again for deletion. Foremost, it is unofficial and informal and in no comparison to the real Ivy League in the states. How is this even encyclopedic? Its mostly opinionated especially from the Fiske article which you claim as one of your sources. Whats worse is most are from those universities itself! Its all marketing lingo especially this site: Canadian Ivy which is just a promotional website for prospective students! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.132.12.80 (talk) 07:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
      • See Southern Ivies and Public Ivies. Both of these articles have done the exact same thing. Actually, the Canadian Ivy article has had much less edit wars and controversy. Aside from that, there is actually significant evidence; even if authors disagrees with one another, this at least promotes some type of scholarly debate. In the world of wikipedia, this debate should not manifest itself; however, the relative arguments should be presented, allowing the reader to form his/her own opinion. I think the article (in its present form) has finally met this standard. 6mat1 (talk) 14:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words

"Highly regarded and prestigious" are weasel words no matter how you reference it. So it does not give you right to remove the weasel words tag. In any wikipedia article that concerns an institution, you don't add these words. Its not found in Harvard University, University of Cambridge, nor University of Oxford hence this page is no exception. 218.102.81.173 (talk) 06:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)