Talk:Carleton College
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See also: Talk:Carleton College/archive1
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[edit] Selectivity
So instead of just asserting that it's a selective college, cite some verifiable stats to show what percentage of applicants are accepted (and put those stats in context if you must). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bartbee55057 (talk • contribs) 00:32, August 24, 2007 (UTC).
[edit] Category:Wikipedians_by_alma_mater:_Carleton_College
Category:Wikipedians_by_alma_mater:_Carleton_College has been created. Add to applicable user pages, and/or place on article page if appropriate (did not see similar categories listed other college and university pages, so leaving it here in talk for someone else to add ;) Here 20:20, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps the category should be expanded to include all people associated with Carleton College (i.e. alumni and faculty). 68.113.200.34 04:19, 24 December 2005 (UTC) Sarah
- I agree, and , and would encourage faculty to use the existing category. The current description is simply Folks who called Carleton College home for a time. I've also mentioned changing the use of alma mater at Category talk:Wikipedians by alma mater. ∴ here…♠ 18:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Mention of Druids, RDNA mother grove
I re-added the mention of the The_Mother_Grove_of_the_RDNA to trivia. This is definitely worthy of inclusion. It would be great if someone on campus could cite some information from the archived druid materials available in the library. ∴ here…♠ 03:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
Agreed; I had intended to relocate it to "Trivia," apologies. - M
[edit] GOP/CUT
I removed the external links to CUT and GOP websites as it seems unbalanced to link to only a few specific student organizations. I added a link to Carleton's student organizations main page. Malokata 08:37, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
- Someone from a Carleton IP just tried to add a GOP EL to Ultimate (sport), placing it along side links to national and international leagues. I guess they thought that GOP was more noteworthy than every other team in the world, since we specifically don't have team links in that article. I amazed, especially since CUT seems to take itself even more seriously. I guess Carleton Ultimate just goes to the extremes. All I can say is: Go OCD! (O.C. Dems) —WAvegetarianTALKCONTRIBSEMAIL 05:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Founding date
Where does the founding date of Nov. 14, 1866 come from? I was a student during the 125th anniversary celebration and the materials said that Oct. 12, 1866 was the founding date of Northfield (later Carleton) College. 24.127.10.231 18:57, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Notable Faculty
What is the criteria for being a notable faculty member? I'm not familiar with the biology department, but what is the justification for listing Stephan Zweifel? Sarahjane10784 19:27, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Notable Alumni
It looks like we have the makings of a minor edit war over the issue of "notable" alumni. User:UninvitedCompany has strong opinions about limiting the list, but some of the rest of us are having a difficult time discerning his criteria. For example, comparing his treatment of Barrie M. Osborne and Jane Hamilton, I infer that UninvitedCompany sees notability in the producers of movies that were well-received critically and at the box office, but finds the authors of novels that were well-received critically and sold well to be nonnotable. Also, UninvitedCompany is more impressed by grown-up accomplishments (such as being acting governor of a state) than by accomplishments that make a person a hero to young children (such as creating Kratt's Creatures or writing "young adult" fantasy novels that are popular among middle school kids and the librarians who serve them).
Meanwhile, comparing Carleton College with other schools (for example, see St. Olaf College, Augsburg College, Earlham College, Lawrence University, and Macalester College), it appears that the "notability" bar is being set higher for Carleton than for many other schools.
Rather than continuing this nascent edit war, I propose that we agree that any Carleton alum who is sufficiently notable to have their own article in Wikipedia is sufficiently notable to be listed as a notable Carleton alum.
Does that give anyone a problem? --orlady 05:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, it gives me a problem. Just because a grandson of an "acting governor of Wyoming" decides to write a Wikipedia article about grandpa doesn't make grandpa notable. I don't see anything wrong with writing an article about grandpa acting governor, but the existence of the article does not confer public, political, historical, social, economic, or any other kind of noteworthiness.
I would argue that being labled notable requires some kind of public recognition in the arena where the person was active. For instance, Walter Alvarez (someone I do not know and to whom I am not related), who was deleted from the list by UninvitedCompany, is a well-known geologist credited with an important and respectable scientific hypothesis that is the subject of much investigation.
I think that there ought to be more people on the list of notable alumni, but the criteria ought to make the list meaningful. BartBee
Discussion moved from the main page to the discussion page: "Please don't add people here unless they are of comparable notability to those already in the list. There are dozens of people in each class who become authors, editors, managers, politicians etc. - don't list them all. -UninvitedCompany"
Please join the discussion about criteria above.
If the list gets too long, lets celebrate the achievements of so many people.
- I don't think there is a danger of listing non-notable alums if we list people with Wikipedia articles. If a person writes a Wikipedia article about a truly non-notable person, the Wikipedia community is likely to delete the article for failing the notability test. As for that acting governor of Wyoming, Arthur G. Crane, he had a pretty impressive career. Not only did he fulfill the duties of governor for 2 years, but he was a university president for more than 20 years. He's certainly notable by Wikipedia standards, so I see no reason not to list him in the Carleton article. By the same token, I think we should also list Jane Hamilton and Chris Kratt, whose accomplishments are in entirely different fields of endeavor, but notable in the context of those fields. --orlady 23:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe that the list is most useful to readers if it is short. I don't have especially strong opinions on the notability of particular people (and you may have a point about Crane), but I believe that on the whole the list makes far more interesting reading if it includes primarily people as well known as Wellstone and Veblin. Carleton graduates dozens of people each year who go on to be novelists, editors, professors, minor elected officials, government functionaries, and the like. Listing all of them in the main article would be difficult and pointless, though I suppose we could have a separate list. I prune the list occasionally because it tends to accumulate names added by graduates themselves and their friends. Since I watch relatively few other college and university articles, I am unaware of any problems with parity; however, Carleton being the kind of institution that it is there are greater numbers of truly notable people than might be the case for a lesser school.
I believe that the criteria should be that the individuals in the list should either be public figures on a national scale or should be recognized as leaders in their field who have done enduring work that will withstand the test of history.
Regarding Chris Kratt, the article we have about him doesn't convince me that he's notable enough to belong here. Alvaraz I am unconvinced about because the article about him is unsourced and it is not clear to me whether his claims have widespread respect in the scientific community. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 02:44, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
- "Notability" is all in the eye of the beholder -- it all depends on your age, experience, and interests. I know about Chris Kratt only because my kid (who was a fan of his TV show about 10 years ago) told me about him. I would bet that, among the generation that is now entering college, Chris Kratt is the best-known person on that notable alumni list. His contributions are not in science, but in science edutainment (like Steve Irwin, only saner). I am not an expert on this guy, and I've never met him. I only saw one of his TV shows once or twice, but I thought the show was good science and great entertainment. As for Walter Alvarez, if you don't believe he's notable, check out "1980" in the list of great scientific discoveries of the 20th century at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/eventindex.html (that part of the list goes "1976 Cosmic string theory introduced; 1977 Life is found near deep ocean vents; 1980 World Health Organization declares smallpox eradicated; 1980 Alvarez finds evidence of dinosaur-killing asteroid; 1981 AIDS is officially recognized"). The article about Alvarez appears to be based on his CV, which often is the best available resource for biographical details on a living scientist.
- Some other college articles list corporate vice presidents, Miss America contestants, ambassadors, radio producers, and college provosts as "notable alumni". In my opinion, most those people are non-notable, and those articles' practices definitely should not be imitated. On the other hand, though, when we start choosing between people considered notable within different fields of endeavor, inevitably we are revealing our own prejudices (or at least our age, experience, and interests) show...
- Having said all that, I hasten to add that I'm not convinced that Pamela Dean, Clara Jeffery, and Patricia Wrede are fully as notable as others on the current list in the article, and even though I wrote the article on W.G. Ernst, I did not add him to the Carleton article. --orlady 04:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don't understand why the criteria for merely including someone on a list should be more stringent than the notability criteria for creating a Wikipedia article. I don't see why one person should be allowed to impose some arbitrary standard and cut the list down to some undefined length. If it really does get so long as to be unwieldy, then someone can create a separate "List of Carleton College People" article as has been done for a number of other schools. --Cheapestcostavoider 23:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] "Trivia"
In the Trivia section (for want of a better spot), I listed info about the Chicago Reader. The four founders were Robert Roth '69, Bob McCamant '71, Thomas J. Rehwaldt, and one other... --orlady 05:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Athletics
Hello there. I noticed that Athletics is very near the top of this entry. While athletics is no doubt a part of Carleton College, giving Athletics the first area to be written about seems a little too much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.22.224.106 (talk) 06:13, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
