Talk:Case Western Reserve University

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[edit] CASE PUBLICIST

Is it just me or does this whole page seem like what the person below referred to as "something a Case publicist would write"? It sounds like a pamphlet for prospective students. Can't we go through this whole page and change the tone to something appropriately neutral? I'm new at this so I don't want to mess things up by trying to do it by myself. There should also be room for more criticism, e.g. the whole branding debacle should be underlined. Can someone help with that? (I don't have user name yet)

[edit] SAGES

I am a second year SAGES student, and I heartily disagree with the portrayal of SAGES in the final paragraph of the section. I am curious to know where this information has come from, if it is anecdotal or based on actual survey data. I find the topics of the University Seminars to be limited and uninteresting, and I know of many students who agree with me. I do not have any data to back my statement up, but it seems to me the last paragraph has no data either. It strikes me a something a Case publicist would write.

(Please sign your post) I agree in principle. The plural of "anecdote" is not "data," and while that makes my opinions and stories worthless when they're unaccompanied with real facts, it makes that last paragraph worthless too. Having said that, I'll go ahead and insert my hunch that a publicist did indeed write that paragraph, since I don't know anyone--at all--who enjoyed their Fourth Hours anywhere near the extent implied in that paragraph. I know that carries essentially no weight, but I'd like to see a reference to a poll or survey of CWRU student opinions if these probably-too-positive claims about SAGES are going to make it to the article itself. Just my $.02. Vbdrummer0 05:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fraternities

I edited out Sigma Alpha Epsilon on the list of fraternities on campus since they have just lost their charter. reference here: [[1]]

[edit] Naming convention

"Case Western", while frequently used among people who have heard of the school but never attended or worked there, is not the correct short name for the school. "Case Western Reserve" is, of course, proper, and as of 2004, CWRU has taken up the name "Case" as a brand name of sorts (though many recent graduates, especially engineering students, have called it "Case" for some time).

[edit] Show, don't tell

I see no reason to describe Case in this way: "Case Western Reserve University is a prestigious, leading independent research university located in Cleveland, Ohio." No other universities' writeups feel the need to refer to themselves as "prestigious" and "leading" - why not let the reputation of the school speak for itself? Show, don't tell. - McCart42 03:35, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

And another thing. EVERY school in the midwest tries to call themselves the "Harvard of the midwest" - Northwestern, Michigan, etc...I have never heard a Case student use this description and I never want to. It's not Harvard. - McCart42 03:39, 2004 Dec 12 (UTC)

I agree, the entry was a little too much in the vein of preaching their virtues. The university has its pluses and minuses, both of which should be represented. - {69.173.212.32 forgot to sign 02:38, 2005 Apr 24 (UTC)}

To add to this, I'm going to remove the part that says, "Case is the largest independent research university in the state of Ohio, and is the only independent, research-oriented university in a region bounded by Pittsburgh and Rochester on the east, Nashville on the south, and Chicago on the west." Notre Dame is, independent (I assume the editor meant private), a research university (certain a subjective term that should get cut on the NPOV chopping block), and larger than CWRU. Since it falls in this region, and I believe other such schools do as well, I'm going to delete it. marnues 17:49, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of Case Western Reserve University people

I have moved the "Notable students, alumni and faculty" section to its own writeup. Hopefully this change is acceptable; I felt it necessary as that section was getting unwieldy. Perhaps a brief blurb following a link to the main article would be appropriate. If anyone has any reasons to move the list back to the main node, feel free to discuss them here. This technique is used in the writeups for MIT, Princeton, and several other research institutions. - McCart42 21:33, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

[edit] Campus size

Several different numbers exist to describe the campus size. Here are numbers and sources:

130 acres - No listed original source.
155 acres - Seems rather official.
160 acres - Possibly an old number which fluctuated over time.
550 acres - Very possibly inflated due to offcampus properties, particularly Squire Valleevue and Valley Ridge farms (389 acres) [2] (which, to be fair, is used for campus affairs, particularly group retreats and cross country meets).

I propose the 155 acres figure be used as it seems to be the most official number; if that's what was submitted to US News & World Report, it seems that's what the University is claiming for itself. This number may very well change with the addition of the North campus Residential Village and elimination of South campus residence halls (rumored). - McCart42 (talk) 02:43, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

Also see here for a mention of the 155 acres figure. - McCart42 (talk) 17:08, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

[edit] Music

Past UPB concerts:

2005-04-14: Guster

others: Everclear, P. Funk, Ben Folds. Anyone know where there's a full list? I'm interested in putting a list up here in the Music section along with a list of Case bands and other musical groups. - McCart42 (talk) 15:52, 2005 May 31 (UTC)

Everclear was 2001-10-05 (Adelbert Gym), Ben Folds was 2003-04-16 (Severence Hall). Those are the two I went to. P. Funk was 2002 maybe? I think Jurassic 5 was the big show one semester, maybe 2004. Violent Femmes played sometime before 2001. That's what I can recall off the top of my head. Pimlottc 21:45, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The below is a condensed version of the text previously at the deleted CWRU music scene writeup. While I realize that the vote was clear to delete (not merge), it is my hope that a condensed version (perhaps just a sentence with a comma separated list of these bands/musical performance groups) could be kept in this article (rather than a separate "music scene" article). Comments? - McCart42 (talk) 21:49, 2005 Jun 3 (UTC)

Several bands were formed by Case Western Reserve students; a few are still active in the Cleveland area. There are also several musical performance organizations which have steady recruitment efforts to replace members who graduate. Many of these bands played at the annual Springfest event.

[edit] Bands and Musical Groups

These groups contain or were formed by one or more Case students. The original members may or may not have graduated, and thus the band may or may not still be on campus.

Seven Kings/Catwalk Blue
Chauncey Peppertooth
FSM
Zugzwang
Ben Jacobs
Freeflow
Every Other Week
Chicken Fried Funk
The Minimum Requirements
Stop Laughing

[edit] Music Performance Groups

These groups have ongoing recruitment efforts, and generally only current students are members, though a few sometimes have alumni members.

Speakeasy
Case in Point
Solstice

[edit] Res life comparison

I removed the sentence This stands in marked contrast to res life at many state schools, whose staff members' "cheerleader" enthusiasm for their jobs (and their authority) borders on fascism. Mentioning specific favorable res life policies of this school is good, but I don't think this broad generalization adds to the comparison. Let others come to their own conclusions about "many state schools". - McCart42 (talk) 17:11, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

[edit] Most Wired poll (1999 & 2000)

I'm (probably) not going to revert the deletion of this section again, though I'd encourage someone else to. It's been removed a few times before. I feel it's a notable event in the university's history: a first place finish in a once popular national poll, then removal from that poll in the subsequent year. It's difficult to find much information about these polls or the circumstances of the situation now, as ZDNet doesn't seem to have the pages up anymore, and the poll hasn't been done in a long time. Still, the Observer wrote about USG passing a bill immediately following the awarding of the #1 spot, and the University itself released its take on what happened. If anyone else wants to return it to the article, it was last in Facts and Figures in the revision as of 2005-08-04T23:30:48. Also worth noting is that the university finished #13 in 1997 poll results. Finally, here's the Observer's take (and an editorial) on the drop in the 2000 poll, from the 2000-04-21 edition. - McCart42 (talk) 04:37:14, 2005-08-07 (UTC)

The university had the distinction of being #1 in Yahoo Internet Life's 1999 Most Wired College list [3]. There was a perception that this award was obtained through partially false information submitted for the survey by the Vice President for Information Systems, Raymond Neff, and the university did not appear at all on the 2000 Most Wired College list (which included 100 institutions). The university had previously placed #13 in the 1997 poll [4], and was the first university to have an all-fiber-optic network, in 1989 [5] [6].

I will revert this. There are Wikipedians who feel that any mention of academic rankings is boosterism, and while I support the NPOV policy, I feel that the mention of these rankings convey actual news about the history of the university. I see that the comment by the IP address which carried out the most recent deletion expressed concerns about potential libel action, so I am removing the reference to Ray Neff, and clarifying that the information submitted may have been false or inaccurate. Mamawrites 09:35, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

I might suggest that the links to responses by the University and the Observer be added to that section. Libel cannot be factual; thus, an easy way to ensure that the statement is not libelous is to simply state the facts as reported in the links above: Ray Neff was the sole submitter of the survey in 1999, and the information submitted was not recorded anywhere. The undergraduate student government launched an inquiry into the facts submitted, which, to the best of my knowledge, didn't uncover anything. In 2000, the University double-checked all its figures and had multiple people filling out the survey, publicly releasing the facts they submitted. As a result, Yahoo didn't even rank CWRU in the top 200. Yahoo also made a statement about this, but the page is nowhere to be found as of 2005. - McCart42 (talk) 00:20:38, 2005-08-08 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV-section addition

An anonymous IP added a slew of complaints under "students" regarding the standard stereotypes attached to Case about the lack of student life, problems with SAGES, etc. While some of the comments were definetely NPOV and deleted, some of them should be legitimately raised provided there is balance for them. I won't have time to do it for awhile so if someone else does go ahead, until then it's NPOV. Andromeda321 17:27, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Um, I assume you meant the offending sections were non-NPOV, since everything on WP should be WP:NPOV. --Beefyt 01:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CWRU User Box

For anyone who attends/attended Case, you can use the CWRU user box if you like on your user page: {{User CWRU}}. Wickethewok 06:10, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History First Unless this Prestigious Institution has no History

You would think that prestigious universities such as Case, would have their History first. Maybe I am just old-fashioned. From what I understand, the Western Reserve has a very special history when it comes to American history. It is unfortunate that the historical importance of Case is not presented first and foremost. From the hood Paradoxos 05:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Paradoxos. I am disappointed this article has almost no mention of the history of Case Western. It seems unprecedented, given the age of CWRU and its rich history. I should like to request that someone look into this. Slugmaster (talk) 20:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Michelson-Morley Experiment

That the university was the "site" of this experiment is misleading as this implies that it was performed at the current university's location, which is wrong. The experiment was actually performed at what is now Western Reserve Academy, which was formerly Western Reserve College. The wording should be changed to reflect this. Otherwise this page is not accurate.

I've edited to reflect this. -- 164.107.243.81 18:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there a source for this claim? Numerous signs and plaques around the current CWRU campus say that the experiment took place "near this spot," and I presume the town of Hudson doesn't count as "near." The experiment was performed in 1886 in a WRU dormitory (http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=ME). Without doing too much research, I can say for certain that WRU was located in University Circle in Cleveland, and not in Hudson anymore, as at least one WRU administration building (which still stands today) was built in University Circle in 1883 (http://www.case.edu/its/archives/Buildings/adlmai.htm). Thus, if the experiment took place at Western Reserve College/University in 1886, it must have been in University Circle, current location of CWRU. Changing the article back. Vbdrummer0 17:25, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Case or CWRU?

Should prominent mentions to the university in the article (e.g. the preamble and section headings) be in the form of "CWRU" or "Case"? I'm of the opinion that "CWRU" is the more appropriate choice here, as "Case" sounds a bit casual and unencyclopedic for article headings and the like. Yes, the CWRU/Case style guide says that "Case" is acceptable for references to the university after the first time in a publication, but the style guide is for CWRU/Case publications, where anyone reading it should have some familiarity with the university already, and use of the more casual "Case" abbreviation would be more acceptable. Wikipedia is, of course, not a CWRU/Case publication, and there is no such guarantee that readers of the CWRU article will be familiar in any way with the university. As such, I don't feel that we should apply the CWRU/Case style guide to Wikipedia. I can live with in-text "Case" references, but I think that section headings in a third-party publication about CWRU should use the more formal abbreviation.

CWRU/Case style guide: http://studentaffairs.case.edu/support/web/casestyle/abbreviations.html

Vbdrummer0 17:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relevance of Hundert quote

Although an accurate quotation, I would challenge the relevancy of Hundert's quote in the first paragraph. At the least, it seems out of place and describes a campaign with which the school has quite evidently disassociated itself. Therefore, I am removing it at this point. 24.155.169.98 (talk) 22:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History

Is there a section on the history of Case Western or either of the two institutions that formed it? TomStike (talk) 02:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)