Talk:Concordia University/Archive 1

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Disambiguation

It's not clear to me why this page is at Concordia University as opposed to any of the other 6 Concordia Universities listed at Concordia University System. Suggestion: move this to Concordia University (Montreal) and create a Concordia University disambiguation page at Concordia University.

If no one strongly objects, I'll do this in a few days

Johnh 01:07, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I object. Why not simply create a disambiguation page and link to it in the header? This Concordia University isn't part of Concordia University System. --Spinboy 01:15, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps my suggestion was not clear. I agree with Spinboy's comments, in that Concordia University should not point to Concordial University System. It should point to whatever "Concordia University" is. My point is that there are 7 Concorida Universities, one in Montreal, in 6 others in Ann arbor, Irivine, Portland, River Forest, St. Paul, and Seward. IMHO it doesn't make sense to designate any one of these as the Concordia University. Does this make more sense? This seems to me like the classic role of a disambiguation page. (Johnh 21:25, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Why not simply create a disambiguation page and link to it in the header? --Spinboy 21:39, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's what you asked before. I tried to answer that: because doing that would designate the Montreal C.U. as the C.U. Isn't this exacly a case of equal disambiguation Wikipedia:Disambiguation? To suggest that it should be handled as primary disambiguation means that it should be clear that the Monteral C.U. is primary. While I have nothing against that C.U., I haven't heard any arguments that it is somehow a more obvious C.U. than any of the others. Are you advancing such an argument? (Johnh 00:24, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Yes, because all the other ones you propose to disambig are simply part of a larger System. When a reader enters this term and pushes "Go", would they expect to view any of the articles listed on the disambiguation page? You should list this article on requested moves for comment from the larger Wikipedia community. --Spinboy 00:46, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
In fact, there's already a disambig page listed under Concordia. --Spinboy 00:48, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Proposed move

I've added the link at Wikipedia:Requested moves as per the request. A disambig at Concordia is nice, but not the same as Concordia University. Johnh 22:38, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

add: * Support or * Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and a signature:"~~~~"
  • Support See detailed discussion above; briefly: there's no strong reason to place Montreal or any of the Concordia Universities as the C.U. at the main page, so the main page should be a disambiguation page (or a redirect to one). Johnh 17:33, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • OPPOSE, the other Concordia Universities are very small, and not particularly notable. Concordia University (Montreal) is a very large university, and notable in many respects. Like a shooting rampage by a disgruntled professor, being the most activist university in Canada, having many disputes with a national ranking system by MacLean's magazine (like the US News rankings for the US) on the validity of having evening/part-time/continuing-education students... Lately, disruptions that forced the cancellation/movement of speeches by Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak by the vocal Palestinian student organizations...
    • Montreal: 30,000 students, 180 degree programs (25k ugrad, 5k grad)
    • St. Paul: 2,000 students
    • River Forest: 2,000 students
    • Wisconsin: 2,500 students
    • Ann Arbor: 600 students
    • Austin: 1,200 students, 22 degree programs
    • Irvine: 2,000 students
    • Portland: 1,100 students
    • Nebraska: 1,300
      • Total non-Montreal: 12,700; less than half of Monreal's enrollment.
      • My highschool had more students than these universities (discounting Montreal). 132.205.15.43 03:02, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • For comparison:
          • MIT: 10,000 students
          • NYU: 50,000 students
          • UCLA: 25,000 students
          • UC Berkeley: 22,000 students
          • UBC: 39,000 students

* Weak Oppose But maybe point to the Concordia University System as well as the Concordia disambiguation page. Or Maybe DO move,but still point to Montreal - Sepper 15:00, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved. violet/riga (t) 20:27, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

WTH??

Ridiculous Wikipedia page for Concordia University. Wow! Shame on you people. Noted alumni section is a real joke.

Why don't you contribute to it and help make it better? --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 02:09, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Netanyahou POV

Wow, the netanyahou section doesn't even try to have a NPOV. Hillel (unnammed in the article) supposedely deliberately provoked the rioters, the media overplayed the violence etc. etc. There is also a mention of a supposed second speech by Netanyahou that never happened. Omited of course was the physical intimidation of jewish people of all ages attempting to listen to the speech or the fact that tickets were in fact available to anyone who asked for one, though admitedly it was not widely advertised. To be quite frank I don't think that there is much worth saving in that paragraph so unless substantial changes are made the author I will have to either make some myself or just drastically cut back that section.

As an aside, I notice that you failed to mention the earlier Concordia riot in the 1980s where the computer system was destroyed by activists, probably at least as important as the Netanyahou riot. --dj

I can't speak for the Netanyahou part (and I'm not touching that part of the article with a ten-foot pole!) but the computer riot is mentioned in the article in the Sir George Williams section (since it predates Concordia), and has its own article: Sir George Williams Computer Riot — mendel ☎ 01:41, 23 September 2005 (UTC) (formerly of IITS!)
My bad, I didn't think to look outside of the student activism section. In terms of the Netanyahou section however hopefully someone (perhaps myself but I'm new to the editing game and I don't want to cause problems) has to fix it up and put some semblance of balance into that paragraph --dj

Proposed rewrite of Netanyahou section

I tried to include all the points of the anti-Netanyahou writer while ensuring that it was clear that these were viewpoint statements and not facts. For the sake of balance I added pro-Hillel statements (calling them pro-netanyahou is inaccurate, many individuals who wanted to attend the speech were certainly pro-Israel but not neccesarily pro-Netanyahou). I eliminated statements that were essentially exercises in mind-reading the motivations of involved individuals as well as statements that were not relevant to the discussion and just added length (e.g. the statement about universities being bastions of liberalism etc.)

I would certainly invite suggestions and criticisms and will try to act on them. I will add the rewrite some time next week. I'm also thinking that maybe this whole thing should be a seperate page just like the computer riot...

But anyways here it is:

While protesting and fiery debate are considered a staple of college life, heavy politicization of the Arab-Israeli conflict on campus has caused certain student groups to step up their political militancy. Tensions are exacerbated by the large representation of students from Middle Eastern countries and of Jewish origin as well as the presence for many years of an activist-oriented student council. As a result the campus has recently been the scene of sporadic skirmishes, protests, or, more infrequently, highly polarized riots.
The Hall building (the main building of Sir George Williams campus) was shut down on September 9th, 2002 in response to a massive protest by pro-Palestinian students. They were opposed to the visit by former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyaha because they were opposed to the presence on campus of a leader who they felt was a war criminal especially since they felt that they were not given adequate opportunity to attend the meeting themselves. The organizing group had largely confined their publicity of the offering of tickets within the Montreal Jewish community. The organizers were also warned by campus security against allowing the talk to proceed because of the politically charge climate at the university but decided to proceed anyways because of concerns freedom of speech concerns. The protest itself lasted several hours and resulted in the breaking of several windows of the main building as well as a few instances of violent intimidation of individuals attempting to attend the talk.
The immediate result of the protest was the cancellation of the talk. The protestors were ecstatic at having prevented him from speaking. Hillel, on the other hand, decried what they perceived as an attack on freedom of speech.

djheart 04:40, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


I haven't received any comments so I'll just proceed with the change.

djheart 23:56, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

djheart, I agree with you, and good effort. This whole section needs to become a linked, expanded article, and only a short, factual summary left behind instead of a constant re-writes in the style of finger-pointing and hour-by-hour journalistic and polemic account. A similar thing happened to the Montreal article with the contentious merger/demerger issue, whose constant revisions hijacked the main article until it got its own page and article. Would you like to move it, or would you rather I do it? After the move has taken place maybe you would like to work on the new article, and I'd be happy to try to look at the main article for even more neutral language. -- Denstat 18:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Concordia is an activist University????

This is not true. People are not political activists at Concordia. The overwhelming majority of Concordia students do not care for politics. Look at the participation (voter) rates at the CSU (concordia student union) elections. It is very low. The only reason why people think its politically active is because of the 2002 riot. What people do not understand is that the people who started the riot were not ALL students. The majority of students at Concordia could not care less about Israel and mid east politics. Why is it that the majority of the information related to Concordia on Wikipedia is devoted to the 2002 riot???? This is nonsense. I am sure you can find other things to say about the University and perhaps changing the pictures to reflect the new (nicer) infrastructure at Concordia. Why is there only minimal mention of the business school? Why is there no mention that Concordia has the oldest communications department in Canada and the best journalism school?

Come on people, stop the stupidity and propaganda.

Did you know that the current CEO of CIBC is a Concordia alumni?

I agree very much with your point, as I said before I think that the brunt of the netanyahou riot should be listed under a seperate article, I just wanted to see other people's opinions before doing so (plus advice on how to do it... I'm new to wikipedia, I don't actually know how to make links). Also if you think that the activist section is bad now you should check out what it was like before I edited it... djheart 03:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Concordia University is a relatively small institution that would not merit much attention were it not for its activist activities. The fact that it has the oldest communications department in Canada might be true, but is not terribly interesting. The statement that Concordia has the "best journalism school" is of course blatantly POV. The original article was remarkably unbalanced and I think that the edits are appropriate and very welcomed.16:13, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Concordia is a small institution?? The school has over 40K students. WtH are you talking about?? Concordia's journalism program is regarded as the best in Canada, and the program only accepts 20% of applicants. You obviously no nothing about concordia and I strongly urge you to stop editing the concordia page. Your knowledge of the university is marginal. And why exactly can you not include the fact that it has the oldest communications department in Canada? How is that not relevant to the school????? Why does it have to be interesting?? This webpage is to inform, not to entertain! DUH!!

I think you should both register so we know WtH you are when you post here. --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 01:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I have registered and I will fix this page up. I will do my best to make this page more informative.

Sounds great, welcome to Wikipedia. :-) --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 03:02, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how including a preponderance of question marks adds any value to your points. You are not exactly a poster boy for the communications department of Concordia :). Now, when you say "Concordia's journalism program is regarded as the best in Canada"... the important question is, who says that? Your neighbor? Some magazine poll of ex-Concordia students? You can't just throw a statement like that out there without some sort of evidence.

If you feel you want to include some facts about it having the oldest communications department in Canada, go for it. Again though, you might want to get somebody else to write it. You know, someone who can communicate without the childish "?????" and "DUH".

If it is important to write about how Concordia is viewed academically as compared to other universities in canada, perhaps I'll include a section on how Concordia does in the Maclean's rankings each year... unless you can think of some more objective source of course.

Knave75 05:04, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Saying it's the best journalism school in Canada is POV, you can take that out. --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 05:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I never put that in anyways. Concordia does have the best journalism program in CAnada, and I am not even a communications student. You Mcgill students are a riot. My english is excellent and your comments are just plain idiotic. I think you are a little pissed off because you realised how dumb you are.

I don't even go to McGill, no personal attacks. --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 23:20, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Dragging our gaze back toward the article if we may ;), I suggest an edit that emphasizes that Concordia University is not 'defined' by student activism, but has a history of student activism. Broadening the scope of student activist involvement beyond the current narrow political definition would honour all that the great work that happens both on campus and beyond its borders. I'll take a stab at it in the next weeks but if someone else has more time, go ahead. -- Denstat 18:33, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Weasel wording?

The following sentence could be considered weasel wording:

The protest itself lasted several hours and resulted in the breaking of several windows of the main building as well as a number of instances of physical harrassment of individuals attempting to attend the talk.

The protest "resulted in" window-breaking and harrassment? No -- someone broke the windows and harrassed people. Who?

Mwalcoff 01:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I looked up the meaning of Weasel Wording and I'm not convinced that it applies in this case altough I must admit that I don't totally get the concept. The protest did result in the breaking of windows and harassement of individuals attempting the talk. Who did these actions, I think it's pretty clear from the sentence that it was some of the protestors who did it. That sentence seems pretty much equivalent to someone writing "the Great Depression led to widespread farm bankcruptcies (sp?)" or "the civil war in Congo led to the displacement of tens of thousands of refugees". In both those cases neither the depression nor the civil war itself did the actions, there were interveners did the more immediate actions leading to the result but I think that all are fair sentences and that if we had to direct down to the individual for every case articles would become way way too long.
That said, if you can think of a better way of phrasing it, go ahead! djheart 21:12, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Student Activism Section POV

Before I did the major edit to the Student Activism section is was clearly in an anti-Israel POV... now after a number of re-edits I fear that it has tilted too much the other way. While there is nothing in the section at the moment that I disagree with I nonetheless recognize that it is somewhat POV, especially the last paragraph so I will try to edit away the POV. djheart 18:32, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

  • just posted a re-write of this section that i believe reduces and removes POV -- the analysis (and blame) is reduced, because it certainly appears in the netanyahu section. the reference to 'over 60' student associations & clubs comes from concordia's website ('complete list for student groups for 2005-2006'), which can be verified with an exact count once 2006-2007's list is posted this fall. -- Denstat 20:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


Please stop anonymous POV editing

I'm not sure who is doing it, and quite frankly I suspect that they are not reading the discussion section, but someone keeps on putting in a completely POV rewrite of the Student activism section. While I don't personally disagree with many of the points they are different info that what was given before and completely biased against the CSU, it reads more like a rant than an encylopedic article. The info can certainly be added to the Concordia article but it definitely shouldn't replace the previous work. djheart 01:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

  • It also appears that the table of contents has been broken by the vandals. I will try and fix it tomorrow. For now, I will just revert the latest vandalism. Knave75 06:40, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


Favourism towards International & out of province students

I moved this from the article because it's completely unreferenced and seems like original research. Can someone find an article or essay or anything to back up this allegation (like, say, someone actually making it)? -- Fagstein 17:42, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

It is alleged that for admissions, Concordia favours international and out of province students over Quebecers because they give more fees. Some Quebec students even have complained that they get differential treatment from teachers and administration as well. Quebec students are given preferences for open programs which have little or no competition (English literature, Political Science, Philosophy) from other groups of students. When it comes to Computer science,Information Management and Engineering Programs, only a hand full are admitted even if they have Computer Science or business (DEC) diploma’s from College LaSalle, Herzing College and Dawson College etc which are known to teach many subjects at a equal or higher level then concordia it self.

Good call on a bitter POV. Text that begins with "it is alleged..." is suspect to begin with. Have never seen this in Montreal media. I suggest that the user who believes this tripe does the research by calling up Concordia; I brought an alleged admissions belief to one department once, and was disabused and better yet, learned a lot more about the nexus of quota systems and admission procedures and criteria.-- Denstat 17:45, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Broken windows and physicaly harrassment

Originally, the "Student activism" section read that the events of Sept. 9, 2002 "resulted in the breaking of several windows of the main building as well as a number of instances of physical harrassment of individuals attempting to attend the talk." I pointed out that the sentence was poorly written, as it did not say who broke the windows and physically harrassed people. User:djheart said the anti-Israel protesters were the people who did the actions mentioned, so I rewrote the sentences to say so.

In his/her effort to bring some order to this section, User:Fagstein has changed the sentence at issue again. It now reads "one of the exterior windows broke," again removing any mention of who broke the windows. Also, instead of saying that the protesters physically harrassed attendees, the section now states that the attendees "exchang(ed) verbal insults with the protesters."

I was referring to the protesters inside the building. We should probably add that protesters outside allegedly physically harrassed attendees trying to get into the building through a controlled access point. I'll try to rewrite the section to accomodate that. Fagstein 20:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

If we know that the protesters broke the windows, we should say that. If we don't, we should say it is unclear who caused the vandalism.

All we know for sure is that the window broke under the stress of protesters outside. Whether it was a deliberate strike or prolonged pressure from banging protesters is unclear. Fagstein 20:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Similarly, if we know that protesters physically harrassed attendees, we should say so. Fagstein's edit makes a major change to the sense of the section. Instead of saying that the attendees were victims of physical abuse from the protesters, we now have the two sides acting as equal instigators.

Which is accurate? -- Mwalcoff 09:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Good job on the edits. -- Mwalcoff 22:41, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Userbox for Concordia students and alumni

For those who are interested, I have created the userbox {{User Concordia University}}. IronChris | (talk) 00:18, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Nice, thanks! -- Denstat 17:48, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Redundancy in See Also category

Other local universities do not need to be listed by name in this category when a link to the [[List of Quebec Universities}} is provided. I have removed them. This is a good category under which to list the computer riots, for example, and a link to an expanded article on the Netanyahu protests, as well as other expanded articles based on the university's history. -- Denstat 17:57, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

results of the election

Hey I'm putting the current sitting of the CSU council back up and returning the "student politics section to the way I put it up before. Those are the current legal standings of the CSU council, anyone who actually cares should know my name as an authoritative source. THose who still have questions can check the articles in The Link or the concordian, although I would like to hear any dissenting opinions. J.manchester june 14, 2006.

You should probably find those articles and provide links to them as references. Fagstein 19:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)