Talk:Flagship university

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[edit] FSU

I find it funny that a Florida State University student continues to edit the page to include Florida State as a co-flagship university in the state of Florida (I'm actually a doctoral student at Florida State myself). The University of Florida is the clear lone flagship institution in the state of Florida. Their entrance scores are substantially higher in literally every department, their ranking far exceeds FSU, USF, or UCF, and their overall research record and research rankings far exceed any of the other state universities. In addition, their endowment is over two times that of FSU's. As a matter of fact, Florida State University only adopted its current name in 1947 (it was the Florida State College for Women until '47).

Also, how is Mississippi State University not a co-flagship university with the University of Mississippi (I have nothing to do with either of these two)? Mississippi State has a larger overall enrollment, and yet actually has higher entrance scores for incoming freshmen. In addition, Mississippi State University contains more overall departments, and in turn awards the most phDs annually of any school in the state of Mississippi.

68.35.230.98 (talk) 23:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

According to the USA today article (which is being used as the primary source of this page), it lists FSU as a flagship in Florida. Like it or not its there, although i do object to using that article as a reference. Bvjrm (talk) 04:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
We could figuratively throw in the towel and simply list the schools that USA Today did, but if that's the decision then the page should be renamed as "USA Today's list of flagship universities" and the introductory language about what constitutes a "flagship" should be removed, because USA Today's list is plainly overinclusive. As I think about this article, I find I have some sympathy with the editor below who wondered, what's the point of it at all? But it's here, and so long as it is, we may as well try to do it right. JohnInDC (talk) 13:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Albany

"First, I did not designate them as flagships to the exclusion of others," Spitzer said when asked those questions after his budget briefing Tuesday. "But I think that they are uniquely positioned very rapidly to move to that status." http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=657818&category=CAMPUSCOL&BCCode=&newsdate=1/24/2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.68.215.107 (talk) 21:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] UCLA

No way is UCLA a flagship school of the UC system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.199.12.16 (talk) 07:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

UCLA is widely know as being a flagship, and it's noted as such in the USA Today poll (User:Jccort) 09:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

While I see how UCLA could be considered a flagship of the UC system, the USA Today chart you refer has some flaws. SUNY has four, not two, flagship universities. It ignored SUNY-Albany and Binghamton University. Also, University of Nevada-Reno, known as the University of Nevada outside Nevada, and Georgia Tech is not listed. They both should be there.

I've edited the states of California and Texas to include UCLA and UT-Austin, respectively. In regard to the University of California, since there is no established flagship campus, it would perhaps be inappropriate to talk of one. But if the term "flagship" is to refer to the "best" campus in the system, then both UC Berkeley and UCLA should be included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.167.152.234 (talk • contribs) 22:21, 28 October 2007

I really don't want to start an edit war, but I've reinstated UCLA and Berkeley as the two flagships for the state of California, since they are both equally selective at the undergrad level, very similar at the grad level and are both almost universally acknowledged to be the leading UCs. But if anyone disagrees with this classification, you would have to explain why this is wrong. Until then, it stays as it is. (Alex1985)

Technically the flagship university of the University of California system is the campus at Berkeley [1][2]. The original campus of the Cal system was the campus at Berkeley. However, I'm not going to edit this, because UCLA is a very good school, better than many flagship schools throughout the nation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.3.8.253 (talk) 20:42, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the original public institution of higher learning in California was San Jose State University, now a constituant of the California State University. San Jose State University should probably be added to this list. Streltzer (talk) 00:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
San Jose State was the original public institution of the Cal State system, but until they start calling themselves simply Cal State University (and I have no clue why they do not do this, particularly from an athletics standpoint) or have the Cal State System designate SJSU as the flagship campus, they are not a flagship.


[edit] USA Today did a classification in 2006

--I just think that we should use their 75 Universities that they used to say which Public Universities are their respective Flagships of their state. I am sure the less schools will be upset, however it's the historic leaders, and should be acknowledged as such. Just my opinion. (User:Rothamell) —Preceding comment was added at 01:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Flagship definition

Isn't the easiest definition the University in the State system receiving the largest slice of the funding pie? Alatari (talk) 03:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion

What is the point of this article? Academic, encyclopedic, or simply marketing and promotion for certain universities and their motivated alumni? This article should be deleted, and deleted promptly. Streltzer (talk) 00:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Don't Delete

  • Interesting someone from a California State University System would want to delete the Flagship distinction. This is clearly not marketing and is a historic distinction. (User:Jccort) 00:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] MSU ?

Michigan State University is not a university "system" within the state of Michigan. As far as I'm aware, the only university system is U-M. (User:LakeshoreLancer2004) 17:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

MSU is a flagship of Michigan... just as U-M is. but for god sakes... how is Western Michigan and Wayne State both listed as well? Those schools have very low test scores and are for people who couldn't get into U-M or MSU. (Aventius (talk) 04:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Flagship is singular

Many states have two (or more) excellent state universities; often, one may exceed the other on one or another measure of excellence. But a state with two excellent universities has that - not two flagships. "Flagship" is a singular term - a good reference for the word generally can be found here. In this context, "flagship" means, as the introduction says, "the leading comprehensive public research university in a given U.S. state". (The only sort of exception that makes sense in this context is a system like New York's, where the state university system resembles a system of franchises more than anything else.) With this in mind I've edited the list to remove some schools that are plainly not a state's "flagship". I left a state's entry alone if I wasn't sure, and so some double-entries do remain; someone who knows those schools better should fix those.

As the edit summary says, I also removed a couple of external links that required paid subscriptions in order to view, per WP:Links to be avoided. JohnInDC (talk) 13:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tempted to nominate for deletion

For a few weeks now I've been watching this list morph and grow (and occasionally contract), and I confess that I am at a loss to understand the criteria being used for inclusion on or exclusion from this list. I took a crack at narrowing the field a while ago, proceeding from the logical (and, I thought, largely uncontroversial) premise that "flagship" was a singular term, bestowed on the one school in a state's university system that staked the greatest claim to excellence, tradition, public financial support and the like. I still think the premise is logical (not to mention consistent with the historical use of the term "flagship") but it is increasingly clear that there's no agreement at all on that.

Well, okay - maybe a state can have two flagships. Two unique schools, as it were. But two seems to be no limit either. In trying to find some useful, meaningful definition for the term, I learned, for example, that the State of Michigan appears to consider that it has *at least* four flagships - not just the University of Michigan (IMO the obvious candidate) but also Michigan State, Wayne State, Western Michigan, and perhaps others not identified in this one clipping. See here.

Of course it doesn't matter for the purposes of a Wikipedia article that a state might have two or four or six flagships, if one can say with some confidence what a flagship is. The problem is that there does not seem to be any generally agreed definition of "flagship" that can be applied to determine whether a school is, or isn't, a flagship. The definition set forth in this article is not helpful. The only part of it that everyone would agree on, I think, is that it a flagship needs to be a large(ish) public research university. No private schools, no small special-purpose colleges. Beyond that, we have nothing. The flagship may or may not be the largest school, may or may not be the best known, may or may not be the oldest, may or may not be the best funded, may or may not bear the state's name, may or may not be a land grant college. The more I think about it, I don't think there *is* a useful way to define the term. And, given that there appears to be no limit to the number of "flagships" in a state then eventually the term simply comes to mean, "a big public university that someone, at some time, has described as a 'flagship'". At that point the article becomes meaningless, literally a compendium of schools that at one point or another have had the label attached to them, or *could* have the label attached to them, by excelling in -- something.

I am coming to think that the term "flagship university" is irredeemably subjective, POV, and unverifiable (probably OR too); that for those reasons this article fails a variety of the tests set forth at Wikipedia:Overcategorization, and is a good candidate for deletion.

Thoughts? JohnInDC (talk) 14:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

At the very least... Western MIchigan and Wayne State need to be removed as flagships. Its a joke to have them listed. I support MSU being included. (Aventius (talk) 04:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC))
From a personal point of view, I agree. When I think of "flagships", I really don't think of Wayne or WMU as among them. But personal points of view are the essential problem with this article. It's now plain that "flagship university" means pretty much whatever people want it to. Whatever you and I may think about including Wayne and WMU in the mix, education officials within the state have referred to those schools as "flagships" (see the reference), and so they should be included. I really don't think there's any coherent, NPOV basis for leaving them off in this case. JohnInDC (talk) 10:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
To illustrate further how arbitrary the whole thing is, here's an additional article that includes WSU and WMU as "flagships". And here is one from a couple years later that has Wayne in, but Western out. And neither of these of course comports with the commonsense notion that the flagship in Michigan is the University of Michigan (plus Michigan State, if the term is not singular). So much confusion - and that's just in one state. JohnInDC (talk) 12:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Short of deletion, we could leave the general description and definition in place, but remove the state-by-state listings, which cannot be constructed in any meaningful or reliable fashion (not to mention the list's tendency to attract stray edits from folks with their own axes to grind). Objections? Alternatives? This page does need a bit of help - JohnInDC (talk) 15:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Rather than delete material, I have attempted to qualify the listing to make clear that it lays no claim to definitiveness or authority. This is, I think, the best way to handle the inherent problem of trying to include, or exclude, particular schools on the basis of an inherently vague definition -- an approach which is, finally, just an invitation to squabbles between partisans of different schools (abundantly evidenced by the edit history of this article). JohnInDC (talk) 16:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Texas

The state of Texas has 3 different University systems; University of Texas system, Texas A&M University system, and Texas Tech University system. All public state-level Universities fall into one of those systems. Shouldn't all three be included as flagship universities? Ndenison (talk) 04:36, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Georgia

UGA and Georgia Tech should both be considered flagship universities. While UGA has larger enrollment, Tech is involved in much more research and has several campuses throughout the world. Ndenison (talk) 04:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Deletion

This topic is almost impossibly to in verify. It will always be a hotbed for edit warring. Ndenison (talk) 13:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing myself just this morning. Let's see if someone can salvage it. JohnInDC (talk) 13:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I've been reverting editing, mostly people removing UCLA. I tried to direct them to the discussion here to no avail. There's no definitive sources on the topic, it really is subjective. They'll be hundreds of school on the list in a few months. Ndenison (talk) 14:05, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, finally it's just silly. Even the states themselves give the term wide berth because by designating one or two schools "flagships" they risk ticking off the other state schools in the system, and to no worthwhile end. Finally it's all just opinion, propped up by whatever facts one can muster in support of, or in opposition to, a particular school. JohnInDC (talk) 14:16, 12 June 2008 (UTC)