Talk:Florida Institute of Technology

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Contents

[edit] READ! Future Formatting Proposals

I plan on using the standard University layout for formatting and model this article to Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Wikipedia article. If anyone has any comments before I do this... "speak now or forever hold your peace". haha just kidding. Feel free to express your comments. But the first thing I'm going to do is to revamp this discussion page. This discussion page will now be used to improve the article, not to discuss the subject itself. So, "Is this a good university to attend" or "Where do I buy the Florida Tech sweatshirts" will not be on this discussion page anymore. Jameson L. Tai 04:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Before someone asks why I chose MIT, it's because it was rated as a Good Article on Wikipedia. The other university pages I wanted to use was the University of California, but they have many colleges like UCLA, Cal, UCSD...etc so it's harder to model. Jameson L. Tai 05:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Names

FIT has changed some of the "schools" names- most all are now colleges. Updated them to reflect how they are named on the FIT website. --Mpeisenbr 17:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Fla Tech" vs. "FIT"

In that the official web site continues to identify FIT as FIT (or Fla Institut of Tech) is it appropriate to utilize the "promo" identity of Florida Tech so often on the article? I don't believe WP is an appropriate place to carry on what in my very POV opinion is a bad promo, and the actual name of the institution remains Fla Instit of Tech (see official site) so it seems more correct to swap out the refs to Florida Tech and replace them with Florida Institute of Technlogy (or F.I.T. where the former is too bulky). I seek comments before doing any of this however as the mods would be extensive. Flawiki 00:39, 30 October 2005 (UTC) (FIT class o' 89)

"Florida Tech" Newsroom

('FYI: Sweatshirt link deleted. 1) We're not selling sweatshirts here... 2) It's a broken URL. Barnes & Noble switched to a different e-Commerce provider.' Jameson L. Tai 10:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC))

"Florida Tech" is simply a shorted "promotional" or "doing business as" name. The "Georgia Institute of Technology" is commonly referred to as "Georgia Tech". "Subway" restaurants is really "Doctor's Associates, Inc.". In a "Subway" article, do you refer to the company as "DAI" in short?

The school routinely uses "Florida Tech" in nearly all of its news releases. No student I've talked to that started in 1994 or later has ever said "FIT" or "Florida Institute of Technology". This would be the same issue as "Georgia Institute of Technology" is known as "Georgia Tech". I believe this "Florida Tech" is trying to group it with schools like "Georgia Tech". The view on whether to use "Florida Tech" or F.I.T. is going to depend on when you went to school there. It really doesn't matter to me, but I didn't change any of them because it "makes sense" to me. "Florida Tech" is the preferred shorted name today.

I also think that perhaps I shouldn't have bolded every "Florida Tech" occurrence, and just done that in the top paragraph to differentiate the naming history.

--Mcmillen76 02:39, 30 October 2005 (UTC) (FIT class of '99)

  • To the contrary, I live in Melbourne and have FREQUENTLY heard it referred to as "F.I.T." in recent years. Most obvious usage I know of is in the name of FITcon, a science fiction and anime (and later just anime) convention that was held annually for several years up to about 2004. Of course, there people tended to pronounce the name "fit con", but still - the acronym was used there. And all the high school and college students I know - including the ones that are planning to go there (and I'm IN college), they tend to refer to it as F.I.T. It's NOT completely unused at ALL in the area, though I could easily see it having only become truly common in recent years, as I've noticed that over the years acronyms in general have become more popular. 4.235.69.24 08:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)


  • As stated in Florida Institute of Technology University Publications' Identity Policy, the term Florida Tech is generally to be used for Student Activities or Athletics-related purposes only. All formal academic functions should use the full Florida Institute of Technology name. (Besides...come on... we don't want people to confuse us with cheap cheap Florida Technical College now... do we? lol) (Information on "Florida Tech"'s usage: [1], Page 6; "Florida Institute of Technology"'s usage: [2], Page 4) Jameson L. Tai 10:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)


  • Say "F.I.T." to anyone from the northeast, and they think you mean the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC. That's why I use Florida Tech or Florida Institute of Technology. Fashion is the original bearer of the "FIT" name (seeing as how that school was created before ours). I don't think we should use it at all. 76.249.35.122 (talk) 22:10, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "The Jungle"

When I attended FIT from 1977 to 1981, the college was promoting the Jungle in its literature - a unique botanical garden featuring rare palm trees. Since there was no mention of the Jungle (which gave the campus its uniqueness) in the article, I must conclude that either FIT is no longer "playing it up" and/or there is no more Jungle. Is either the case? B.Wind 06:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Well, I found the reference to the Botanical Gardens (a.k.a. The Jungle when I attended there), but I can't tell if they're downplaying it now or not. B.Wind 06:15, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
I suspect, with the retirement and later passing of founder Jerome Keuper, the Jungle is being downplayed, since it was near & dear to his heart. --Joe Sewell 17:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
From what I've seen on campus in the past year or two, the jungle has been a focus of many of the campus restoration activities. I don't know if it's been up or downplayed (I'm only a 2nd year student and don't have the historical background to verify that). --Cgsguy2 02:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
SNERK! I'm guessing they've not up-played it (if you will) for the past couple of years, seeing as someone was murdered in it. :P But, it does definitely still exist. It's freaking HUGE, really. I'd visit it, except the fact that a security guard was killed there one night creeps me out. 4.235.69.24 08:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
The jungle is still there, though the portion across the creek was destroyed for those money-grabbing new dorms. When I was there (98-02), the Jungle was rarely visited, only by myself, a few others, and the Squamish, and as a result, there was a surprising amount of wildlife there (I've caught box turtles, rat snakes, water snakes, and stinkpot turtles and seen several alligators and a few manatees).
Do we want to do a "jungle" section of this article? I'd be happy to contribute, and still remember all the trails like the back of my hand (I probably spent more time there than in class). Mokele

[edit] Residence halls

Should we merge the header sections on Campbell/Shaw/Wood? They're treated as a collective unit in the school website, and are now all coed (though I can't verify this - anyone want to help?) Kawa 13:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It is true that the residence hall are now co-ed. However it's still good to describe the residence halls by building. However, it might be a good idea to classify Wood, Shaw and Brownlie as "Residence Quad West" and Campbell, Evans, Grissom as "Residence Quad East" as Residence Life has split the quad in half in terms of staffing. See Residence Life's website. Jameson L. Tai 16:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Student Organizations

I will delete the section on RHA under Student Organizations. Instead I will introduce the different student organizations registered on the student activities website. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jamesontai (talk • contribs) 16:54, 26 March 2007 (UTC).

I have just updated the Student Organizations listing. If your organization has (No Longer Registered) tagged next to your organization, your organization has not been registered with the Office of Student Life. Note: Your organization may not receive SAFC funding if you do not register. See Kasey Drennen for details. Jameson L. Tai 05:37, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I have just merged the two "Student Organizations" sections because it was redundant. Jameson L. Tai 04:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Disavian, you are right. The organizations section is far too long. Can it survive as a separate article? I looked at Harvard which buried most of its organizations under Harvard College. Subarticle would need to be as viable but something has to be done. It is simply clutter now. Thanks for all your good work. Student7 17:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree that a separate Student Organizations page would not survive on its own. Subarticle would be nice. What Student7 with the Housing page (except formatted a little better) would be viable and we can structure the list of organizations by category, then alphabetically. (i.e.: Professional Organizations (ACM, ASME, AIAA, etc), Fraternities/Sororities (PKA, TKE, GPB, ATO, etc), Athletics (Frisbee), Technology (Robtoics, various research projects), Political Organizations (Young Democrats, College Republicans), and so forth. Student7, if you want to get started on it, let me know. Jameson L. Tai 04:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] help

I came up with a better idea for this...maybe someone could teach me how format/program. Instead of making a new article, I'd like to just have a nested infobox which would list all of the student organizations when you click "show", but would be minimized otherwise. I think this may be a better solution than to reformat a new article. If someone could help me to this that would be WONDERFUL. Thanks!Jameson L. Tai 11:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Institute_of_Technology#Student_organizations Jameson L. Tai 11:49, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the helpme box from this page. Is is better to add those to your user talk page, and not article / article talk pages. If you have a specific question, feel free to add {{helpme}} to your talk page, or try visiting the Help Desk. - Rjd0060 14:40, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
I've been working on this. I hope I'll be able to get the programming right. I'm getting help.  :D User:Jamesontai/Sandbox01 for more details. Jameson L. Tai 11:27, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trivializing Florida Tech

No one cares who registers or doesn't register the student organizations. Except for the college President, and Nobel Prize winners, names should be kept out of here. This is not encyclopedic. It might belong in a student handbook, not even good enough for a college catalog. This article has become too close to Fl Tech low level. It needs to be elevated to a higher level. To try to reflect a higher purpose of the school that differs from other schools. At other schools, they eat, sleep and study. How is Fl Tech different? The presentation seems so mundane.

At another school, everyone sleeps in one huge "dorm." While this is worth one line in their Wikipedia article, it is of scant interest otherwise and doesn't make the school any better or any worse than Fl Tech. Student7 11:13, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quick and Dirty Article Assessment

Not a bad start. I think too much on buildings, not enough on specifics. Profs who got recognized for real achievements? Number of doctorates awarded? How about special events like solar-powered stuff - unique to Fl Tech? Might want to consider forking buildings particularly dorms. Not really interesting to outsiders. Student7 23:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Noted. It is true that residence life is not noted in this article. As a former member of Residence Life, I can no longer professionally contribute objective content to this article, or else you'd see more information regarding Residence Life. I'm more involved with RHA, and there is a link to The Residence Hall Association at Florida Institute of Technology describing a little bit more on the different programs we offer during the academic year. I did not place references in the Florida Tech article because it's already mention in the RHA article. (And I didn't want to have RHA stuff dominate the article.)
I believe it will be more effect if we had students/faculty write about their own department on this article in order to improve its quality. I'll dig up more information on MAE in a little bit.Jameson L. Tai 17:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


Forking the housing section without proper formatting the new article was a bad choice. I have marked it with WP:NOTABILITY issues. Refer to that policy. If no action is taken in 7 days, I will suggest to have Florida Institute of Technology housing merged back to the Florida Institute of Technology article. Jameson L. Tai 03:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Someone should expand on the new residence halls (South Village) Jameson L. Tai 05:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Student, Faculty and Staff Statistics

I've tried looking for student and staff ratios by race, gender, and majors, only to find none. It might be from the Non-Disclosure waivers. If anyone has them (and can refer from some published/online source), please post them, as it is something this article should contain.Jameson L. Tai 08:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Buildings on Campus" revision

I made a few small revisions to the "Buildings on Campus" section. The wiki link for the Gleason Performing Arts Center was going to William Henry Gleason but that is incorrect. It is named for William Lansing Gleason as seen on the side facing University Blvd. The Clemente Center was incorrectly named the Robert and Ruth Clemente Center for Sports and Recreation. The donors were Charles and Ruth Clemente of Satellite Beach. I'm not sure if this should be in the article or not, but the Clemente's donation was matched 100% by the F.W. Olin Foundation. It was constructed on the site of the previous gym, the Percy Hedgecock Gymnasium. The original center court of the basketball floor is now located in the lobby of the Athletics department office.

--Andrew, 2006 Alumni Ajjammer 04:48, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


I just revised the buildings on campus again. There were additions to each building's description, building codes, as well as history/usage that were added. The Building Code Changes section is a stub (yeah I know...). If someone believes it should be deleted, let me know. I just thought it would be nice to know in case it actually matters. I'm sure someone's going to say it has nothing to do with the university...to just pick up a copy of the campus map... but I guessed that this building code info would be nice if someone were to come to campus completely clueless...lol Someone still needs to expand on the School of Psychology building as well as the Military Sciences Dept, on the basement next to the Quad Laundry Room in/below Campbell Hall. I'm not in ROTC and I'm not a psych major, so I don't have enough expertise to write those sections. Jameson L. Tai 10:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Y THIS SECTION MERGED I just merged the "Buildings" Section in here because it's essentially the same thing carried onto two separate threads.Jameson L. Tai 04:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

The last thing we want to have in this article is building descriptions except very very superficially. It looks to someone outside that editors are desparately trying very hard to make their college seem important. You won't find building-itis in the Harvard article! We need unique academic contributions, listing of grants, major academic awards from outside Fl Tech. That sort of thing. If you wanted someone to laugh at this college, extensive building descriptions would definitely be the way to sabotage this article. Student7 13:09, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and reorganized the article a little to the standard FA/GA university layout; that includes an "Academics" section, a "Student life" section, and a "Campus" section. That being said, the "list of student organizations" should probably be split to a List of Florida Institute of Technology student organizations and a summary thereof placed in the article. Also, the Campus section should describe the campus as a whole, not just a couple buildings; see Cornell University#Campuses, Duke University#Campus for examples of that. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 14:31, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject: Florida

I just placed the Florida Tech article onto the Florida WikiProject. Please rate it and submit comments to the pages as linked. Thanks! Jameson L. Tai 05:30, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Media" Section shouldn't be here...

The Crimson, WFIT, and WCRR are mentioned already elsewhere in the article and are all linked externally. This section should removed since The Crimson shouldn't be described merely in one sentence and WCRR shouldn't be restating their new HD2 frequency over and over again. Request made to delete this section. If no one responds to this within 7 days, I'll come back and delete the section unless I find something with actual content to expand this stub. At its current state, this section is an eyesore. Jameson L. Tai 06:13, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Since no one has expanded it, I suppose. It's certainly too short now. Could always be revived if more information is available. Student7 12:41, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Y DELETED The following was what was on the main article. I am going to delete this section until more information can be found. Since I have left sufficient time, the following block quote may be revived if a future editor wishes to take on the role of expanding this stub. Note: There is an error on "WCRR". WCRR needs a disambiguation section because it is also a former AM station in the Rochester market playing country music. (See WCRR) When someone decides to expand this section, please be sure to add the disambiguation. Thanks! Jameson L. Tai 04:25, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

===Student media===
<!-- the point of this section is to cover student media in brief, while subarticles can cover it in more detail. 
For a good example, see [[Georgia Institute of Technology#Student media]]. -->
{{Expand-section|date=October 2007}}
{{main|The Crimson|WCRR}}
[[The Crimson]] is the weekly [[student newspaper]]. Radio station [[WCRR]] is student run, which transmits 
online and at WFIT 89.5 HD2.{{Fact|date=October 2007}}

[edit] External links

Disavian, you have indicated there is spam in the external links. Granted that the section is too long. Can you edit or point out those that are most offensive? They all looked okay to my unpracticed eye. They were plugging (if you can call it that) legitimate campus activities, it seemed to me. If not, please delete. Let someone scream! Thanks for your efforts!  :) Student7 13:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. —Disavian (talk/contribs) 14:20, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History | Sponsored Events

=== Sponsored events ===
<!---Thought this would be a good place for unique sponsored events--->
In early 2005, Florida Tech held a symposium attracting 85 engineers and
 contractors to hear from experts in the fields of disaster reconstruction, 
planning, contracting and mitigation.<ref>http://cob.fit.edu/displaynews.cfm?id=208</ref> 
The timing was to prepare professional to cope with the 2005 hurricane season.<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Atlantic_hurricane_season</ref> 

Florida Tech sponsored its First French Film Festival in 2006.{{Fact|date=October 2007}} 

Florida Tech has been sponsoring and hosting a "Business Ethics Competition" since 1996 
for Brevard County high schools.<ref>SHS students win ethics competition, 
''The Beaches Hometown News'', March 23, 2007, page 1</ref>

I believe this section needs to be merged in College of Engineering for the symposium and College of Business for the Business Ethics Competition. Maybe merge the French Film Festival with College of Psyc & Lib Arts, or maybe not since there's no citation.

I'll merge/delete them in 7 days if no one has any objections. Jameson L. Tai 10:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I'm starting individual College articles

I'm beginning create individual college articles for all six colleges. In each article I'll try to include the different departments and the majors/minors/programs they include. Pardon the mess if you land on one that doesn't look right. Send me a message if you see a bug. Thanks! Jameson L. Tai 21:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

If people can help writing these articles with me it would be great. The College of Engineering article just got marked AfD, so it would be nice if we had people either expressing their comments to not delete and help expand the article(s) so we can keep the expansion going. Thanks! Jameson L. Tai 09:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
The was from a former user.
~~~~
-       
A few suggestions:
*I think that you should follow the example set by 
[[List of Massachusetts Institute of Technology departments and laboratories]] 
and make just one page to list all of the schools at.
*I noticed that you want a hidden/show-able table: look at [[Template:hidden]]. 
See [[Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Hidden]] for usage examples.
*The Alumni list has a lot of red links (meaning: uncertain notability) and seems 
skewed towards listing military generals, giving the appearance of bias/POV, 
especially considering your JROTC background. Please try to find other notable 
alumni from a wider variety of careers.
*Subpage names like "Florida Institute of Technology/Student Organizations" are 
discouraged. This page should be rename to something without a forward slash "/" 
character. If you need to create more pages than can be fit into the "see also" 
section, or referenced with template:main, then create a category for this purpose.
--[[User:Radiosband|Radiosband]] 10:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your advise.
  • I might just do that for all of the colleges... it sounds like a better idea merging everything into one instead of having to deal with six AfDs... haha
  • I can't take credit for the notable alumni section, as it was edited by an editor from Georgia Tech. (I'm no longer affiliated with the military) This university's quite new, considering the circumstances, and I guess the editor only found some military personnel that was citable (and then there's Tim Wakefield...)
  • How do I rename? I've gotten the same response you gave me from another WikiAdmin. We have a Florida Tech category already as well as a navibox. I'll be linking all of them as soon as I get a final structure down. The article structure just changed again after absorbing your advice into my editing plans for Florida Institute of Technology. How do I create subarticles by the way? I have utilized {{main|....}} for the main article, but how do I cite the main article on the subarticles?
Thanks for all your help!
Jameson L. Tai 11:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External Links

External links on this article will be limited to those already in this article. If you wish to link the following campus function, please refer to these instructions:

Also, I will begin requesting that this article be semi-protected, as in you will need to have a Wikipedia account to edit (no more untrackable IP accounts). - Jameson L. Tai talk ♦ contribs 01:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead

The article's lead was recently updated and streamlined by User:Dynaflow so that we could get a fresh pair of eyes reviewing the different parts of the article and hopefully/eventually get it to GA/FA status. (Thanks Dynaflow! :D)

The following was the old lead in case someone wanted to see what the difference was:

''Florida Institute of Technology''' is an independent [[institute of technology|technical college]]
 located in [[Melbourne, Florida]] ([[Brevard County, Florida|Brevard County]]), [[United States]]. 
It was founded by Jerome P. Keuper on September 22, 1958 as Brevard Engineering College, absorbing 
the University of Melbourne, and changing its name to Florida Institute of Technology in 1966. In 
the early 1990s Florida Institute of Technology changed its promotional identity from FIT to 
'''Florida Tech''', to avoid confusion with the [[Fashion Institute of Technology]] at the [[State 
University of New York]]. This name change created some confusion in the [[Orlando, Florida]] area 
with the existing [[Florida Technical College]] and Florida Technological University, the former name 
of the [[University of Central Florida]].

Florida Tech curriculum is focused on [[engineering]] fields, and employs around 800 people at its 
main campus in Brevard County. It attracts over 3,300 full and part-time residents to Melbourne each 
year.<ref>[http://www.fit.edu/about/factcard/] Florida Tech Fact Card</ref> It has been a partner 
in the community's economic growth and in the growth of high-tech industry on the [[Space Coast]] for 
the past 45 years. Florida Tech growth continues with increasing enrollment numbers, and multiple 
off-campus locations.

- Jameson L. Tai talk ♦ contribs 10:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] College Descriptions

Haven't tried to analyze the differences, but at least one university has college descriptions: UVM. Turned out okay, I thought. Having said that, UVM is a larger university, but maybe not that much larger. Student7 13:56, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accolade

I'm really impressed with what you editors have done to improve these Fl Tech series of articles. Great work! Student7 15:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Addition to Physics organization materials

Student organization information is should not be mixed into the article. If you would like to contribute in detail regarding the subject, I suggest you edit the List of Florida Institute of Technology Colleges and Laboratories article's College of Science section. - Jameson L. Tai talk ♦ contribs 22:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC)