Talk:The College of William & Mary

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[edit] Why is it still officially called the "College of William & Mary"?

Something happened during the effort to resurrect the College from its state of bankruptcy that caused it to be decreed that from thenceforth William & Mary would be officially called the College of William & Mary, although it has in fact attained university status. Could someone possibly research and add to the Wiki article the facts of the interesting story behind the requirement that the official title of the school would be that of "College"?

jem 18:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC) jem

No, it has nothing to do with bankruptcy. Simply put, because in the 1693 charter the school is referred to as the "College," that is the name that has endured despite the school's achievement of being the first to achieve university status. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.30.8 (talk) 04:24, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I believe it's just tradition. There are other universities that prefer to continue to call themselves colleges, Dartmouth College being the most conspicuous examples. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:08, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
The charter explicitly says that the school in perpetuity be known by the name "The College of William and Mary in Virginia". It's not just tradition, it's actually a requirement on the part of the school in order to maintain the validity of the current charter. —Peco! Peco!TALK 23:04, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] well alright

Im glad u guys noticed that fun comes to die thing, I don't go there but, trying to make SOME positive contribs to wikipdia :)

[edit] well alright

Im glad u guys noticed that fun comes to die thing, I don't go there but, trying to make SOME positive contribs to wikipdia :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.161.207.101 (talk) 05:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This is far too extensive...this should be placed somewhere else as it distracts from the main article...

This isn't that lengthy and is reasonably kept there I think...

[edit] I agree...can someone split this section?

I concur...could someone split this somehow? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Higherededitor2 (talk • contribs) 12:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] the random editor man

Im glad u guys noticed that fun comes to die thing, I don't go there but, trying to make SOME positive contribs to wikipdia :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.161.207.101 (talk) 05:05, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Year of founding

This used to be a point of contention with regard to the University of Pennsylvania, which—shortened and non-neutral version—changed its date of founding from 1740 rather than 1749 in the late 1800s, which not incidentally had the effect of making it older than Princeton (1746). The neutral thing to do is to give the founding date stated by the university itself, with any needed explanations in a footnote, for several reasons:

  • The university's self-reported date is, as far as I can tell invariably the date that is given by other reference books and encyclopedias.
  • It is easily referenced to a source and potentially stable. If we present Penn's self-reported date, well, everyone can agree that the University of Pennsylvania says it was founded in 1740. If we try to second-guess the institutions and report what Wikipedia editors judge to be the "real" founding dates, then Penn will edit-war between 1740 and 1749 forever... and W&M will edit-war between "1693" and "1693, 1888" forever.
  • The reason founding dates are important, and why universities try to push them back as far as possible, is that they govern the order in which university delegations march in academic processions and are generally a point of institution pride.
  • I put in an email query to someone at Princeton as to where Penn marches in academic processions hosted by Princeton, and got a reply that hosts invariably accept whatever year is stated by the participating institutions. If universities do this, so should we.

So, I'm leaving the single date 1693 in the summary box, because it is what William and Mary reports, and pushing the details into a footnote where they can easily be found by anyone wondering what the little superscript is about. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

P. S. Interesting questions of institutional continuity pop up whenever the history of almost any venerable university is examined in great detail. They tend to be like the straight razor that has been in the family for six generations. "Really? The very same razor?" "Yes, and it's so well made that in all that time it's only needed to have three new blades and two new handles." Dpbsmith (talk) 01:10, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV Nichol

A lot of negative information on President Nichol has been dumped in to the leadership section. I don't think this meets with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. I think it's fair to discuss the Wren/Millington Cross issue and any controversy Nichol has created, but I think this section could be better written. The accusation that the ABA threatened to remove University of Colorado-Law's accreditation after Nichol's tenure there seems like dredged up smearing. The threat is related to the quality of the building facilities and is still being made 10 years later, so I don't think it's fair to blame Nichol for this, and the wording hear certainly is not worded fairly. I don't know anything about ratings drops at UNC-Law or UC-Law after Nichol's tenure at each school and the citation link is only for current rankings. Finally, the issue of the Sex Show also falsely implicates Nichol. He did not organize the show, and he is on record as opposing it. The current wording in this section is misleading. I know Nichol has stirred a great deal of controversy recently, but I don't think this article should be used to spread half-truths that smear him. I'll start cleaning this up soon.--Bkwillwm 03:55, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the Nichol stuff. I agree with the NPOV concerns voiced above, as well as the concerns regarding the sufficiency of the cited sources. Moreover, while this stuff might be appropriate for Nichol's page (I have no idea on that, as I have no idea how accurate, etc. this stuff is), the W&M page would be swamped and bloated if everything as significant as these criticisms was included. This stuff, true or false, is simply not important enough to be included on the institutional page for W&M. The only reason I can see for including it is to attempt to espouse a position critical of Nichols. Cka3n 06:15, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Too late gn, Onestop53 and Hawaiibound: I have repeatedly asked you all to address the Nichol criticisms on here, and I have explained why I do not believe they are appropriate to include in the W&M article. None of you seem to edit anything on Wikipedia except to criticize Mr. Nichol (more or less). If your criticisms are important enough to include, surely they are important enough to explain. I again extend the invitation to explain why they should be included.Cka3n 03:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
(I have, fwiw, placed invitations to this discussion on each user's talk page, although they seem to want to delete them.Cka3n 03:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC))
As a temporary compromise, I drafted this:
On July 1, 2005, Gene R. Nichol (formerly Dean and Burton Craige Professor of the Law School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) was sworn in as the College's 26th President, succeeding Timothy J. Sullivan. Nichol's tenure has encountered controversy over his decision to remove the Millington Cross from the College's Wren Chapel as well as the "Sex Workers Art Show."
Cka3n 03:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I think above is fine except it needs to be made clear that the Nichol didn't have much to do with the "Sex Workers Art Show" other than not banning it.--Bkwillwm 01:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
How about:
On July 1, 2005, Gene R. Nichol (formerly Dean and Burton Craige Professor of the Law School of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) was sworn in as the College's 26th President, succeeding Timothy J. Sullivan. Nichol's tenure has encountered controversy over his decision to remove the Millington Cross from the College's Wren Chapel as well as the return to William & Mary of "Sex Workers Art Show," which had first visited in the last year of President Sullivan's tenure.
Cka3n 01:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
If the president is legally unable to bar a group's activities from campus, then he didn't really make a decision did he? Unless I hear otherwise, I'm giong to remove the reference to the sex workers art show, as it is sematically incorrect. --Gurami 18:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Although I strongly agree with you on principle, the act of not barring the show was enough to warrant the BoV being demanded to appear before the state legislature to explain themselves, only days before the decision was made not to renew his contract. In other words, the show had nothing whatsoever to do with the duties of Nichol as president, but may very well have led to his termination. --Orang55 (talk) 18:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
All the info on President Nichol is completely slanderous and acerbically biased. And quoting a fox news story as a "neutral" point of view? Outrageous. And the "Trivia" that Gene Nichol sleeps with students??? That's abhorrent. -Zach W&M Class of '10

I just wanted to point out that I made a complete renovation of Gene Nichol's page about two months ago. I removed all slanderous phrases/words, made it NPOV, added the Gateway W&M section and also added a couple pictures and referenced everything with viable sources. As the page stands now, it meets Wikipedia standards. -Jrcla2 21:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Song question

An anon added information to the article on the 1987 film Dirty Dancing, that the song that is sung in the film there, is the same as the Alma Mater song for the College of William and Mary. There's no reference, but I guess it's plausible, so I'm trying to AGF and leave it for now. Does anyone have a source which confirms this? Thanks, Elonka 17:16, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

  • The tune used for the Alma Mater is a very *very* common tune associated with many alma maters of both highschools and colleges. The song itself also appears at the end of the movie Shag, on a side note. I personally don't see why it's worth noting in the article at all. It's like saying that the colors on a sprite can are green and gold so they must be related to William and Mary somehow.Lemon-lime 14:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it should be split, simply because the article is getting too long.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Harrygao (talk • contribs) 21:37, 14 August 2007

[edit] Stupid image edit war

Folks, placing the image on the left breaks the layout and screws up the entire first section on some browsers in some resolutions. "It looks better to me" doesn't trump "It breaks it for others." I fail to understand the selfish position that intentionally screws up the article for others simply to please aesthetic tastes.

Continuing to move the image in the face of this evidence that it screws up the article is vandalism. --ElKevbo 11:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

The image shows the screen definitely broken for that one case. I like it better on the right in any case. TallMagic 15:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
Comment: The image should not be in the introduction; it would probably be better in Academics or Student life. — HelloAnnyong [ t · c ] 19:11, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Toohool fixed the particular problem that caused the page layout to get hosed up. However, I still disagree with placing the image in the lead, particularly on the left-side and at the very top. The MOS Guide to Layout notes that "it is considered poor layout practice to place images at the same height on both the left and right side of the screen [as that] not only...unnecessarily squeeze[s] text, but this might also cause images to overlap text due to interferences." Placing the image at the same level as the infobox causes the exact same problem. Further, "placing an image to the left of a header, a list, or the Table of Contents is also frowned upon." Finally, I dislike beginning an article written in a left-to-right language with an image as I contend that it is disruptive to the reader. It's a lovely photo and I definitely agree that it should be in the article but just not in the the top left corner at the very beginning of the article.

Note, however, that these are arguable points with which reasonable people may disagree. They differ significantly from the previous issue that just broke the layout for some readers. --ElKevbo 01:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

These are the reasons that I originally stated that I like the picture better on the right. TallMagic 03:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the image should be moved. It's visually disruptive in the lead, and, for at least one reader, it's screwing up the whole layout of the article. Move it to the body text. Esrever 22:07, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Richard Bland

I guess most people are nto aware of it, but William and Mary is the leader of Richard Bland College. Why is that not mentioned? At least a link would be nice.

Thank you for your suggestion regarding The College of William & Mary. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). Epthorn 20:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Richard Bland, ODU, VCU, CNU, and probably some others all started as branch campuses of W&M. Most of them have become independent since they were established. Information on W&M's history of sending off state-U system shoots like this has appeared in the article in the past, but it seems to have been removed.

--Dartmothian (talk) 21:30, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Southern Ivy"?

Does it kind of cheapen the article to say that the school is "also considered a Southern Ivy," when that phrase is uncommon if not a recent invention? "Public Ivy" makes some sense as a category because the Ivies are private, but "Southern Ivy" is silly. There are no Ivies south of Princeton, even though there could be. Just because the phrase appears in another Wikipedia article does not mean it is widely used or understood. --Dartmothian (talk) 21:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] first university?

While it technically became America's first university in 1779,

The University of Pennsylvania claims to be America's first university, dating to the foundation of its medical school in 1765. I've heard Penn more frequently described as such than William and Mary, certainly. john k (talk) 18:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Since no one has responded, I am going to edit in line with your comment. See [1]. Cka3n (talk) 23:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
This conversation has been repeated over and over again, guys. The fact is that by using various definitions of what it means to be a University, there are at least 4 universities in the united states that make the claim as the first University. See [First university in the United States]. Also, it's important to note that the frequency people refer to an institution by one thing or another has nothing to do with the factual accuracy of such statements. We can find verifiable sources that support both sides claims. If it's not satisfactory to let each page make the claim at the same time, we should specify in each article that the title is disputed. IE: "The College of William and Mary is one of few claimants to to the title of First University in the United States of America."  —Peco! Peco!TALK 01:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I have added language back in about the claim.--Bkwillwm (talk) 01:31, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peripheral articles

A large number of W&M-related articles have cropped up, most of which fail to make any citations or establish notability. Most of these seem like they should be either deleted or merged back into the original article.

Examples include:

If we want to make a dedicated W&M wiki, most of these articles would have a place. However, most of these topics only deserve a brief mention in the main W&M article. We could also consider merging all athletic topics into a single article, separate from the main one. Comments? --Orang55 (talk) 12:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Erasing these articles and molding them into the main W&M article is a bad idea. It would completely junk up the College's page because of the fact that these are periphery articles. Also, only a couple of these articles have "cropped up" recently...the reason they seem new is because there was never a W&M template before that made it easy to access all of them from one spot. I can't really comment on the notability issue because you didn't mention any specific articles. Which one(s) exactly do you believe to not have notability? I ask this because I've engaged in debates over most of these articles' notability and argued them to be worthy of their own page. -Jrcla2 (talk) 18:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)